Long-Term Follow-Up Of A Child With Autoimmune Thyroiditis And: Fill & Download for Free

Babies are sometimes born with congenital hypothyroidism. This occurs when the thyroid is underactive and doesn't produce enough thyroid hormone to meet the body's needs. Congenital hypothyroidism affects 1 in 1,500-3,000 newborns in the U.S. each year. The condition most often occurs for no known reason, but 10-20% of the time it is inherited. It sometimes results when a mother doesn't have sufficient iodine consumption during pregnancy, but this is rare in the US where dietary iodine is usually adequate. Drugs taken during pregnancy (mainly those for treating overactive thyroid) can lead to congenital hypothyroidism in the baby, though the condition is usually transient and resolves with no effects.Hashimoto's thyroiditis, on the other hand, is an acquired disorder that usually doesn't develop until late childhood or adolescence. It is an autoimmune disorder, in which the immune system attacks the thyroid, causing inflammation and interfering with the thyroid’s ability to produce thyroid hormone. Some children are at greater risk of developing Hashimoto’s, such as those with Down syndrome; those with other autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes; and those who have received radiation for cancer treatment.Whether a baby/child has congenital or acquired hypothyroidism, there is no cure. However, thyroid hormone replacement is considered safe and effective. With prompt diagnosis, proper use of medication, and close follow-up with a pediatric endocrinologist, children can expect to live a normal, healthy life.It's my understanding that it would be unusual for a newborn baby to have Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Perhaps the mother has Hashimoto's and failed to take sufficient thyroid hormone, causing the baby's thyroid to not develop properly. The baby would have congenital hypothyroidism, and the mother just assumed it was due to Hashimoto's?For more details, see:Children's Hospital of PhiladelphiaThyroid disease in children - myDr.com.auCongenital HypothyroidismHypothyroidism in Children: Knowing the Signs and Symptoms

I get so annoyed when people say there are no disadvantages associated with vaginal childbirth. There are still the same risks as a Csection: hemorrhage, blood clots, stroke, heart attack, just a fraction of that of C sections. It’s not like these risks go away by going “natural.” The rates of these complications, however, are overall quite low for both.There are, however, multiple other non-life-threatening risks associated with vaginal childbirth, some of which are devastating and life long for the mother. The largest one being damage to the pelvic floor muscles, resulting in urinary or fecal incontinence and/or prolapse. There are plenty of women who cannot control their bladder or bowels after “natural” childbirth, who are deeply affected by it. They end up losing their jobs, isolating themselves socially because they fear smelling like pee or poo, and some ultimately lose their partners because they are embarrassed to have accidents during intimacy. Other women suffer from fistulas, which means they can’t empty their bowels effectively and have to go to great lengths to use the bathroom. When I was a freshman in college, I knew 23 y.o. woman who had to live with fecal matter coming through her vagina as the result of natural delivery. Some young women even end up with a colostomy bag. All of these can be the result of “natural” childbirth.There is a muscle called the levator ani that holds all your pelvic organs in place; it is estimated that is 13–30% of vaginal deliveries it tears off the pubic bone resulting in levator avulsion. There are risk factors, such as advanced maternal age, genetically weak pelvic muscles, assisted delivery, etc. This is one of the main indications resulting in pelvic organ prolapse, where the bladder, the rectum or bowels start to sag, sometimes through the vaginal wall, or even completely through the vagina, causing a lump and a constant sensation of sitting on an egg. It is quite painful, especially as it progresses to stage 4 where the organs protrude completely out of the body.According to some urogynecologists, more than half of women who have delivered vaginally have some level of prolapse. The consequences, however may not be felt or seen for years. As a matter of fact, one out of three women suffers from some pelvic floor dysfunction and about 11% of all women will seek surgery before the end of their life. Unfortunately, surgery is not very successful—think transvaginal mesh lawsuit—and about 30% of those end up having more surgeries. Even if you are a good candidate for surgery, doctors usually won’t perform it until you are done with childbearing, which could be a while for some women.Many women who do live with pelvic prolapse have reduced quality of life—can’t exercise, can’t lift their child, are embarrassed to be intimate with their partners, can’t stay on their feet for prolonged periods of time because their organs are literally pushing down from their vagina. Of course, a lot of time POP is accompanied by urinary or fecal incontinence.There is also the rare complication of complete uterine inversion, where you push out your uterus out along with your baby. This usually results in an emergency hysterectomy.And there is the risk of retained placenta