Baby Boomers and Drug-Resistant Gonorrhea

Baby Boomers and Drug-Resistant Gonorrhea - Baby boomers take heed: Drug-resistant gonorrhea may well be a topic of interest or concern to you.

STD Numbers on Upswing for Baby Boomers

A February report by UPI.com revealed that researchers in the United States, Canada and England discovered an upswing in the numbers of baby boomers reporting sexually transmitted diseases, including chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhea. Researchers theorize that in addition to many people in this age group not practicing safe sex, post-menopausal women are at greater risk for micro-tears due to decreased lubrication, with the tiny tears providing entry portals for the infectious organisms.

Health Care Providers Put on Notice

On Wednesday, the United Nations' health agency, the World Health Organization, put health care providers around the world on notice about being vigilant in their surveillance of the antibiotic-resistant strain of gonorrhea that is expected to eventually be found throughout the world. According to an AP report, the drug-resistant strain of gonorrhea has currently been identified in nations such as Norway, Japan and Britain.

What's the Risk?

Currently, the drug-resistant strain that concerns health experts has been developing a resistance to all the antibiotics currently used to treat this STD. As this strain of gonorrhea continues to develop and mutate, it is likely to become immune to all current treatments, reports Forbes.com. This could result in an incurable form of a sexually transmitted disease that is the second-highest reported communicable disease in the United States.

Bottom Line

Baby boomers didn't have to be concerned about deadly types of STDs during the heyday of their youth, so it can seem like those "teenagers" diseases aren't a concern in mid-life. Safe sex is important for sexually active adults at any age, as well as taking antibiotics for any condition exactly as prescribed to help avoid the development of future "super germs."

Smack dab in the middle of the baby boomer generation, L.L. Woodard is a proud resident of "The Red Man" state. With what he hopes is an everyman's view of life's concerns both in his state and throughout the nation, Woodard presents facts and opinions based on common-sense solutions. ( yahoo.com )

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Dorothy Burlingham's Twins

Dorothy Burlingham's Twins - The study that explained why it's not so wonderful to have a look-alike.

For a long time, it was common for society to treat twins, especially identical twins, not as two separate people but as a single unit. Literature, from Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors to Thornton Wilder's Bridge of San Luis Rey, imagined twins as seamlessly interchangeable or as possessing a mysterious preternatural bond. Many people, of course, still treat twins this way. Outsiders delight in their uncanny physical similarities—from the Twinsburg, Ohio, festival that encourages participants to dress alike to the countless movies and TV shows that have fun with twins' resemblances. Think Marge Simpson's indistinguishable sisters, Patty and Selma.

But if laypeople still frequently perceive twins as carbon copies, psychologists no longer do. How-to manuals for raising twins stress the need to treat them as individuals, starting with not giving them rhyming names and not dressing them in matching outfits. These are basic steps, but important ones, and they have not been always widely followed. Indeed, any twin who has been spared such embarrassments probably owes a debt to a psychoanalyst who, writing nearly 60 years ago, helped revolutionize the way society thinks about twins: Dorothy Burlingham.

Twins dressed in matching outfits

Though little-known outside psychoanalytic circles, Burlingham authored the seminal Twins: A Study of Three Pairs of Identical Twins, With 30 Charts. At the time of its appearance in 1952, "the amount of material available on twinship that can be of practical help to parents of these double-featurettes," reported the New York Times, unable to resist the urge to cuteness, was "remarkably skimpy." Twins was immediately hailed by the British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott as "probably the most comprehensive work of its kind in existence."

Born in 1890, Burlingham was the daughter of Charles Tiffany, the famed jeweler. After a divorce, she moved with her children to Vienna, underwent psychoanalysis with Sigmund Freud, and worked with his daughter Anna to establish a day care with psychoanalytically informed lectures and seminars for teachers. Then in 1938 the Nazis annexed Austria, and she traveled with the Freuds to England. During the Blitz she and Anna Freud set up the Hampstead Nurseries in a comparatively safe neighborhood in North London, where children stayed during the war, separated from but visited occasionally by their mothers. Freud and Burlingham observed the children in their care and collaborated on two influential works, Young Children in Wartimeand Infants Without Families.

A little while later Burlingham followed up with Twins. Over several years, she tracked the development of three sets of identical twins at Hampstead: Bill and Bert, Jessie and Bessie, and Mary and Madge. She carefully documented their growth—including important moments in their relationships with one another—in spare, lucid, unobtrusive, and highly descriptive writing, as well as in detailed color-coded charts in the back of the book.

