Making Breast Milk: You’ll Have Plenty for Your Newborn Baby

At Mount Sinai Beth Israel, we place every healthy, full-term baby skin to skin (baby naked, not wrapped in a blanket) with his or her mother immediately after birth. The skin-to-skin contact warms the baby and stimulates the release of oxytocin and prolactin—the hormones responsible for milk production—in the mother.

The more skin-to-skin contact a mother has with her baby, the more stable (heart rate, breathing, body temperature, blood pressure) baby is, and the more breast milk mother makes. Babies who are held skin to skin cry very infrequently, and so do not lose body heat. Babies held skin to skin also have stable blood sugar levels, preventing the need for supplemental milk. (more…)

How to Motivate Your Child to Learn During Summer Vacation

By Ulrick Vieux, DO, MS and Roopa Mathews, MS-IV

While learning may be the last thing on children’s minds during summer vacation, it is important for youngsters to reinforce what they’ve learned throughout the year, and to keep their skills in practice for the year to come. In these last few weeks before school resumes, there is still time to get the most out of summer vacation from an educational perspective. (more…)

Medical Clowning Is Good Medicine

Guest post by Abigail Strubel, MA, LCSW

One of the most revered medical works of the Middle Ages was the Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum, or “Salernitan Guide to Health.” Written in verse, it addresses proper hygiene, diet and sleep practices, along with several outdated treatments such as bloodletting. While much of the text has been discredited, one verse in particular stands out:

“Use three physicians still; first Doctor Quiet, Next Doctor Merry-man and Doctor Diet.”

In other words, rest and appropriate nutrition are important to healing—and so is laughter. (more…)

Meet Barney, a certified therapy dog at The Child and Family Institute

Animal Assisted Psychotherapy (AAP) consists of mental health professionals who utilize therapy animals (i.e. typically dogs, cats, horses, and birds) to assist in the therapeutic process.  The use of the therapy pet, such as my dog Barney shown in this video, has been found to strengthen rapport between therapist and patient, build empathy, increase self confidence. (more…)

2-Year-Old Gets Life Changing Surgery from Dr. Alejandro Berenstein

On Tuesday, March 5 a team of physicians from Roosevelt Hospital’s Center for Endovascular Surgery performed the first of a series of procedures to treat a 2-year-old boy from the Dominican Republic who was born with a disfiguring lesion on his face.

The 1½-hour procedure was the first of three or four that Alejandro Berenstein, MD, Director of the Hyman-Newman Institute for Neurology and Neurosurgery and his comprehensive team will perform on toddler Joel De La Rosa. (more…)

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