Vitamins

Vitamins and minerals are substances that are found in foods we eat. Your body needs them to work properly, so you grow and develop just like you should. When it comes to vitamins, each one has a special role to play. For example:

• Vitamin D in milk helps your bones.
• Vitamin A in carrots helps you see at night.
• Vitamin C in oranges helps your body heal if you get a cut.
• B vitamins in leafy green vegetables help your body make protein and energy.

Vitamins Hang Out in Water and Fat

There are two types of vitamins: fat soluble and water soluble.

When you eat foods that contain fat-soluble vitamins, the vitamins are stored in the fat tissues in your body and in your liver. They wait around in your body fat until your body needs them.

Fat-soluble vitamins are happy to stay stored in your body for awhile — some stay for a few days, some for up to 6 months! Then, when it's time for them to be used, special carriers in your body take them to where they're needed. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are all fat-soluble vitamins.

Water-soluble vitamins are different. When you eat foods that have water-soluble vitamins, the vitamins don't get stored as much in your body. Instead, they travel through your bloodstream. Whatever your body doesn't use comes out when you urinate (pee).

So these kinds of vitamins need to be replaced often because they don't stick around! This crowd of vitamins includes vitamin C and the big group of B vitamins — B1 (thiamin), B2 (riboflavin), niacin, B6 (pyridoxine), folic acid, B12 (cobalamine), biotin, and pantothenic acid.

Vitamins Feed Your Needs

Your body is one powerful machine, capable of doing all sorts of things by itself. But one thing it can't do is make vitamins. That's where food comes in. Your body is able to get the vitamins it needs from the foods you eat because different foods contain different vitamins. The key is to eat different foods to get an assortment of vitamins. Though some kids take a daily vitamin, most kids don't need one if they're eating a variety of healthy foods.

Now, let's look more closely at vitamins — from A to K:

Vitamin A

This vitamin plays a really big part in eyesight. It's great for night vision, like when you're trick-or-treating on Halloween. Vitamin A helps you see in color, too, from the brightest yellow to the darkest purple. In addition, it helps you grow properly and aids in healthy skin.

Which foods are rich in vitamin A?

• milk fortified with vitamin A
• liver
• orange fruits and vegetables (like cantaloupe, carrots, sweet potatoes)
• dark green leafy vegetables (like kale, collards, spinach)

The B Vitamins

There's more than one B vitamin. Here's the list: B1, B2, B6, B12, niacin, folic acid, biotin, and pantothenic acid. Whew — that's quite a group!

The B vitamins are important in metabolic (say: meh-tuh-bah-lik) activity — this means that they help make energy and set it free when your body needs it. So the next time you're running to third base, thank those B vitamins. This group of vitamins is also involved in making red blood cells, which carry oxygen throughout your body. Every part of your body needs oxygen to work properly, so these B vitamins have a really important job.

Which foods are rich in vitamin B?

• whole grains, such as wheat and oats
• fish and seafood
• poultry and meats
• eggs
• dairy products, like milk and yogurt
• leafy green vegetables
• beans and peas

Vitamin C

This vitamin is important for keeping body tissues, such as gums and muscles in good shape. C is also key if you get a cut or wound because it helps you heal. This vitamin also helps your body resist infection. This means that even though you can't always avoid getting sick, vitamin C makes it a little harder for your body to become infected with an illness.

Which foods are rich in vitamin C?

• citrus fruits, like oranges
• cantaloupe
• strawberries
• tomatoes
• broccoli
• cabbage
• kiwi fruit
• sweet red peppers

Vitamin D

No bones about it . . . vitamin D is the vitamin you need for strong bones! It's also great for forming strong teeth. Vitamin D even lends a hand to an important mineral — it helps your body absorb the amount of calcium it needs.

Which foods are rich in vitamin D?

• milk fortified with vitamin D
• fish
• egg yolks
• liver
• fortified cereal

Vitamin E

Everybody needs E. This hard-working vitamin maintains a lot of your body's tissues, like the ones in your eyes, skin, and liver. It protects your lungs from becoming damaged by polluted air. And it is important for the formation of red blood cells.

Which foods are rich in vitamin E?

• whole grains, such as wheat and oats
• wheat germ
• leafy green vegetables
• sardines
• egg yolks
• nuts and seeds

Vitamin K

Vitamin K is the clotmaster! Remember the last time you got a cut? Your blood did something special called clotting. This is when certain cells in your blood act like glue and stick together at the surface of the cut to help stop the bleeding.