where the doctor has to do a manual scrape. Exactly like it sounds, the doctor has to put their hand through the birth canal and cervix, into the uterus and try to get rid of any pieces of placenta left inside. Of course, not as much an issue with a C section, they sometimes clean the placenta out of the womb anyway. Very painful if done during a natural delivery going in the other way.There are other complications such as vaginal tearing and loss of sensation that often leads to sexual dysfunction in women. Also, it is estimated that 9% of women suffer from post partum PTSD, but I am not sure about the percentage from natural childbirth vs C section. I do know scheduled c sections are very calm, routine, controlled surgeries. Usually the anesthesiologist, or a nurse, is right next to you talking and monitoring you through the whole thing. I have read an Israeli study that showed 80% of post partum PTSD sufferers received no pain relief during labor.Finally, there are rare but serious risks to the baby. Prolapsed umbilical cord and hypoxia—oxygen deprivation being two; broken clavicle being another. C sections don’t have these complications. Doctors, under pressure from government systems or hospitals have been trying to reduce the c section rate. They end up turning to the use of forceps and vacuums in difficult births where babies get stuck. Sometimes the baby is too large or doesn’t rotate properly. Forceps, especially, are quite dangerous to the baby. They can knock the baby unconscious, they can cut and bruise the baby. In one tragic event, the doctor accidentally crushed the baby’s skull trying to yank it out of a small mother. The mother had asked repeatedly for a Csection— her mom and sister had needed them—but was ignored.Also, assisted childbirth can be really traumatic for the mother. It leaves many women incontinent permanently. Of all the ways of delivering, this seems to be the most traumatic and dangerous. Of course, if you are trying to deliver vaginally and the baby is stuck, this might be the only/fastest solution. If the baby is too far down the birth canal and in distress, you might have to make some very difficult last minute decisions.I am not saying that C sections are always the solution. But let’s face it, a large percentage of mothers end up in unscheduled C sections after laboring prolonged periods anyway. At that point, the mother is exhausted, the baby is under distress and complication rates go up many many fold. For about 30% of deliveries this is the reality, and it is the worst combination of all possibilities, especially if there was already a failed attempt at assisted delivery. Just think what percentage of women who have endure the pain of labor go on to endure the pain of C section recovery, as well. This is definitely a “disadvantage” of trying to go natural in my eyes. A failed assisted delivery that turns into an emergency C section is just the worst of all outcomes….Just because you go in wanting a “natural birthing experience” don’t assume you are choosing the “safe” option. For an older mom who only wants one kid, who has weak pelvic floor muscles—which happens with age—it may just be safer to choose a C section. A lot of the serious complications that are cited for C sections have to do with consequent pregnancies. This decision should not be a political one, or one decided by hospital systems, or insurance companies, or Medicaid legislation or one influenced by midwives with an agenda. Neither should “natural” be the default option for anyone, in my humble opinion.On a personal note, I went in as a first-time mom wanting a natural water birth. I did the classes, etc. All of these possible scenarios were kept hidden from me until I really took on the responsibility of educating myself. More than once, I was flat out lied to by a few midwives pushing their agenda. Many are coming from an idealistic position, and not a scientific one. They couldn’t even give me statistics on half the stuff they were claiming. I was told by one that I should stop reading and researching so much. She ultimately ended up being completely wrong about how she assessed my risks and got super defensive. She just said “well, that’s why referred you to the OB,” which she only did because I kept researching and pushing. Sometimes it’s simply a case of not knowing what they don’t know—in my case they didn’t know anything about autoimmunity, thyroid disorders and the connective tissue problems that are interrelated. They kept brushing it aside, telling me not to worry about it, simply because it didn’t make sense to them. It wasn’t until I went to the OB that I realized how ignorant they really were about hormones/autoimmunity. I realize midwives’ practices are possibly safer than most medicated births with all the interventions, but their reasoning is skewed. Their reasoning is “our bodies were designed to do this,” which is an intuition and not science. If our bodies were “designed to do this” women wouldn’t be dropping dead from complications in the developing world, so many women wouldn’t be permanently damaged by childbirth. My opinion is, in nature, where there is high reward, there is high risk. You cannot ignore the fact that same “nature” in “natural childbirth” is designed to discard the weak, the unfortunate and the stupid at every turn. I don’t know how they decided they were the authority on “nature.”edit: