Can you imagine your toddler growing up to be 80? 90? 100? It’s not as unlikely as you think.

What a paradox. Children nowadays are purported to be unhealthy – overweight, sedentary, raised on junk food and hooked to the TV and the Internet. They are likely to develop diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. On the other hand, the same generation of children is expected to live longer than their parents and their grandparents, according to a study by German and Danish researchers. They are the future centenarians.

Which Countries Have the Highest Life Expectancy?

Life expectancy has been improving with each generation. At least in developed countries. Japan and San Marino have the highest life expectancies in the world today: 86 and 81, respectively according to a World Health Organization (WHO) report. Canada is not far behind at 80.5 years. US life expectancy is 78.5.

If this trend of improvement continues, 75% of present day children born since 2000 will reach 75, even a hundred years old. Furthermore, the senior citizens of the future will be fitter, with less disability and functional limitations.

Why Are People Living Longer?

Advances in medical treatment and better health care seem to be what is making people in developing countries live longer despite the increased incidence of chronic diseases, pollution, and unhealthy lifestyle.

With all the efforts exerted to fight aging, diseases, and disability, it is a great to know that these efforts are bearing fruit. There are still countries with a life expectancy between 40 and 50 years due to poor health care and war.

Some Downsides to Having an Older Population

Despite this apparent victory against aging, there are some downsides to consider:

• Increased life expectancy and low birth rates will result in a population dominated by retirees and pensioners. Experts believe that in 5 to 10 years, some countries’ demography will reach a point wherein there will be more 65 plus citizens than under-fives. It would be a world with more grandparents than there are grandchildren to go around.

• Such a population structure described above can result in collapse of health care and welfare systems of developed countries.

• Even if birth rates are increased, Mother Earth can only support so much. We may reach a point when our population will outgrow our planet.

Experts believe that country leaders should act now and start preparing for the foreseeable future.

Can you imagine your toddler to live to be 100? Do you want to live to be 100?

Choosing a doctor for your child is an important step to providing your child with quality health care. It can also be an overwhelming task.

The first thing is to find a doctor that participates in your particular health plan. I live in the United States where there seems to be numerous health care plans. Depending upon the plan offered by your particular employer, you may have an abundance of doctors to choose from, or you may just have a few. It’s important to call the doctor’s office to make sure that they are still participating in your particular insurance plan. Don’t trust the insurance company to have the most up to date information!

If you can, it’s helpful to find a doctor who has other partners in the practice. You can still choose one particular doctor to manage your child’s care, but it is nice to have other options if that particular doctor has a full schedule and your child is quite sick.

Some other things to ask about when looking for a doctor: does the office have extended hours? Do they have weekend and evening appointments? Is there a separate office for well child check ups? Can you schedule and appointment yourself, or must you go through a nurse triage line where the nurse determines if your child is sick enough for an appointment?

Lastly but certainly not the least to consider: is this particular office respectful to you? Do they value you as an important member of “the team”?

Finding the right doctor can be a lot of work, but the payoff for your labors is huge. When your child is sick or needs emergency care, you’ll be glad that you invested all that time finding the very best doctor to take care of your precious child.

My husband was almost 40 when our first child was born. Grandma and Grandpa were thrilled, but Grandma was shocked to find out that things had changed since her baby was a baby.

She was not amused.

Grandma was horrified when I chose to breastfeed my infant. She was aghast when I announced that I would not be mixing cereal in a bottle so that my son would sleep through the night when he was 4 weeks old. When I declined to bind his stomach so he wouldn’t get a hernia, she was downright concerned. Shortly thereafter, she began making daily visits to the house, I assume to check up on me and make sure her grandchild was doing alright.

I had discussed the above issues with the pediatrician who confirmed that parenting techniques have definitely changed in 40 years. When I chose to follow the advice of the pediatrician instead of listening to Grandma, Grandma was furious. What did a pediatrician know anyway?

She refused to read the literature I brought to her and declined to visit the pediatrician’s office with me to discuss her concerns with my son’s doctor at the next well baby visit. I have to admit, I was at a loss as to handling this situation.

My husband sat down with her and explained that her everyday visits were no longer welcome. She was welcome to come and visit once a week, with advance notice. If she wanted, she could take her grandson for a walk around the neighborhood in his stroller (one of her favorite activities). Finding the middle ground turned out to be a boon for our son and for our relationship with his Grandma. We could still have our boundaries, but we learned that including her in the process helped smooth out the rough spots along the way.