Which foods are rich in vitamin K?

• leafy green vegetables
• dairy products, like milk and yogurt
• broccoli
• soybean oil

When your body gets this vitamin and the other ones it needs, you'll be feeling OK!

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Minerals

Just like vitamins, minerals help your body grow, develop, and stay healthy. The body uses minerals to perform many different functions - from building strong bones to transmitting nerve impulses. Some minerals are even used to make hormones or maintain a normal heartbeat.

Macro and Trace

There are two kinds of minerals: macrominerals and trace minerals. Macro means "large" in Greek (and your body needs larger amounts of macrominerals than trace minerals). The macromineral group is made up of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, potassium, chloride, and sulfur.

A trace of something means that there is only a little of it. So even though your body needs trace minerals, it needs just a tiny bit of each one. Scientists aren't even sure how much of these minerals you need each day. Trace minerals includes iron, manganese, copper, iodine, zinc, cobalt, fluoride, and selenium.

Let's take a closer look at some of the minerals you get from food.

Calcium

Calcium is the top macromineral when it comes to your bones. This mineral helps build strong bones, so you can do everything from standing up straight to scoring that winning goal. It also helps build strong, healthy teeth, for chomping on tasty food.

Which foods are rich in calcium?

• dairy products, such as milk, cheese, and yogurt
• canned salmon and sardines with bones
• leafy green vegetables, such as broccoli
• calcium-fortified foods - from orange juice to cereals and crackers

Iron

The body needs iron to transport oxygen from your lungs to the rest of your body. Your entire body needs oxygen to stay healthy and alive. Iron helps because it's important in the formation of hemoglobin (say: hee-muh-glo-bun), which is the part of your red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body.

Which foods are rich in iron?

• meat, especially red meat, such as beef
• tuna and salmon
• eggs
• beans
• baked potato with skins
• dried fruits, like raisins
• leafy green vegetables, such as broccoli
• whole and enriched grains, like wheat or oats

Potassium

Potassium (say: puh-tah-see-um) keeps your muscles and nervous system working properly. Did you know your blood and body tissues, such as muscles, contain water? They do, and potassium helps make sure the amount of water is just right.

Which foods are rich in potassium?

• bananas
• broccoli
• tomatoes
• potatoes with skins
• leafy green vegetables, such as broccoli
• citrus fruits, like oranges
• dried fruits
• legumes, such as beans, peas, lentils, and peanuts

Zinc

Zinc helps your immune system, which is your body's system for fighting off illnesses and infections. It also helps with cell growth and helps heal wounds, such as cuts.

Which foods are rich in zinc?

• beef
• pork
• lamb
• legumes, such as beans, peas, lentils, and peanuts

When people don't get enough of these important minerals, they can have health problems. For instance, too little calcium - especially when you're a kid - can lead to weaker bones. Some kids may take mineral supplements, but most kids don't need them if they eat a nutritious diet. So eat those minerals and stay healthy!

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Cancer

Cancer is a scary word. Almost everyone knows someone who got very sick or died from cancer. Most of the time, cancer affects older people. Not many kids get cancer, but when they do, very often it can be treated and cured.

What Is Cancer?

Cancer is actually a group of many related diseases that all have to do with cells. Cells are the very small units that make up all living things, including the human body. There are billions of cells in each person's body.

Cancer happens when cells that are not normal grow and spread very fast. Normal body cells grow and divide and know to stop growing. Over time, they also die. Unlike these normal cells, cancer cells just continue to grow and divide out of control and don't die.

Cancer cells usually group or clump together to form tumors (say: too-mers). A growing tumor becomes a lump of cancer cells that can destroy the normal cells around the tumor and damage the body's healthy tissues. This can make someone very sick.

Sometimes cancer cells break away from the original tumor and travel to other areas of the body, where they keep growing and can go on to form new tumors. This is how cancer spreads. The spread of a tumor to a new place in the body is called metastasis (say: meh-tas-tuh-sis).

Causes of Cancer

You probably know a kid who had chickenpox - maybe even you. But you probably don't know any kids who've had cancer. If you packed a large football stadium with kids, probably only one child in that stadium would have cancer.

Doctors aren't sure why some people get cancer and others don't. They do know that cancer is not contagious. You can't catch cancer from someone else who has it. Cancer isn't caused by germs, like colds or the flu are. So don't be afraid of other kids - or anyone else - with cancer. You can talk to, play with, and hug someone with cancer.

