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Hi, I'm Dr. Cindy Haines of HealthDay TV... making news this week ... car seat injuries; smoking and pregnancy; and the difference between men and women when it comes to health checkups. Hi, I'm Dr. Cindy Haines, host of HealthDay TV. First up: The use of car seats has steeply reduced the number of fatal injuries in babies ... but these seats can lead to injuries when babies sit in them outside the car. A new study from the journal Pediatrics estimated that in a recent five-year period, emergency rooms treated more than 43,000 injures in babies related to car-seat use outside of the car. Most of these cases involved the child falling from the car seat, the seat falling from an elevated surface, or the seat overturning on a soft surface. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that car seats only be used while traveling, and not outside the vehicle. Moving on: Roughly 11 percent of women smoke during pregnancy, and a recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine shows the toll this can take on babies. The study, which included more than 3.3 million births, found that smoking during pregnancy was associated with a higher risk of premature birth. Smoking was also linked to a higher risk of death related to premature birth, sudden infant death syndrome, and low birthweight among babies who were carried full-term. The March of Dimes recommends that women stop smoking before they become pregnant. And finally: A recent study from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that in 2007, about two-thirds of adults had made a routine visit to a health care professional in the previous year. These appointments were for issues that didn't require care right away. However, 73.8 percent of women made routine appointments compared to just 56.5 percent of men. According to the agency, men may need to make these routine appointments to check on issues such as high cholesterol and blood pressure, diabetes, and colorectal cancer depending on their age and other risk factors. I'm Dr. Cindy Haines of HealthDay TV, with the news that doctors are reading; health news that matters to you.