Looked at one way, Twins is an exercise in debunking. Burlingham starts by discussing the widespread societal fascination with twins, which she suggested may stem from a fantasy that people develop when they're young and learning to cope with their separateness from their parents. People think it would be wonderful to have someone "just like" themselves—a perfect soul mate capable of deep, intuitive, empathetic understanding. But the truth is more prosaic. "In the fantasy," Burlingham wrote, "the relationship to the twin is imagined as an untroubled and unchanging one." In reality, twins struggle with their partners and often balk at being pigeonholed. When at nearly 4 years old Mary told Madge, "Madge, you're a twin," Madge replied: "No I'm not, I'm Madge."

Although Burlingham stressed twins' need for independence, her picture was anything but simple. She saw, too, that this need coexisted with a fear of separation, and she observed how the tension between those conflicting feelings surfaced at various stages of early life. When very young, each twin expressed (as all children do) a basic wish for self-gratification—for the mother's attention, or a particular toy, or a dessert. In the case of twins, this wish for gratification inevitably came at the expense of the other twin, since they had to compete with each other for maternal affection—and just about everything else. Slowly, however, this basic wish transformed into a desire to share, and by the age of 2, the twins felt it important to have the same thing at the same time. And yet this desire didn't erase the earlier competitiveness. A struggle remained, only now focused on the wish to have equal amounts, not more or less—so that Jessie would not have her cocoa with her nurse until she was assured that Bessie was having cocoa, too. "Sharing," Burlingham noted, "is the continuation of their former competition."

The portrait of twins' relationships wasn't all bleak. Burlingham also saw that functioning as a unit can be beneficial. When, at 2½ years, Bessie showed proficiency at making plasticine ducks, Jessie, rather than trying to learn the skill herself, was happy to ask Bessie to make "me ducky too." Similarly, when one of the pair was challenged by another child or reproached by an adult, the second twin put aside her rivalry to defend her sister. The protected twin, for her part, was glad to let the other temporarily assume a superior role in the relationship. At such times, feelings of unity overrode feelings of rivalry.

Overall, however, Burlingham saw that it was necessary for a twin to carve out some sense of individual identity . Bessie and Jessie at times supported each other and at other times criticized each other persistently. Each seemed to seek her partner's approval as a single child asks for praise from a parent; they also seemed to separate more easily from each other when they were happy and enjoying what they were doing. Bert and Bill, by contrast, were so invested in each other, so engaged in copying each other, that they didn't develop appropriate social skills or a sense of separateness. Years later, psychologists described their fusion as a severe maladaptation.

Despite its subtlety of observation, Twins did not go without criticism. Clearly, children brought up in a group setting at the Hampstead Nurseries—away from their parents all or most of the time—weren't being raised under typical circumstances. Their mothers' prolonged absences may have distorted the twin relationship. Burlingham's work also focused only on the early years of childhood, paying little attention to the stages of development after the child begins elementary school. And then there was the problem that, like other studies that rely on close observation, Burlingham's small sample size left her open to the charge that her conclusions could not be generally applied.

Nonetheless, her work encouraged others to observe twin development, giving rise to a host of new studies. We now understand better the particular challenges that twins face at critical junctures in their developmental trajectory—and parents, psychologists, and teachers, knowing more about how to treat twins, can better help them enjoy the pleasures of twinship as well.

Burlingham herself offered only two pages of practical advice for parents. It amounted to a plea against extremes: Parents shouldn't break up their twins completely, she said, but they shouldn't let them relate primarily to each other, either. Instead she called for "a normal development of the tie to parents." That advice may seem unremarkable coming from a Freudian psychoanalyst, but any twin who remembers being gussied up in matching sailor suits and put on display probably yearns to have been treated "normally" a little more often. ( slate.com )

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Secret Gender Baby Sparks Debate

Secret Gender Baby Sparks Debate — Ridiculous or ultra-enlightened? A Toronto couple's decision to keep the gender of their 4-month-old baby a secret has touched off a sometimes nasty debate over how far parents should go in protecting young ones from society's boy-girl biases.

Kathy Witterick and David Stocker recently landed on the front page of the Toronto Star, explaining that they hope their third child, Storm, can remain untouched by the connotations of pink versus blue, male versus female, long enough to make up his or her own mind.

The decision has online haters and supporters of the family on hyperdrive. Child development experts, meanwhile, question the impact on the cherubic infant later in life and whether the couple has gone too far in their quest for gender neutrality.

"This is not a secret without consequences," said Mike Brody, a child psychiatrist in Washington, D.C., and instructor at the University of Maryland. "This seems more controlling than the helicopter parents."

Soon after the baby was born, in a pool of water at home, Witterick, 38, and Stocker, 39, sent an email announcing to loved ones: "We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now – a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place? ...)."

The couple has been overwhelmed by attention since the story was published last week, telling The Associated Press in an email Friday the idea that "the whole world must know what is between the baby's legs is unhealthy, unsafe and voyeuristic. We know – and we're keeping it clean, safe, healthy and private (not secret!)."