Kids can't get cancer from anything they do either. Some kids think that a bump on the head causes brain cancer or that bad people get cancer. This isn't true! Kids don't do anything wrong to get cancer. But some unhealthy habits, especially cigarette smoking or drinking too much alcohol every day, can make you a lot more likely to get cancer when you become an adult.

Finding Out About Cancer

It can take a while for a doctor to figure out a kid has cancer. That's because the symptoms cancer can cause - weight loss, fevers, swollen glands, or feeling overly tired or sick for a while - are usually not caused by cancer. When a kid has these problems, it's often cased by something less serious, like an infection. With medical testing, the doctor can figure out what's causing the trouble.

If the doctor suspects cancer, he or she can do tests to figure out if that's the problem. A doctor might order X-rays and blood tests and recommend the person go to see an oncologist (say: on-kah-luh-jist). An oncologist is a doctor who takes care of and treats cancer patients. The oncologist will likely run other tests to find out if someone really has cancer. If so, tests can determine what kind of cancer it is and if it has spread to other parts of the body. Based on the results, the doctor will decide the best way to treat it.

One test that an oncologist (or a surgeon) may perform is a biopsy (say: by-op-see). During a biopsy, a piece of tissue is removed from a tumor or a place in the body where cancer is suspected, like the bone marrow. Don't worry - someone getting this test will get special medicine to keep him or her comfortable during the biopsy. After the sample is collected, it will be examined under a microscope for cancer cells. The sooner cancer is found and treatment begins, the better someone's chances are for a full recovery and cure.

Treating Cancer Carefully

Cancer is treated with surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation - or sometimes a combination of these treatments. The choice of treatment depends on:

• the type of cancer someone has (the kind of abnormal cells causing the cancer)
• the stage of the tumor (meaning how much the cancer has spread within the body, if at all)

Surgery is the oldest form of treatment for cancer. Three out of every five people with cancer will have an operation to remove the cancer. During surgery, the doctor tries to take out as many cancer cells as possible. Some healthy cells or tissue may also be removed to make sure that all the cancer is gone.

Chemotherapy (say: kee-mo-ther-uh-pee) is the use of anti-cancer medicines (drugs) to treat cancer. These medicines are sometimes taken as a pill, but are usually given through a special intravenous (say: in-truh-vee-nus) line, also called an IV. An IV is a tiny catheter (straw-like tube) that is put into a vein through someone's skin, usually on the arm. The catheter is attached to a bag that holds the medicine. The medicine flows from the bag into a vein, which puts the medicine into the blood, where it can travel throughout the body and attack cancer cells.

Chemotherapy is usually given over a number of weeks to months. Often, a permanent catheter is placed under the skin into a larger blood vessel of the upper chest. This way, a person can easily get several courses of chemotherapy and other medicines through this catheter without having a new IV needle put in. The catheter remains under the skin until all the cancer treatment is completed.

Radiation (say: ray-dee-ay-shun) therapy uses high-energy waves, such as X-rays (invisible waves that can pass through most parts of the body), to damage and destroy cancer cells. It can cause tumors to shrink and even go away completely. Radiation therapy is one of the most common treatments for cancer. Many people with cancer find it goes away after receiving radiation treatments.

With both chemotherapy and radiation, kids may experience side effects. A side effect is an extra problem that's caused by the treatment. Radiation and anti-cancer drugs are very good at destroying cancer cells, but unfortunately they also destroy healthy cells. This can cause problems such as loss of appetite, tiredness, vomiting, or hair loss. With radiation, a person might have red or irritated skin in the area that's being treated. But all these problems go away and hair grows back after the treatment is over. During the treatment, there are medicines that can help a kid feel better.

While treatment is still going on, a kid might not be able to attend school or be around crowds of people - the kid needs to rest and can't risk getting infections, such as the flu, when he or she already isn't feeling well.

Getting Better

Remission (say: ree-mih-shun) is a great word for anyone who has cancer. It means all signs of cancer are gone from the body. After surgery or treatment with radiation or chemotherapy, a doctor will then do tests to see if the cancer is still there. If there are no signs of cancer, then the kid is in remission.

Remission is the goal when any kid with cancer goes to the hospital for treatment. Sometimes, this means additional chemotherapy might be needed for a while to keep cancer cells from coming back. And luckily, for many kids, continued remission is the very happy end of their cancer experience.