When we decided (along with the pediatrician’s ok) that it was time to begin solid foods, we called her to be present. She was thrilled to be able to feed her grandchild his second spoonful of solid foods. Because of issues with my older children, I needed for my son to be able to take a bottle as well as nurse. Grandma helped me by feeding him breast milk in a bottle because he refused to take a bottle from me. When I have to travel out of state or take my older children to specialist appointments, she is more than willing to keep our son at her house so he doesn’t have to travel with us. I appreciate that so much.

We still don’t agree on many issues, and I doubt that we will quite frankly. I’ve learned to pick my battles, hold firm to my boundaries, and communicate with her when something annoys me. Another thing that has helped immensely is reminding myself that although we see things differently, we both share one important thing: love for a special young boy. Love triumphs over details any day.

Health care is an important issue for parents, especially parents with newborns. What do you do if you find yourself without health care coverage?

When our son was first born, my husband retired from the military and we were without insurance for several months until his new civilian job picked up the coverage. The government claimed he didn?t have enough active duty time to qualify for health coverage after his retirement, and so we were left scrambling for coverage for our newborn.

I did check into purchasing an individual insurance policy for just our baby, which we tried to do. I say tried because he had a birthmark over his eye at birth, and the insurance agency refused to cover us because the birthmark might cause complications and require surgery (note, the birthmark is now gone). They listed the birthmark as a pre-existing condition.

If a simple birthmark can disqualify an otherwise healthy child, I wondered what we would do. Who exactly qualified for private insurance?

While I continued to check our options, I found out that the local health department provided free shots for our child and also that check ups could be scheduled with a private health clinic in our area. One of the local churches had a doctor who volunteered to do well baby check ups as well.

But what about if our child became sick and needed more than simple care? I found out that some doctors will accept self paying patients and, if asked, will even give a discount. Some doctors do not wish to see self paying patients either, so you may have to call around.

In some states, children under 1 year old regardless of income can qualify for Medicaid from the state. In other states, only children who meet certain guidelines are eligible. In some states, working parents who can not afford or are not offered health coverage by their employer can sign up for low cost insurance subsidized by the state. Again, depending up on the state you live in and how the program is funded, this may be offered to all children, or there may be a waiting list.

In order to find out what is available in your state and municipality, you can look in the blue pages of your phone book (if you live in the United States) for phone numbers to call for information on health care issues.

In our case, we were able to get by without any major issues until my husband?s employer offered us coverage. A week later, our previously healthy infant son had his first asthma attack, which ended up requiring a hospital stay and an ambulance ride to the hospital.

I?d encourage all parents who are without health care for their children to spend the time(and it does require a significant time investment) to make some phone calls and research the options available to your family. While we all hope that our children will be healthy and that they won?t have any medical issues, you just never know what might happen in the future. It?s best to be prepared and to be covered!

Only 12% of Americans can be considered as health literate, according a report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Health literate means having “the skills required to correctly complete health care-related activities like reading a prescription bottle, figuring out medication dosage, filling out forms or calculating insurance coverage.” according to a Reuters feature article.

This is really surprising considering the amount of information available on the Internet as well as all those health ads you see on TV. I am surprised, for example, to see advertisements of prescription drugs and medical devices on American TV, something that is not so common in Europe.

A 2003 survey categorized Americans into 4 health literacy categories: proficient, intermediate, basic and below basic. The result was quite troubling – 32% have some basic literacy while 14% ranked as below basic. Furthermore many of those with basic and below basic health literacy belong to cultural minorities and have no health insurance.

This lack of health literacy, thus basic health care is reflected in another health care report from Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC):

14.8% of Americans (43.6 million) have no health insurance. The majority of the people visiting a doctor’s office for regular check ups and screenings are those with private health insurance. However, people who are treated in emergency rooms tended to be those without health insurance.

This lack of basic knowledge of health care and medications costs money. The current cost estimate is between 106 billion and 236 billion US dollars. But I think that the cost in human lives is what counts. Stepping up on health literacy will surely save lives.

If I were an American, I would be loving Hillary Clinton just about now simply because of her comprehensive health care proposal that, even though a bit steeper on the pocket, is designed to benefit the entire populace. No man left behind, goes the grave motto of the Marines; I see in Senator Clinton’s health care plan the same spirit of providing adequate health care for everyone.