Storm's two older siblings – both on-the-record boys – know the baby's gender, along with a close family friend and the midwives who delivered the child. They plan to keep the secret as long as Storm, 2-year-old Kio and 5-year-old Jazz are OK with it.

There's nothing unusual about Storm's genitalia, the parents note, but they've been stung by criticism of their older children for liking pink and purple clothes, bikes and other "girly" things, like the occasional dress and long hair for Jazz, who's currently sporting braids.

Among neighbors and others, the couple has faced the cringe-inducing question so many other parents have also heard: "Oh what a lovely child. Boy or a girl?" But, Stocker told the paper, "If you really want to get to know someone, you don't ask what's between their legs."

Liza Hough, 29, a student of traditional medicine in Alameda, Calif., isn't a parent but felt so strongly about the family's "courage" in trying to knock down gender walls that she began a Facebook page in support. She called their approach "peaceful radicalism" and told the AP: "Whether these parents intended it as a political move or not, it is precisely what it has become."

Throughout history, Hough said, people have had to go to what was considered "`too far' and radical in order to break down barriers."

Witterick "unschools" all three of her children. It's a fringe style of home schooling based on a no report card, textbook or test philosophy of letting kids explore the world for themselves. She and Stocker, who teaches at a small alternative school, say they have the support of the children's grandparents, though the grandparents were confused at first about the gender-free secret for chubby-cheeked, blond-haired Storm.

Can a child at a very young age navigate a gender choice for him or herself, as these parents hope? Or is it a case of political correctness gone awry?

"When I read the article it kind of angered me, that I would read something like this about parents doing this kind of social experiment on their own kids," said Stephan Tan, 36, a music school owner and father of four young children in Brampton, Ontario.

He put up a Facebook page in opposition to the family's secret and has commenters hurling insults and threatening to report the couple to child abuse investigators.

"What struck me was that the father had made a statement that he found it obnoxious that so many parents make so many choices for their children, but it's plain to see that he himself is making a very extreme choice for his child," Tan said.

Jayme Poisson, the Star staffer who wrote the story, spent a couple of days with the family and told the "Today" show she believes "they care very deeply about their children," regardless of whether you agree with their approach.

The `70s "free to be you and me" strategy to gender neutral child-rearing had mixed results back then, noted Diane Ruble, a New York University researcher of early gender development.

Some girls loved Barbie at all costs, no matter how many toy trucks a parent or child researcher thrust her way.

"There's been a little bit of movement, but not that much," Ruble said. "I don't expect this will have a major negative or powerful influence on Storm. It certainly has influenced the people who are objecting, however."

Storm isn't the first child put in this position by his or her parents. Books have been written on identical family experiments and a Swedish couple tried it in 2009 with the child they called Pop. That couple told the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet at the time the decision stemmed from a feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.

"We want Pop," the mother said, "to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mold from the outset. It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead." ( Associated Press )

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Happy mothers, happy children... but when dad is off-colour they're not bothered

Happy mothers, happy children... but when dad is off-colour they're not bothered - Next time your little ones are refusing to tidy their rooms or stick to their bedtimes, run this one past them.

Children are happiest when their mothers are happy, a study has found. Nearly three-quarters of children whose mothers are content with their relationship report feeling happy at home.

Mum's the word: The survey found that children are more likely to be happy if they know their mother is happy

But when their mothers are unhappy, only 55 per cent of youngsters are ‘completely satisfied’ with family life. In contrast, the research, revealed on Mother’s Day, found that a father’s happiness makes no difference to his offspring.

As part of the Understanding Society study, youngsters aged between ten and 15 in 40,000 UK families were asked how they felt about their home lives.

It revealed that relationships with mothers and fathers were the most important indicator of happiness, and that those living with two parents – either biological or step – were most content.

Fewer than three in ten children who argued with their parents more than once a week were completely happy at home.

Dr Maria Iacovou, of the Institute for Social and Economic Research, said: ‘These findings show that family relationships and the happiness of parents are key to the happiness of young people.’ ( dailymail.co.uk )

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Less lazy time recommended for kids

Less lazy time recommended for kids — Canadian kids are being urged to get their butts off the couch and their eyes off the screen in some newly released lifestyle guidelines.

The Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology on Tuesday unveiled its recommended limits on sedentary behaviour for youngsters between the ages of five and 17.

They're the first ever guidelines for sedentary behaviour issued in Canada, the group says.

But meeting the targets could be a challenge, given all the enticing recreational options — television, video games and Internet, to name a few — that are out there.

New guidelines encouraging kids to be active say children and youth should get no more than two hours of "screen time" a day

"Today, kids face much greater challenges when it comes to sedentary time than we did or our parents did," said Kelly Murumets, CEO of exercise-promotion group ParticipAction, which was involved in setting the new guidelines.