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Scoliosis

Your spine, or backbone, helps hold your body upright. Without it, you couldn't walk, run, or play sports. If you look at yourself sideways in the mirror or look at a friend from the side, you'll notice that the back isn't flat like a piece of board. Instead, it curves in and out between your neck and lower back. Despite that gentle curve, a healthy spine appears to run straight down the middle of the back. The trouble for someone with scoliosis is that the spine curves from side to side.

What Is Scoliosis?

The word scoliosis (say: sko-lee-oh-sus) comes from a Greek word meaning crooked. If you have scoliosis, you're not alone. About 3 out of every 100 people have some form of scoliosis, though for many people it's not much of a problem. For a small number of people, the curve gets worse as they grow and they may need a brace or an operation to correct it.

Someone with scoliosis may have a back that curves like an "S" or a "C." It may or may not be noticeable to others. While small curves generally do not cause problems, larger curves can cause discomfort. The X-ray image to the right shows what scoliosis looks like.

No one knows what causes the most common type of scoliosis called idiopathic (say: ih-dee-uh-pa-thik) scoliosis. (Idiopathic is a fancy word for unknown cause.) Doctors do know that scoliosis can run in families. So if a parent, sister, or brother had scoliosis, you might have it, too. Most types of scoliosis are more common in girls than boys, and girls with scoliosis are more likely to need treatment.

How Do Kids Find Out if They Have Scoliosis?

Sometimes scoliosis will be easily noticeable. A curved spine can cause someone's body to tilt to the left or right. Many kids with scoliosis have one shoulder blade that's higher than the other or an uneven waist with a tendency to lean to one side. These problems may be noticed when a kid is trying on new clothes. If one pant leg is shorter than the other, a kid might have scoliosis. It's also possible that the kid does not have scoliosis, but one leg may be slightly shorter than the other.

You might get examined for scoliosis at school or during a doctor visit. In the United States, about half of the states require public schools to test for scoliosis. It's an easy test called the forward-bending test, and it doesn't hurt at all. It involves bending over, with straight knees, and reaching your fingertips toward your feet or the floor. Then, a doctor or nurse will look at your back to see if your spine curves.

What if I Have It?

If a doctor says you have scoliosis, then the doctor and your parent can talk about whether treatment is necessary, and then talk to you about what happens next. If the doctor wants to get a better look, he or she may order X-rays of your spine. Sometimes the doctor will decide that the curve isn't serious enough to need treatment.

If you do need treatment, you'll go to a special doctor called an orthopedist (say: or-tho-pee-dist), or orthopedic surgeon, who knows a lot about bones and how to treat scoliosis. The orthopedist will probably start by figuring out how severe your spine's curve is. To do this, an orthopedist looks at X-rays and measures the spine's curve in degrees, like you measure angles in math class.

Someone who has a mild curve might just need regular checkups to make sure the curve isn't getting worse. Someone with a more severe curve may need to wear a brace or have an operation.

Treating Scoliosis With Braces

A brace will not permanently correct curves that are already there. A brace for scoliosis is meant to hold the spine in place so the curve doesn't get any worse. Some braces are made to be worn only at night and others are designed to be worn both day and night. If you need a brace, your doctor can discuss which type would be best for you. Braces are meant to be used while the spine is still growing, especially when it grows very fast during the "adolescent growth spurt." Therefore, a kid with scoliosis will spend less time in the brace as he or she gets older and gets closer to adult size. After the spine finishes growing, braces are no longer effective.

Doctors try to make better braces for kids with scoliosis, so braces now are lighter, more comfortable, and easier to wear than they used to be. There are many different types of braces. Kids with scoliosis often wear a brace called a thoracolumbosacral orthosis (say: tho-ra-ko-lum-bo-say-krul or-thoh-sus), or TLSO for short. This kind of brace comes up under the arms and is more comfortable than the bigger braces. Braces are usually named after the cities where they were invented and have names like the Boston brace, the Wilmington brace, the Providence brace, and the Charleston brace.

Treating Scoliosis With Surgery

Braces often do the job, but some kids who have scoliosis eventually need an operation. Someone who gets this operation will be given anesthesia, a kind of medicine that puts a person to sleep and prevents pain during the operation. During the operation, the orthopedic surgeon fuses the bones in the spine together so that they can no longer continue to curve. The surgeon also uses metal rods, hooks, screws, and wires to correct the curve and hold everything in line until the bones heal. The metal parts are placed deep under the spine muscles, and in most cases can't be felt and do not hurt. They are meant to be left in the back permanently.