here is a study on what percentage of women have atraumatic births. It’s around 1/3. If the answer is as simple as “nature” designed women for childbirth, why are traumatic births so high??Atraumatic normal vaginal delivery: how many women get what they want?The reality is the “natural childbirth” has many disadvantages for those who are no able to achieve it. And even for those who can achieve it, the statistics about long term damage to women’s bodies are not taken into account when comparing “natural births” to C sections because the symptoms either don’t show up right away or are brushed aside as normal. It’s “normal” to urinate or poo on yourself sometimes after natural childbirth, or “normal” to have pain during intercourse. This should be the woman’s decision and she should be well informed.Let’s face it, as much as female OBs laud the benefits of natural childbirth to their patients, when it comes to their own deliveries, a ridiculously high percentage choose elective C section. If you are an older mom, like past 30, which they usually are, and don’t plan on having more than one or two kids, the disadvantages of vaginal delivery really start to stack up against a C section. As much as I hated to admit it to myself, at some point, I had to face the science.edit: I forgot to mention that about 25% of moms are strep B positive, and some others develop fever during labor, sometimes in response to epidural. This means that the mom receives a continuous dose of antibiotics throughout the labor, which can last for many many hours. In the case of strep B, it is usually an intravenous dose of penicillin every 4 hours from the start. The antibiotics do cross the placenta. For everyone claiming that natural childbirth exposes the baby to good vaginal bacteria, I’d like to point out that this is not the case for moms who are hooked up to antibiotics during their labor. As a matter of fact, you might be exposing the baby to far more doses to antibiotic crossing the placenta than you would in a C section, which is over within minutes. I haven’t done too much research into this, but assuming labor lasting 12–18 hours, the baby would be exposed to 3–4 doses of penicillin continuously crossing the placenta in the case of the 25% of women who are strep B positive. My understanding is that you are only exposed to one dose of general spectrum antibiotic during c section, and the baby is out within minutes. You may have to take oral antibiotics if you develop an infection, and I am not sure how this would affect your milk. (You can develop an infection with vaginal delivery as well, but the c section risk is 8–12% from what I can remember.) The exposure to good bacteria theory only works if you are able to avoid antibiotics altogether, which you may not be able to do, even in a birth center. Freestanding birth centers and midwives also follow the StrepB prophylaxis protocol in the US.edit: I don’t advocate for C section. A c section is very painful and very difficult to recover from. It can also cause permanent nerve damage and/or adhesion which also leads to incontinence. I just feel there should be better information before choosing a delivery method. The truth is that most first time mothers pick a delivery method at the beginning of their pregnancy based on some very vague notions that are usually very wrong. Too many woman find out the ramifications of their delivery choice once it’s too late. Certain doctors only do certain types of deliveries and by the time you are close to term, it’s nearly impossible to switch doctors. Too many women walk away unhappy or permanently damaged and the medical profession on the whole just brushes this off as par for the course.

Why does someone’s mouth stink even though they brush their teeth every day?CELIAC DISEASE will give off a KILLER odor coming from the BREATH/LUNGS → IMMEDIATELY after brushing teeth, or whatever.Celiac Disease is when the body sees gluten as a TOXIC POISON, and so, reacts accordingly. The lungs are also responsible for removing toxins from the body (besides your butt).And all the ultrasonic teeth brushing, dental deep cleaning, mouth washing, gargling, flossing, water jetting, breath fresheners, or gum chewed, CANNOT STOP (or totally cover up) what is generated inside the body and exhausted by EACH out going breath. There is an autoimmune battle going on inside the entire body, and part of the toxic reaction is carried off by the circulatory system to the lungs and then exhausted with EACH BREATH……AND HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH MOUTH HYGIENE WHATSOEVER!I had un-diagnosed Celiac Disease for some 45 years (countless specialists had no idea what was causing my debilitating symptoms) until I read an issue of Prevention Magazine (while sitting on the toilet in agony, again), and in a half page article (in that half-sized magazine) was a short explanation of what it is, and some symptoms and BINGO!!! I found IN A HALF PAGE of print, what 30 YEARS of the best minds available, in the Philadelphia area, IN MODERN MEDICINE, could not see!Warning - If you have Celiac disease, gluten is in thousands of processed foods, because it is a powerhouse of flavor. And is listed under dozens of different names like found on WebMD…Hidden Sources of GlutenBarley (flakes, flour, pearl)Breading, bread stuffingBrewer's yeastBulgurDurum (type of wheat)Farro/faro (also known as spelt or