"For sure, society in general is much more sedentary than it was a generation ago. . . . We're more sedentary today than we were 10 years ago."

Being sedentary means allowing the body to be at rest for prolonged periods of time.

The new guidelines say children and youth should get no more than two hours of "screen time" a day, which includes TV, recreational use of a computer and non-active video games.

It does not include games that involve wide-ranging body movements, such as those played on the Wii and Kinect systems.

As well, the group recommends reducing the amount of time youngsters spend in cars, indoors or even sitting down for long periods uninterrupted.

"Is it necessary for us to take the van to soccer practice, or could we bike over?" society chairman Mark Tremblay said as an example of the thinking the guidelines are meant to provoke. "Billy's been sitting on the couch there for hours. I seem to recall hearing somewhere that that's bad for him."

Tremblay pointed out some of the risks that a lazy lifestyle brings, including the higher risk of cardiovascular problems. He said research has shown that more sedentary time can negatively affect children's academic performance and their self-esteem.

The new guidelines are just fine with Toronto's Sarah Connor, who has four children, between the ages of eight and 13. With her children heavily involved in sports such as tennis, hockey and skiing, she says she figures they're getting only an hour of screen time now — half the new recommended limit.

"I over-program my kids, because I love (sports)," Connor said. "They really just don't have the time (to be sedentary). Being honest, if they didn't do all the stuff they did, they'd probably be on the screen from 4 to 8 p.m. every day."

The sedentary guidelines follow the society's latest recommendations on activity released Jan. 24. They called for adults to participate in 2 1/2 hours of moderate-to-vigorous activity a week, and an hour a day for youths and children.

Data recently released by Statistics Canada showed that just 15 per cent of adults were meeting these guidelines, and seven per cent of youths. As well, young people were found to be spending an average 8.6 hours a day in a sedentary state, or about 62 per cent of their waking hours.

Tremblay said he hopes recommendations for adults can be offered in the near future.

In the meantime, he offered this advice for grown-ups: "Whatever you're doing now (in terms of sedentary behaviour) is probably excessive," meaning people of all ages should consider reducing the time they spend watching TV, surfing the Internet, riding in vehicles and other things that require little energy. ( Postmedia News )

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Fighting fatigue

• For an instant brainpower boost, try peppermint or menthol for a simulated injection of fresh air. Either inhale some essential oil of peppermint or chew on strong sweets, breathing deeply so that the strong flavour will shock your brain into action.

• If you feel sluggish in the morning, treat your face -often the last part of you body to wake up - to a reviving splash of scented water. Add a couple of drops of geranium or lavender oil to a basin of warm water and soak a wash cloth. Wring out the cloth and apply to your face for a minute before dunking and repeating.

• If you feel down as a result of being tired, try listening to music, which will have a direct affect on your mood. Research shows that listening to an upbeat tempo will raise your spirits; if you feel unhappy, play something that holds fond memories.

• Revive your body and mind with some gentle exercise. Not only does physical activity release a lot of feel-good hormones but it increases the flow of oxygen to the brain, boosts adrenaline levels and leaves you feeling more energetic.

• Have trouble dragging yourself out of bed in the morning? Contrary as it sounds, you should actually set your alarm clock an hour earlier to give yourself time to prepare yourself for the day. Within weeks your body clock will adjust and feel better for it.

• Use visualisation techniques to focus your flagging mind on the day ahead. Visualise yourself getting through your day successfully, working through each encounter in your mind so that everything runs seamlessly. By doing this, you will feel you can easily achieve what is ahead.

• To avoid the build-up of tension which can deplete your energy levels, vent your spleen after work. Boxercise classes, running or aerobics are a marvellous way to release pent-up stress. But just singing or yelling will get stress out, too.

• Try popping bubble wrap. American psychologists have shown in research that this dispels pent up nervous energy and muscle tension.

• Lost your creative urge? Then take up power walking. Any rhythmic form of exercise, such as running, swimming or even pounding away on the stairclimber, can elevate creativity if you do it regularly, according to research at the Cornell University Medical College.This is partly linked to the fact that repetitive and continuous activities release endorphins, the so-called feel-good brain chemicals.

• If you still feel tired each morning, aromatherapy can help. Each evening, run a bath and add three drops of lavender and three drops of camomile essential oils with some carrier oil. Then light an oil burner and add two drops of clary sage and lavender. This will calm down your system.

• A gentle stretch will help you breathe more efficiently and nourish every cell in your body.Try this move whenever you have a moment to yourself: Sit on the floor with your knees bent and soles of your feet together. Breathe in and lengthen up through the spine - as you breathe out, press your naval towards your spine and relax forward. Rest your arms in front of you with your neck unstretched. Take ten breaths. Slowly uncurl, straightening the spine vertebra by vertebra. Repeat if necessary.