The operation takes several hours, depending on how big the curve is and how many bones need to be fused. Normally, a kid who has this operation will be able to get out of bed the next day and start to walk, doesn't need to wear a cast or brace, and can usually go home in less than a week. The kid can usually go back to school about a month after surgery, then return to some activities in 3 or 4 months, and most normal activities after 6 to 12 months. But keep in mind that each patient's surgery and recovery might be different, depending on the type of surgery and the patient's age.

A metal rod in a kid's back? It may sound strange, but that rod has an important job while the bones are growing together. It holds the spine in place during healing. The kid can still move to pet the dog, swim laps, or shoot hoops. After the bones fuse, the metal rod isn't needed anymore. But it's not hurting anything, so it isn't removed. To remove it would mean getting another operation. Before they used metal rods, a kid would have to wear a body cast for up to a year to keep the spine in place during the recovery period. No fun at all!

Over the years, the treatments have improved, so more and more kids with scoliosis live normal lives. There are no activity restrictions for patients with scoliosis unless they have to have surgery. There are no activities, including sports, that doctors know about that can make scoliosis worse. A kid with scoliosis who has to have surgery should talk to a doctor about how to participate safely in activities. Scoliosis may throw you a curve, but with the right care, a kid can grow up healthy and feeling fine.

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Hemophilia

Hemophilia (say: hee-muh-fih-lee-uh) is a genetic disorder in which a person's blood does not clot properly. "Hemo" means blood and "philia" means a tendency toward. A person who has hemophilia has a tendency to bleed excessively. Think of the last time you had a cut or scrape. When the bleeding stops on its own, you're seeing clotting in action.

A Bit About Blood

If your blood is clotting normally, your body naturally protects itself. Platelets, which are "sticky cells," go to where the bleeding occurs and cover the hole, plugging it up. This is the first step in the clotting process. When the platelets plug the hole, they release chemicals that attract more sticky platelets and also activate various clotting factors, which are proteins in the blood.

These proteins mix with the platelets to form fibers, which make the clot stronger and stop the bleeding. Our bodies have clotting factors that work together to make fibrinogen (say: fy-brih-nuh-jun), the substance that makes the fibers. Trouble begins if the body is missing one of these factors.

A person can have one of two types of hemophilia, A or B. It depends on which clotting factor they are low on. If someone produces 1% or less of the affected factor, the case of hemophilia is called severe. Someone who produces 2% to 5% has a moderate case, and someone who produces 6% to 50% of the affected factor level is considered to have a mild case of hemophilia.

Why Do Kids Get Hemophilia?

Hemophilia almost always affects boys. Why? Because the disease is an X-linked genetic disorder, passed from mother to son. Boys get an X chromosome (say: kro-muh-soam) from their mother and a Y chromosome from their father. If the mother carries the gene for hemophilia on one of her X chromosomes (girls have two X chromosomes), each of her sons will have a 50% chance of having hemophilia.

A mother who is a carrier also has a 50% chance of giving the faulty X chromosome to her daughter. That does not give the daughter the hemophilia disease, but it does result in the daughter becoming a hemophilia carrier. So it's possible one of her sons someday could have the disease.

How Do Doctors Know a Kid Has Hemophilia?

Doctors may find out that a baby has hemophilia if he bruises easily or bleeds a lot after getting a cut. Another sign is swelling in a baby's joints. Babies who are learning to crawl usually bump into things, but ordinarily this doesn't cause swelling in their joints. If they do, it's a tip-off that there may be bleeding in the joints, which usually doesn't happen from normal activities or minor bumps.

Doctors will ask parents questions and do some blood tests to figure out whether the baby might have hemophilia. There is also a blood test that can be done to determine if the mother is a carrier.

What Do Doctors Do?

Even kids with severe hemophilia often live long and healthy lives. A cut or minor wound is usually no big deal for a person with hemophilia, but internal bleeding can be serious. When bleeding occurs in the joints, muscles, or internal body organs, treatment is necessary. Patients with more serious cases of hemophilia often get regular shots of the factor that they're missing to prevent bleeding episodes. Kids with moderate or mild cases of hemophilia usually don't need these shots unless they have a more serious injury or require surgery.

Scientists are working on developing gene therapy for people with hemophilia. Gene therapy is an experimental technique that tries to provide the body with the genetic information it doesn't have. Hemophilia is considered a good test for gene therapy because it is caused by only one defective gene. It could be a way to change the way someone's body works so that the body can produce the missing clotting factors on its own.

