Press Releases Saturday 7 August 1999
No 7206 Volume 319
Please remember to credit the BMJ as source when publicising
an
article and to tell your readers that they can read its full text on
the
journal's web site (http://www.bmj.com).
If your story is posted on a website please include a link back to
the source BMJ article (URL's are given under titles).
(1) CHILDREN
ARE AT GREATEST RISK OF EYE DAMAGE
DURING THE
ECLIPSE
(2) MATERNAL
NUTRITION DOES NOT AFFECT SIZE OF
BABIES IN
INDUSTRIALISED COUNTRIES
(3) BULLIES NEED AS MUCH HELP AS THEIR VICTIMS
(4) BETTER
PSYCHIATRIC SUPPORT NEEDED FOR
CHILDREN
WHO LOSE A PARENT
(1) CHILDREN ARE AT
GREATEST RISK OF EYE DAMAGE
DURING THE ECLIPSE
(Staying safe during the eclipse)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7206/329
Children should be closely supervised during
the eclipse as they are
one of the groups most at risk of eye
damage, says a consultant
ophthalmic surgeon in this weekend's BMJ.
Mr Jonathan Dowler
from Moorfields Eye Hospital in London
also warns that those with
existing eye problems and people who have
been drinking alcohol or
using recreational drugs are also at particular
risk from looking at the
sun during the eclipse. The eclipse will
occur at the height of
summer, as the sun nears its zenith over
a densely populated area
and therefore may be followed by an even
greater incidence of
retinal injury than reported after other
recent eclipses, he says.
Solar retinopathy is caused by looking
at the sun with the naked eye,
causing a rise in retinal temperature
of 4 degrees C, which induces
photochemical injury to the retinal receptor
cells. The condition may
occur rapidly, without pain and without
being immediately apparent
and no treatment has been shown to be
effective for the condition,
says the author. Furthermore, photochemical
damage is cumulative
and there are concerns that such injuries
may predispose people to
eye disease in later life, suggests Mr
Dowler.
The only safe time to look at the sun,
says the author, will be during
the short two minute period of total eclipse
and that one should look
away the moment the first rays of the
sun appear at the edge of the
moon. Binoculars and telescopes should
not be used he warns
(viewing the sun this way produces a 10-25
degrees C temperature
rise in the retina which causes thermal
burn of the eye). Other
suggested methods of viewing such as through
smoked glass,
photographic film, compact discs, or wearing
one pair (or even
several pairs) of sun glasses will not
give people adequate protection
says Mr Dowler.
He also warns that the widely available
'solar viewers' may not give
sufficient protection, even if they carry
the CE mark to show they
have been tested to comply with European
Union personal protection
equipment standards. Dowler explains that
this is because damage to
the aluminised polyester, from which they
are commonly made, may
compromise their protective effect and
also many have been
designed in a single size to fit all,
which are unlikely to fit children's
faces properly.
Reiterating warnings from the Department
of Health, the Royal
College of Ophthalmologists and the College
of Optometrists, the
author suggests that the safest way to
witness the eclipse is by
indirect methods, such as a projection.
(Note: a total solar eclipse will occur
on 11 August at 11:11 hours
over south west England and north west
France.)
Contact:
Edmund McMahon Turner, Press Office, Moorfields
Eye Hospital,
London
Email: edmund{at}mehpr.demon.co.uk
(2) MATERNAL NUTRITION
DOES NOT AFFECT SIZE OF
BABIES IN INDUSTRIALISED COUNTRIES
(Influence of maternal nutrition
on outcome of pregnancy:
prospective cohort study)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7206/339
Concern over the impact of maternal nutrition
on the health of an
infant has been premature, say researchers
in this week's BMJ.
Fiona Mathews and colleagues from the
University of Oxford report
that maternal nutrition, at least in industrialised
populations, seems to
have only a small effect on placental
and birth weights of babies.
In their study of 693 first time mothers
in the south of England,
Mathews et al found that in early pregnancy
Vitamin C was the only
nutrient which affected placental and
birth weight, but the authors
cast doubt over whether this relation
has any clinical significance.