• Spending more time with someone you love will boost your energy. During tender moments neural pathways become intoxicated with raised levels of dopamine, norepinephrine and penylethylamine (PEA), the natural chemicals of love. As the brain gears itself up for lovemaking, the production of stress hormones such as cortisol falls dramatically. The result is a natural high.

• Spending ten to 15 minutes a day in complete silence can help you gather your thoughts and refocus your mind. Researchers at the University of British Columbia showed that the noises with which we are bombarded on an average day - such as traffic, telephones and television - cause our immune systems to suffer and energy levels to drop. Silence and solitude, on the other hand, are therapeutic.

• To revive yourself instantly at work, move away from your desk or situation for a few minutes. Have a long, tall stretch and then bend towards the floor.Tense every muscle and then relax each one. Finally, shake yourself all over and return with a fresher spirit.

• If you find yourself slumping in the middle of the afternoon, think about your posture and sit up straight.Your internal organs need room to spread, otherwise they operate below par, leaving you tired and listless. Breathe deeply.

• Clear your bedroom of everything that does not belong there - work papers, for instance. A calm and inviting atmosphere will add to the quality of your sleep.

• Try not to fall asleep in front of the television on the settee, or leave the TV on in your bedroom all night. The light and sound will continue to enter your brain and the quality of your sleep will be seriously diminished.

• Look at how you are eating. If you are eating dinner too late, try to eat earlier. If you are eating heavy food, try to lighten the menu - it will help you sleep.

• Do not exercise too close to bedtime. It may make you fall asleep quickly, but you are likely to wake up frequently during the night. Try, instead, to exercise earlier in the day. ( dailymail.co.uk )
  

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Sex once a day keeps sperm healthy

Sex once a day keeps sperm healthy, study says. Couples trying to conceive should have daily sex leading up to ovulation. Having sex every day improves the quality of men's sperm and is recommended for couples trying to conceive, according to new research.

Until now doctors have debated whether or not men should refrain from sex for a few days before attempting to conceive with their partner to improve the chance of pregnancy.

But a new study by Dr David Greening of Sydney IVF, an Australian center for infertility and in vitro fertilization treatment, suggests abstinence is not the right approach.

He studied 118 men with above-average sperm DNA damage and found the quality of their sperm increased significantly after they were told to ejaculate daily for seven days.

On average, their DNA fragmentation index — a measure of sperm damage — fell to 26 percent from 34 percent, Greening told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Amsterdam on Tuesday.

Frequent sex does decrease semen volume but for most men this is not a problem.

"It seems safe to conclude that couples with relatively normal semen parameters should have sex daily for up to a week before the ovulation date," he said in a statement.

"In the context of assisted reproduction, this simple treatment may assist in improving sperm quality and ultimately achieving a pregnancy."

Greening said it was likely frequent ejaculation improved the quality of sperm by reducing the length of time they were exposed to potentially damaging molecules called reactive oxygen species in the testicular ducts. ( reuters.com )

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Boy Stuck With 42 Needles in Rituals

Boy Stuck With 42 Needles in Rituals — The stepfather of a 2-year-old boy claimed he pushed 42 "blessed" sewing needles deep into the toddler because his lover told him to while in a trance, saying it would keep the couple together, according to police.

Roberto Carlos Magalhaes, a 30-year-old bricklayer, told detectives the woman would enter a trance and "command him to stick the needles in the boy's body," police inspector Helder Fernandes Santana told The Associated Press by telephone.

AP Photo/Agencia O Globo

In this frame taken from a TV Globo video, a person points at a X-ray of a 2-year-old boy showing needles inside his body in a hospital in Ibotirama.

The lover, Angelina Ribeiro dos Santos, paid to have the needles measuring up to 2 inches blessed by a woman who practiced the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomble, and convinced Magalhaes that inserting them into the boy would somehow allow them to be together, Santana said.

Police, however, believe Dos Santos was out for revenge on the boy's mother, though they did not say why.

"According to his confession, he acted under influence of the woman, but it was he who stuck the needles in the boy's body," the inspector said.

The child was airlifted to a hospital in northeastern Brazil on Thursday because two of the needles inside him were close to his heart, but it was not immediately clear when doctors might be able to remove them. The boy was in stable condition after the 240-mile flight to the coastal city of Salvador.

Surgeons in the city of Barreiras in Bahia state, where the boy had been hospitalized since Sunday, had decided not to try to remove any needles immediately for fear they could cause more damage.

Hospital spokeswoman Susy Moreno said an evaluation of when to perform surgery on the boy probably would not be finished until Friday. He was in an intensive care unit but was conscious.

Magalhaes and dos Santos were both arrested, though no charges have yet been filed.

Dos Santos is not believed to be a member of any religious or occult group, and authorities believe she came up with the idea of the rituals on her own, Santana said.