How Kids With Hemophilia Can Stay Healthy

Life for a kid with hemophilia is much like life for any other kid. However, these kids need to take a few precautions. For instance, a kid with hemophilia who doesn't feel well should not take any product that contains aspirin, ibuprofen, or naproxen sodium. These medications make people without hemophilia bleed for a longer time, so they are a bad idea for anyone with the disease.

Heavy contact sports like wrestling, football, and hockey can be dangerous and are generally not safe for kids with hemophilia. Team sports, such as soccer, basketball, or baseball, present a higher risk for kids with hemophilia but are not off-limits.

But sports are encouraged for kids with hemophilia because exercise makes muscles stronger, which protects the joints. Weak muscles don't support the joints as well, making bleeding episodes more frequent. Kids and their parents should talk with the doctor about choosing a sport, but swimming, running, and bicycling are often recommended. So if you have a friend who has hemophilia, maybe the two of you can get out there for some splashing, dashing, and biking!

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Mental retardation

There's a kid at school who seems different. You've heard people say he has mental retardation (say: ree-tar-day-shun), but what does that mean?

What Is Mental Retardation?

To understand mental retardation, it helps to know what intelligence (say: in-tel-uh-jents) is. Intelligence is a way of describing someone's ability to think, learn, and solve problems. Mental retardation means that someone has lower than average intelligence.

The person may have trouble learning and might need longer to learn social skills, such as how to be friends or how to communicate with others. People with mental retardation also might be less able to care for themselves or unable to live on their own as adults.

Sometimes kids who have mental retardation get teased or bullied. This is especially sad because these kids really need friends and people who will be kind to them. Just because they have learning problems doesn't mean they don't have feelings! Just like you, these kids want to be liked and to have fun at school.

During school, a kid with mental retardation will probably need help. Some kids have aides that stay with them during the school day. Special education and other services are available to help with learning and behavior.

They can also receive help in learning "life skills." Life skills are the skills people need to take care of themselves as they get older, such as how to ride a public bus to get to work. More and more, people with mental retardation are able to have jobs and to live independently.

What Causes Mental Retardation?

Mental retardation is not a disease itself. It occurs when something injures the brain or a problem prevents the brain from developing normally. Many times we don't know why a person has mental retardation. These problems can happen while the baby is growing inside his or her mom, during the baby's birth, or after the baby is born.

While a Baby Is Growing

If a pregnant mom gets certain infections or sicknesses, it can cause problems with the baby, such as mental retardation. Some medicines, which are OK to take when a woman is not pregnant, can cause serious problems if a woman takes them when she is going to have a baby. A woman also can put her baby at risk of mental retardation if she drinks alcohol or takes certain drugs during her pregnancy.

Problems with genes also can happen while the baby is growing inside the mom. Genes are in every cell and tell the cells what they are going to be and how the body is going to develop. Mental retardation is one problem that can be caused by genes. Children have a combination of genes from both their parents, so sometimes they receive genes that are abnormal or the genes change while the baby is developing.

During the Birth

If there is a problem during childbirth so that the baby's brain doesn't receive enough oxygen it can cause mental retardation.

After the Baby Is Born

Sometimes the baby is born without any problems, but he or she gets a serious infection as a young baby. This kind of infection can make a baby very sick and affect how the brain develops. A serious head injury also can cause mental retardation in a baby or an older kid.

How Do Doctors Know If Someone Has Mental Retardation?

Doctors figure out that a person has mental retardation by testing how well the person thinks and solves problems. If a baby or kid has mental retardation, doctors and other professionals can work with the family to decide what type of help is needed.

Can Mental Retardation Be Prevented?

Mental retardation can't always be prevented. However, a couple can have tests done to determine if they are at risk of having a child with certain medical conditions that may include mental retardation as part of the condition. When a woman is pregnant, it's important that she eats healthy foods and avoids alcohol and drugs. And after a baby is born, blood tests are done to check for certain problems. Some of these problems can cause mental retardation, but if they are treated right away, mental retardation can be prevented.

Also, it's important for kids to do what they can to prevent brain and head injuries. With babies, it's important that they are protected by car seats and that great care is used so that they don't fall from changing tables or other places. Older kids can protect themselves by wearing seat belts in the car and wearing helmets while riding bikes, in-line skating, or using scooters.

What's It Like to Have Mental Retardation?