I am not an EU citizen. Neither am I a North American, Australian, or Japanese. As a citizen of the third world, I am almost always stopped at airport immigrations whenever I travel to the first world. This is just one of a thousand woes I have to deal with simply because the stars decreed that I be born in a country that still has a long way to go towards providing amply for its people.

The stars were aligned quite neatly when my husband was granted a scholarship by the Catholic University in Leuven some years back, with the opportunity for his wife and children to live with him while he completed his studies under their Family Regrouping Law. When my son and I followed my husband to Belgium, I was not thinking of the possible health dilemmas we could encounter while living abroad, this in spite of the fact that I am quite sickly and used to spending well over $25 a week (quite a lot for our local currency and my job as a teacher) in medicines and medical fees.

As residents of Belgium, I can say that we?ve been very blessed with all the benefits available to us, and I will enumerate some of them:

• 70-80% reimbursement of regular doctor?s check-ups and prescribed medication;
• 85% coverage for hospital and professional fees upon giving birth to my second child;
• 100% comprehensive coverage in case of accident or any medical ailment while traveling outside of Belgium.

My husband?s grant means that he is automatically enrolled into the university?s selected mutuality and my children and I are counted as his dependents. In the years we?ve lived in Belgium, I have fractured my knee, given birth, taken my children to the emergency room of hospitals, have had extensive dental work done, and bought many different kinds of medicines for every imaginable ailment. My husband teases me that I?ve maxed out our mutuality and all I can say is, ?It?s in the system, so I just use it!?

This article explains more fully the benefits available to foreigners who settle in Belgium. As a young mother and asthmatic, I can say that Belgium is a wonderful place to give birth and seek medical attention. The benefits are in place, all you need to do is know what they are and avail them when needed. Aren?t we just plain lucky?

I think that all parents have instinctively been given an internal warning system that alerts them when something is off with their child. What happens when your radar system alerts you that something major is not right?

When my oldest child was a baby, I had concerns. I just brushed them off (and so did my doctor) as “first time mom worries”. But, as she got older, and began to hit her milestones significantly later than her peers, my concerns increased. Due to numerous insurance changes, my daughter had seen a number of professionals who had snippets of the story, but not the whole story like I did. When she turned 3, I sat down to evaluate the facts objectively with a friend who had children of her own. It was after that meeting that I decided to begin looking for help for my daughter. Perhaps you are at that point now? Where do you begin and what do you do?

Easter Seals is a great place to start. They have offices in numerous states and locations. But suppose that there isn’t an office in your state? Check your city’s Social Services Department for resources. They may be listed under Mental Health or Mental Retardation or Early Intervention. The staff should be able to help you further.

Once you’ve made contact, you would begin by stating the reasons you are concerned about your child’s development. You may even want to write out a list of milestones and when your child reached that milestone.

An “intake evaluation” will be scheduled. You might meet with a caseworker or social worker to go over your child’s background. For example: was your baby premature, were there health problems during the pregnancy etc. Once the intake interview has been done, your child will be set up for evaluations by a multi-disciplinary team. Some examples of professionals on the team would be: social workers, speech pathologists, occupational therapists and physical therapists. According to law, agencies have 45 days from the time that the evaluation was requested until they do the evaluation unless they meet guidelines for extensions. Once the evaluations are done, the professionals will advise you of the percent delay that your child has and also make other recommendations as far as specialists for your child. An example of this might be seeing an optometrist for a full vision evaluation.

If your child is over 25% delayed in a certain area, the agency will come up with a plan to address those deficits.

Many of the agencies I dealt with also were helpful in dealing with financial concerns such affording therapy and products that your child might need to progress whether it be government assistance or other grants which will be of help.

Depending on the state you live in, your child may be eligible for government medical insurance (medical assistance) if they are disabled or have certain handicaps as either a primary or secondary insurance option. For children who have serious disabilities, you may want to consider SSI (like Social Security, but for disabled children) to assist with out of pocket expenses. Families are eligible for SSI if their children have specified disabilities and if their income and assets are not above a certain level.

It may also be helpful to find support from other parents who have been there. You can find support via the internet, or also through groups in your community. For example, our community has an autistic support group. I belong to a telephone support group for parents with children who have Retinitis Pigmentosa.

As a mom with two handicapped children herself, I know how hard it can be to find the resources you need for your child to succeed and grow. If you are reading this and you need help with the process, please post and I’ll do my best to help you!