The two were taken to an undisclosed lockup for their own protection after a mob threw stones at the police station where they were being held in the small northeastern city of Ibotirama. It was not immediately clear whether they had legal representation.

Authorities also detained the woman who blessed the needles so she could be questioned, but Santana said he expects she will be released without charge because she did not know how they were being used.

The boy's mother, a maid, took him to a hospital in Ibotirama, population about 25,000, on Dec. 10, saying he was complaining of pain.

After X-rays revealed the cause, the mother told police she didn't know how the needles got inside her son, whose name was not released because of his age.

Police and doctors concluded it would have been impossible for the boy to have ingested the needles — which have been also been found in a lung, his left leg and spread throughout his abdomen.

Afro-Brazilian religions practiced in Brazil have no ceremonies, rituals or practices involving harm to people, said Nelson Inocencio, director of African-Brazilian studies at the University of Brasilia.

He worried that the incident could hurt the image of the religions, of which Candomble is the most popular, and concentrated most in Bahia state.

"What happened to this boy without a doubt could feed into the prejudice against Afro-Brazilian traditions," he said. ( foxnews.com )

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Doctors Can't Remove Needles Stuck Near Boy's Heart

Doctors Can't Remove Needles Stuck Near Boy's Heart — The stepfather of a 2-year-old boy found with 42 needles in his body has confessed to jabbing them into the toddler as part of a religious ritual, Brazilian police said Thursday.

Roberto Carlos Magalhaes told detectives that a woman who went into a trance would "command him to stick the needles in the boy's body," police inspector Helder Fernandes Santana said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

AP Photo/Agencia O Globo

In this frame taken from a TV Globo video, a person points at a X-ray of a 2-year-old boy showing needles inside his body in a hospital in Ibotirama.

"According to his confession, he acted under influence of the woman, but it was him who stuck the needles in the boy's body," the inspector said. He said three people, including the stepfather and the woman, have been arrested, though no charges have yet been filed.

An enraged crowd of more than 100 people surrounded the police station where the suspects were held Wednesday night, hurling rocks at the building. Santana said they broke out a window of his own car because they wrongly believed the suspects were in it.

Extra police were called in to restore order and protect the suspects.

The child, meanwhile, was airlifted to the heart unit of a major hospital in northeastern Brazil Thursday because two of the needles are close to his heart, but it was not immediately clear when doctors might be able to remove them.

Surgeons at a hospital in the town of Barreiras in Bahia state, where the boy had been hospitalized since Sunday had decided not to try to remove any needles immediately for fear they could cause more damage.

Doctors located 42 needles in the boy, who was in stable condition in the coastal city of Salvador after a 240-mile (390-kilometer) flight to a hospital with a special heart unit.

Hospital spokeswoman Susy Moreno said an evaluation of how to treat the boy probably would not be finished until Friday.

The boy's mother, a maid, took him to a hospital in the small northeastern city of Ibotirama on Dec. 10, saying he was complaining of pain. Three days later, after X-rays revealed many of the needles, doctors moved him to the larger hospital in the nearby city of Barreiras.

The mother told police she didn't know how the needles got inside her son, whose name was not released because of his age.

The boy's father, Gessivaldo Alves, told the newspaper A Tarde that he believed his son could have been a victim of a black magic ritual. Alves reportedly said he visited the home where the boy was living and found unspecified items that could be used for black magic.

Santana said police are investigating to determine what sort of religious sect the stepfather and the women belonged to.

One of the doctors who treated the child, Luiz Cesar Soltoski, said he believed that the needles were stuck into the child's body one by one.

"We think it could have only been by penetration because we found needles in the lung, the left leg and in different parts of the thorax. It couldn't have been by ingestion," Soltoski said.

Doctors found no signs of outside wounds on the boy. X-ray images carried by Brazilian Web sites clearly showed some of the needles deep inside his body ( foxnews.com )

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Doctors Treating Brazilian Toddler With 50 Sewing Needles Stuck in Body

Doctors Treating Brazilian Toddler With 50 Sewing Needles Stuck in Body — A 2-year-old Brazilian boy has as many as 50 metal sewing needles inside his body and a doctor treating the boy said Wednesday they were apparently stuck there one by one.

Dr. Luiz Cesar Soltoski told The Associated Press that surgeons hope to remove most of the needles — some as long as 2 inches (5 centimeters) — but because some are stuck in his lungs, they have to wait until the child's breathing improves.

AP Photo/Agencia O Globo

In this frame taken from a TV Globo video, a person points at a X-ray of a 2-year-old boy showing needles inside his body in a hospital in Ibotirama.

Some cannot be removed; they are too close to vital organs or actually inside them, Soltoski said.