Just like all kids, those with mental retardation want to develop their skills to the best of their abilities. They need to go to school, play, and feel support from loving families and good friends. What can you do? If you know someone who has mental retardation, be a friend!

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Cleft Lip and Palate

Open your mouth!. Do you see the seam on the roof of your mouth? Sometimes you can feel it with your finger or your tongue. That's where your palate grew together in the middle. You can see that the palate goes from behind your front teeth all the way to the back of your mouth.

The word cleft means a gap or split between two things. A cleft lip is a split in the upper lip. This can happen on one or two sides of the lip, creating a wider opening into the nose. A cleft palate is a split in the roof of the mouth. This leaves a hole between the nose and the mouth. Sometimes a cleft lip and cleft palate occur together in the same person. Cleft lip and cleft palate are very common and occur in about 1 or 2 of every 1,000 babies born in the United States each year.

How Does a Kid Get Cleft Lip or Cleft Palate?

Cleft lip and cleft palate are birth defects, which means they happen while a baby is developing inside his or her mother. Normally, the mouth and nose of a baby develop between the first 6 and 12 weeks of growth. In some babies, parts of the lips and roof of the mouth don't grow together. Because the lips and the palate develop separately, it's possible to have cleft lip, cleft palate, or both.

We don't always know why a particular baby has cleft lip or cleft palate. Sometimes the condition runs in families. This means that a person with cleft lip or cleft palate may have a relative with the same thing. Other times, cleft palate is part of a syndrome, meaning there are birth defects in other body parts, too. Sometimes a cleft may be related to what happened during a mother's pregnancy, like a medication she may have taken, a lack of certain vitamins, or exposure to cigarette smoke. Most of the time, however, the cause of the cleft is unknown and could not be prevented.

What Happens to a Kid With Cleft Lip or Cleft Palate?

A baby with cleft lip or cleft palate may have problems eating. This can be a big problem, especially for a newborn baby. Normally, the palate prevents food and liquids from going up your nose. When you swallow, the tongue presses up against the palate and pushes the chewed food to the back of your throat. Try swallowing slowly and you can feel your tongue touch your palate.

Have you ever laughed so hard while drinking milk that it came out of your nose? Because there is a hole between the nose and mouth in babies with a cleft palate, they have the same problem, but it can happen every time they drink and not just when they laugh. Fortunately, there are feeding specialists and special baby bottles that can help.

Kids with cleft palate can have hearing loss. This may be caused by fluid in the middle ear. Therefore, children with cleft palate should have their ears and hearing checked about once or twice a year. They usually need very small special tubes placed in their eardrums to help them hear better.

Dental problems involving the upper gum or palate often happen with clefts. These problems can include small teeth, missing teeth, extra teeth, or crooked teeth. All kids need to see the dentist regularly and keep their teeth clean. A kid with clefts might need to go to the orthodontist for braces, too, to make sure his or her teeth grow in straight.

Kids with cleft lip or cleft palate may also have problems with speech. When you talk, the muscles of your soft palate help to keep air from blowing out of your nose instead of your mouth. Kids with cleft palate find their soft palate sometimes does not move well and lets too much air leak out the nose while speaking. That gives them problems with certain sounds and it makes them sound like they are speaking partly through their nose.

What Do Doctors Do?

Treating cleft lip or cleft palate takes a team of different types of specialists (in this case, people who are experts in helping kids with clefts). This team includes a plastic surgeon, a speech-language pathologist, an orthodontist, an otolaryngologist (a doctor trained in ear, nose, and throat problems — say oh-toh-lar-un-gah-lo-jist), an oral surgeon, a dentist, a geneticist, a social worker, a psychologist, an audiologist, and other health care specialists. Because there are so many different people for a kid to see, the team has a coordinator who works with the parents to help organize everything.

• Cleft lip is usually repaired by the time a baby is 3 to 6 months old. During surgery on the cleft lip, the doctor closes the gap in the lip and corrects the nostril. A person who has cleft lip repaired as an infant will have a scar on the lip under the nose.
• Cleft palate is usually repaired at age 9 to 12 months. During surgery on cleft palate, doctors close the hole between the roof of the mouth and the nose and reconnect the muscles in the soft palate.

After surgery, a kid will get regular hearing tests to check for hearing problems caused by fluid building up in the ears. Because of this fluid build-up, some kids get special tubes put in their ears to help them hear better. Kids may also need speech therapy when they start talking. Some kids with cleft palate might even need another operation on their palate to improve their speech.