They conclude that among relatively well
nourished women in
industrialised countries, maternal nutrition
seems to have only a
marginal impact on infant and placental
size and therefore other
causes of variation in the size of new-born
babies should be
investigated.
Contact:
Dr Fiona Mathews, Department of Zoology,
University of Oxford,
South Parks Road, Oxford.
Email: fmathews{at}ermine.ox.ac.uk
(3) BULLIES NEED AS MUCH HELP AS THEIR VICTIMS
(Bullying behaviour and psychosocial
health among school
students in New South Wales, Australia:
cross sectional survey)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7206/344
(Bullying, depression and suicidal
ideation in Finnish adolescents:
school survey)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7206/348
Two studies in this week's BMJ report on
the psychiatric effects of
bullying and both find that children who
are bullied and those who do
the bullying are in need of help. Roberto
Forero and colleagues from
New South Wales found that more than one
in ten (12.7 per cent) of
the 3,918 schoolchildren aged 11-15 years
that they studied were
bullied, but that almost a quarter (23.7
per cent) admitted to bullying
others.
Forero et al found that children who were
both bullied themselves but
also bullied others had the greatest number
of psychological and
psychosomatic problems. In a separate
study, Professor Riittakerttu
Kaltiala-Heino and colleagues from Finland
found that adolescents
who were being bullied and those who also
bullied are at an
increased risk of depression and suicide.
They stress that the need
for psychiatric intervention should be
considered not only for the
victims of bullying but also for the bullies.
Bullies are often as depressed as those
who are bullied and thoughts
of suicide among this group are even more
common, say
Kaltiala-Heino et al. Both papers conclude
that bullying affects the
psychosocial and psychosomatic health
of children and that both the
bullied and the bullies deserve attention.
Contact:
Dr Chris Rissel, Epidemiologist, Needs
Assessment and Health
Outcomes Unit, Central Sydney Area Health
Service, Newtown,
New South Wales
Email: criss{at}nah.rpa.cs.nsw.gov.au
Professor Riittakerttu Kaltiala-Heino,
Senior Assistant Professor,
University of Tampere School of Public
Health, Tampere, Finland
Email: merihe{at}uta.fi
(4) BETTER PSYCHIATRIC
SUPPORT NEEDED FOR
CHILDREN WHO LOSE A PARENT
(Psychological disturbance and service
provision in parentally
bereaved children: prospective case-control
study)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7206/354
Children who have lost a parent are not
all receiving the support
services that they need, report a team
of researchers from south east
England in this week's BMJ. Service provision
seems to be based on
the age of the child and how their parent
died rather than on the
mental health difficulties they or their
surviving parent, might be
experiencing say the team.
Led by Dr Linda Dowdney from Sutton Hospital
in Surrey, the
researchers studied 45 bereaved families
with children ranging in age
from two to 15 years. They found that
both the bereaved children
and the surviving parents showed more
psychiatric difficulties than
the team had expected. Their findings
suggest that boys are more
affected than girls; that bereaved mothers
had more difficulties than
bereaved fathers and that psychological
distress in bereaved parents
is associated with psychological difficulties
in their children.
In terms of the support given to the bereaved
families, Dowdney et al
found that children were more likely to
be offered help if their
parent's death had been expected or if
they had committed suicide.
They also found that children under five
years of age were less likely
to be offered services than older children,
even if their surviving
parents wanted it.
The authors of the study conclude that
there is a role for primary
care health professionals in identifying
those families in need of
psychiatric support and referring them
to the appropriate services.
Contact:
Dr Richard Wilson, Consultant Paediatrician,
Kingston Hospital,
Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey
FOR ACCREDITED JOURNALISTS
Embargoed press releases and articles are available from:
Public Affairs Division
BMA House
Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9JR
(contact Jill Shepherd;pressoffice{at}bma.org.uk)
and from:
the EurekAlert website, run by the American Association for the
Advancement of Science
(http://www.eurekalert.org)
What's new
Keep updated
Services
Tools
Online poll
Resources
Print issues