The boy's mother, a maid, brought him to a hospital in the small northeastern city of Ibotirama on Thursday, saying he was complaining of pain. Three days later, after X-rays revealed some of the needles, doctors had him shifted to a larger hospital in Barreiras.

The mother told police she doesn't know how the needles got inside her son, but police have opened an investigation. The boy's name was withheld because of his age.

Soltoski said he believes the needles were stuck into his body one by one because it would have been impossible for him to swallow them.

"We think it could have only been by penetration because we found needles in the lung, the left leg and in different parts of the thorax. It couldn't have been by ingestion," Soltoski said.

Doctors found no signs of outside wounds the boy, but X-ray images carried by Brazilian Web sites clearly showed some of the needles inside his body.

The boy is in intensive care, but Soltoski said his condition has improved since he was admitted. ( foxnews.com )

READ MORE - Doctors Treating Brazilian Toddler With 50 Sewing Needles Stuck in Body

Doctors Preparing to Extract Needles From Brazilian Toddler

Doctors Preparing to Extract Needles From Brazilian Toddler — Doctors prepared Friday to perform emergency surgery on a Brazilian toddler to remove some of the 42 sewing needles that were allegedly inserted into him by his stepfather during a series of bizarre rituals.

Surgeons in the northeastern city of Salvador plan to take out a needle that punctured the 2-year-old boy's heart and others threatening vital organs, said Susy Moreno, a spokeswoman at the hospital where the boy is being treated in the northeastern city of Salvador.

AP

Dec. 17: A 2-year-old boy, found with 42 needles inside his body, arrives to a hospital in northeastern Brazil.

Police say the boy's stepfather confessed to pushed 42 supposedly "blessed" sewing dneedles deep into the child because his lover told him to while in trances. The rituals were performed over a period of a month to try to keep the couple together, the stepfather told police.

Roberto Carlos Magalhaes, a 30-year-old bricklayer, told detectives the woman would enter into trances and "command him to stick the needles in the boy's body," police inspector Helder Fernandes Santana told The Associated Press by telephone.

The lover, Angelina Ribeiro dos Santos, paid to have the needles measuring up to 2 inches (5 centimeters) blessed by a woman who practiced the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomble, and convinced Magalhaes that inserting them into the boy would somehow allow them to be together, Santana said.

Police, however, believe Dos Santos was out for revenge on the boy's mother, though they did not say why.

"According to his confession, he acted under influence of the woman, but it was he who stuck the needles in the boy's body," the inspector said.

Magalhaes and dos Santos were both arrested, though no charges have yet been filed.

Dos Santos is not believed to be a member of any religious or occult group, and authorities believe she came up with the idea of the rituals on her own, Santana said.

The two were taken to an undisclosed lockup for their own protection after a mob threw stones at the police station where they were being held. It was not immediately clear whether they had legal representation.

Authorities also detained the woman who blessed the needles so she could be questioned, but Santana said he expects she will be released without charge because she did not know how they were being used.

The boy's mother, a maid, took him to a hospital in the town of Ibotirama on Dec. 10, saying he was complaining of pain.

After X-rays revealed the cause, the mother told police she didn't know how the needles got inside her son, whose name was not released because of his age. The boy was later transferred for more advanced evaluation at a much larger hospital in the coastal city of Salvador.

Police and doctors concluded it would have been impossible for the boy to have ingested the needles — which have also been found in a lung, in his left leg and spread throughout his abdomen.

Afro-Brazilian religions practiced in Brazil have no ceremonies, rituals or practices involving harm to people, said Nelson Inocencio, director of African-Brazilian studies at the University of Brasilia.

He worried that the incident could hurt the image of the religions, of which Candomble is the most popular, and concentrated most in Bahia state.

"What happened to this boy without a doubt could feed into the prejudice against Afro-Brazilian traditions," he said. ( foxnews.com )

READ MORE - Doctors Preparing to Extract Needles From Brazilian Toddler

Brazil Man Says Needles Were Meant to Kill Stepson

Brazil Man Says Needles Were Meant to Kill Stepson - The 2-year-old boy who had nearly three dozen sewing needles shoved into his body by his stepfather is expected to undergo another surgery this week, doctors said Monday.

A day after a jailed Brazilian man admitted in a television interview he wanted to kill the boy to spite his wife, doctors said they will try to remove three needles from the boy's abdominal region on Wednesday.

AP
Dec. 17: A 2-year-old boy, found with 42 needles inside his body, arrives to a hospital in northeastern Brazil.

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The boy is recovering well from a five-hour operation Friday to remove four rusty needles that were near his heart and in his lungs.

He is expected to undergo a third surgery in the near future at the Ana Nery hospital where he is being treated in the northeastern city of Salvador, said hospital spokeswoman Susy Moreno.

Speaking from his cell phone Sunday, 30-year-old bricklayer Roberto Carlos Magalhaes told how he doped the child with wine mixed in water, then stuck needles into his body while his lover held the boy down.