dinkel)Graham flourHydrolyzed wheat proteinKamut (type of wheat)Malt, malt extract, malt syrup, malt flavoringMalt vinegarMalted milkMatzo, matzo mealModified wheat starchOatmeal, oat bran, oat flour, whole oats (unless they are from pure, uncontaminated oats)Rye bread and flourSeitan (a meat-like food derived from wheat gluten used in many vegetarian dishes)SemolinaSpelt (type of wheat also known as farro, faro, or dinkel)TriticaleWheat branWheat flourWheat germWheat starchThese other ingredients may be less familiar to you, but they also contain gluten:Atta (chapati flour)Einkorn (type of wheat)Emmer (type of wheat)FarinaFu (a dried gluten product made from wheat and used in some Asian dishes)And more names for HIDDEN GLUTEN from the internet…Amy Myers MD The Troublesome TwentyArtificial colorBaking powderCaramel color/flavoringCitric acid (can be fermented from wheat, corn, molasses or beets)ColoringDextrinsDiglyceridesEmulsifiersEnzymesFat replacersFlavoringsFood starchGlucose syrupGlyceridesMaltodextrinModified food starchNatural juicesStabilizersStarchWheat starchThe following taken from the Celiac Disease Foundation website…What is Celiac Disease?Celiac disease is a serious autoimmune disease that occurs in genetically predisposed people where the ingestion of gluten leads to damage in the small intestine. It is estimated to affect 1 in 100 people worldwide. Two and one-half million Americans are undiagnosed and are at risk for long-term health complications.When people with celiac disease eat gluten (a protein found in wheat, rye and barley), their body mounts an immune response that attacks the small intestine. These attacks lead to damage on the villi, small fingerlike projections that line the small intestine, that promote nutrient absorption. When the villi get damaged, nutrients cannot be absorbed properly into the body.Celiac disease is hereditary, meaning that it runs in families. People with a first-degree relative with celiac disease (parent, child, sibling) have a 1 in 10 risk of developing celiac disease.Celiac disease can develop at any age after people start eating foods or medicines that contain gluten. Left untreated, celiac disease can lead to additional serious health problems.Long-Term Health EffectsPeople with celiac disease have a 2x greater risk of developing coronary artery disease, and a 4x greater risk of developing small bowel cancers.The treatment burden of celiac disease is comparable to end-stage renal disease, and the partner burden is comparable to caring for a patient with cancer.Untreated celiac disease can lead to the development of other autoimmune disorders like Type I diabetes and multiple sclerosis (MS), and many other conditions, including dermatitis herpetiformis (an itchy skin rash), anemia, osteoporosis, infertility and miscarriage, neurological conditions like epilepsy and migraines, short stature, heart disease and intestinal cancers.TreatmentCurrently, the only treatment for celiac disease is lifelong adherence to a strict gluten-free diet. People living gluten-free must avoid foods with wheat, rye and barley, such as bread and beer.Ingesting small amounts of gluten, like crumbs from a cutting board or toaster, can trigger small intestine damage.Read about the Gluten-Free Diet.Celiac disease is also known as coeliac disease, celiac sprue, non-tropical sprue, and gluten sensitive enteropathy.A table illustrating how age of diagnosis influences the chances of developing another autoimmune conditionEarly Diagnosis Lowers Chance for Developing Another ConditionAge of diagnosis ********** Chance of developing another autoimmune condition2-4 *********************** 10.5%4-12 ********************** 16.7%12-20 ********************* 27%Over 20 ****************** 34%Undiagnosed or Untreated Celiac Disease Can Lead to:Long-Term Health ConditionsIron deficiency anemiaEarly onset osteoporosis or osteopeniaInfertility and miscarriageLactose intoleranceVitamin and mineral deficienciesCentral and peripheral nervous system disordersPancreatic insufficiencyIntestinal lymphomas and other GI cancers (malignancies)Gall bladder malfunctionNeurological manifestations, including ataxia, epileptic seizures, dementia, migraine, neuropathy, myopathy and multifocal leucoencephalopathyOther Autoimmune DisordersIn a 1999 study, Ventura, et al. found that for people with celiac disease, the later the age of diagnosis, the greater the chance of developing another autoimmune disorder.Think you or someone you know may have celiac disease?REVIEW THE SYMPTOMSAutoimmune and Other Conditions Associated with Celiac DiseaseAUTOIMMUNE CONDITION ********* PREVALENCE IN CD POPULATIONAnemia ******************************** 12-69%Autoimmune Hepatitis **************** 2%Autoimmune Thyroid Disease ********* 26%Chronic fatigue syndrome ************* 2%Dermatitis Herpetiformis ************** 25%Down syndrome ************************ 12%Gluten ataxia *************************** 10-12%Idiopathic Dilated Cardiomyapathy **** 5.7%Juveline Idiopathic Arthritis *********** 1.5-6.6%Liver Disease **************************** 10%Lymphocytic Colitis ********************* 15-27%Microscopic Colitis ********************** 4%Peripheral Neuropathy ****************** 10-12%Primary Bilary Cirrhosis ***************** 3%Sjögren’s Syndrome ********************** 3%Type 1 Diabetes ************************** 8-10%Unexplained infertility ****************** 12%