"I did this two or three times a week during one month," Magalhaes said in an interview with Globo TV's "Fantastico" program from a jail in the northeastern state of Bahia.

The boy was too drunk from the wine mixture to cry while the needles were being pushed in, but he felt pain after the alcohol wore off, Magalhaes said.

"It was truly an unbearable suffering," he said. "It was to get back at the boy's mother. I thought the needles would work their way through his body and kill the boy. It was a way to kill without anyone discovering."

But the pain led the toddler to complain to his mother, and on Dec. 10 she took him to a hospital where X-rays revealed about 30 needles lodged throughout his body.

Moreno said hundreds of people across Brazil had contacted the facility to inquire about the boy.

"Many people are coming by to bring Christmas presents," she said. "Many are also calling us to express their outrage. ... The support has been incredible."

Along with Magalhaes, police believe his lover, Angelina Ribeiro dos Santos, was also seeking revenge on Magalhaes' wife.

The bricklayer told detectives that dos Santos would enter into trances and give him commands to insert the needles, police inspector Helder Fernandes Santana said.

Magalhaes and dos Santos were both arrested, though no charges had been filed. They were taken to an undisclosed location for their own protection after a mob threw stones at the police station where they were being held.

Dos Santos is not believed to be a member of any religious or occult group, and authorities believe the pair came up with the idea on their own.

The boy's name is not being released because of his age.

Local media reported Monday that another 2-year-old boy was being treated in the northern state of Maranhao after having nine needles found in his body. Police were investigating the circumstances of the case. ( foxnews.com )

READ MORE - Brazil Man Says Needles Were Meant to Kill Stepson

Aussies would give up sex before internet

Aussies would give up sex before internet. Victorians would give up sex, partner or car before internet. It's official - Victorians simply can't live without the internet.

A new survey shows most of the state would give up sex, our car or even our partner before surrendering the beloved internet.

When given a list of things they could survive without for a month, seven out of 10 Victorians said they would rather give up their partner than their internet - higher than the national average, the Herald Sun reports.

Victorians also claimed they could give up chocolate or their daily coffee in favour of the worldwide web.

Some respondents also claimed they could give up chocolate or their daily coffee in favour of the worldwide web / File

The list of things they were asked to rank in order included sex, their car, mobile phone, annual overseas holiday and landline telephone.

Internet users in NSW, South Australia and Queensland were less likely to trade their partner for the net.

Victorian families have doubled and even tripled their internet usage in the past five years, the Optus Family Communication Survey reveals.

But only 26 per cent is reserved for work or study.

The rest is spent browsing entertainment sites or social sites for personal reasons.

It revealed kids aged 10 to 17 are twice as likely to use the internet as a gateway for social networking than as a tool to help with their homework.

Asked how the internet improved the quality of their family life, nine out of 10 Victorians said it was the best way of obtaining new information.

Eight out of 10 prized it for cheap and effective communication, while others love its ability to let them work from home. / news.com.au

READ MORE - Aussies would give up sex before internet

Children at risk as they slip through net

Children at risk as they slip through net. Children as young as five are surfing the net unsupervised, raising fears they could fall prey to pedophiles.

A study also found the lives of today's tech-savvy kids are increasingly dominated by the internet and gadgets ranging from video game consoles to mobile phones at the expense of outdoor play.

The British research has parallels in Australia, with children as young as eight using the internet for an average of 33 minutes a day.

More than half of Aussie children aged between eight and 11 admit to using social networks such as Facebook and MySpace.

About 48 per cent of eight and nine-year-olds also claim to have personal information such as a photograph of themselves online.

The UK study carried out by media regulator OfCom, revealed one in five children aged 5-7 regularly used the internet alone without parental supervision and the figure was rising.

One in 10 own a mobile phone and half have a TV in their bedroom. Despite the increasing numbers of children surfing the web, a report released by the Australian Communications Media Authority in July revealed they have a high awareness of cyber safety risks and how to protect themselves online.

The report, Click and Connect - Young Australians' Use of Online Social Media, found 75 per cent of children claim they know not to reveal their address or phone number online.

The vice president of the Australian Council on Children and the Media, Elizabeth Handsley, said many parents' source of pride in their kids' computer literacy was misplaced.

"There are parents who think it's important for kids to be involved in the latest technology and show an interest in computers without the need to recognise they need to be supervised, especially young children,'' Ms Handsley said.

"If your seven-year-old girl came home with a 19-year-old boy, you wouldn't tell them to go off to her bedroom and play, would you?

"There needs to be that connection made in people's minds that you are doing the equivalent of that and possibly more, by saying to your young child 'go off into the bedroom and jump on to the computer'." / news.com.au

READ MORE - Children at risk as they slip through net