Lots of kids, including those with cleft lip or palate, need orthodontics or braces after their permanent teeth grow in. Braces can straighten crooked teeth. Kids with cleft lip and cleft palate may also need a bone graft when they're about 8 years old. In a bone graft, a surgeon takes some bone, usually from the person's hip, and uses it to fill in the gap in the upper gum area. This allows the upper gum area to hold the permanent teeth better and keep the upper jaw steady.

As kids with cleft lip or cleft palate grow older and become teenagers, some may want to have their scars made less noticeable, their jaws aligned, or their noses straightened. Operations to do these can improve a person's bite, speech and breathing, and appearance.

Living With Cleft Lip or Cleft Palate

Some kids with severe cleft lip or cleft palate have a flattened nose or small jaw. Other kids with just cleft palate may look just like everyone else. Either way, kids with cleft lip or cleft palate want to be treated like everyone else. A person might have cleft lip, but also have beautiful eyes, a great sense of humor, or a terrific slam-dunk!

If you have cleft lip or cleft palate, there may be some things about your face you can't change and some that you can. Doctors can do amazing things to make you feel good about the way you look on the outside, and you can do things to make yourself feel good about the way you are on the inside.

Even with the many successful operations and treatment for cleft lip and palate, some kids have a hard time growing up with this condition. They may have classmates who tease or bully them or who are just curious and want to know more about it. In either case, kids with clefts can get help handling these situations by speaking with their parents, teachers, or counselors, and of course, any member of their cleft palate team. The good news is that most kids with cleft lip or cleft palate grow up to be healthy, happy adults!

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Hives

After eating some big, red strawberries, you decide to walk to your friend's house. Just as you're turning the corner, you notice reddish bumps and patches on your arms and chest. What are these itchy welts or blotches on your skin? Should you turn around and head home?

What Are Hives?

Hives are pink or red bumps or slightly raised patches of skin. Sometimes, they have a pale center. Hives usually itch, but they also can burn or sting.

Hives can occur anywhere on the body and vary in size and shape. They can be small like a mosquito bite or big like a dinner plate. Hives also might look like rings or groups of rings joined together. Hives can appear in clusters and might change locations in a matter of hours. A bunch of hives might be on a person's face, then those might go away. Later some more may appear on a person's arms.

Hives are common - between 10% and 25% of people get them at least once in their lives. They are usually harmless, though they may occasionally be a sign of a serious allergic reaction. (So, yes, you should go home and tell your mom or dad.)

The medical term for hives is urticaria (say: ur-tuh-kar-ee-uh). When a person is exposed to something that can trigger hives, certain cells in the body release histamine (say: his-tuh-meen) and other substances. This causes fluid to leak from the small blood vessels under the skin. When this fluid collects under the skin, it forms the blotches, which we call hives.

Why Do I Get Hives?

People can get hives for lots of different reasons. Often, the cause is not known. One common reason for getting hives is an allergic reaction. Some common allergic triggers are certain foods (like milk, shellfish, berries, and nuts), medications (such as antibiotics), and insect stings or bites. Other causes of hives are not related to allergies and these can include:

• exposure to the cold (like diving into a cold pool)
• exercise
• sun exposure
• nervousness or stress
• infections caused by viruses

No matter what the cause, a case of hives can last for a few minutes, a few hours, or even days.

What Will the Doctor Do?

Doctors usually can diagnose hives just by looking at you and hearing your story about what happened. The doctor can try to help figure out what might be causing your hives, although often the cause will remain a mystery. If you're getting hives a lot, or your reaction was serious, your doctor might send you to another doctor who specializes in allergies.

Sometimes, doctors will suggest you take a type of medication called an antihistamine to relieve the itchiness. In many cases, hives clear up on their own without any medication or doctor visits.

Less often, hives can be a sign of a more serious allergic reaction that can affect breathing and other body functions. In these cases, the person needs immediate medical care. Some people who know they have serious allergies carry a special medicine to use in an emergency. This medicine, called epinephrine, is given by a shot. Ordinarily, a nurse gives you a shot, but because some allergic reactions can happen really fast, many adults and kids carry this emergency shot with them and know how to use it, just in case they ever need it in a hurry.

Can I Prevent Hives?

Yes and no. The answer is "yes" if you know what causes your hives - the strawberries at the start of this article, for example. If you know they cause you trouble, you can just avoid them. If you get hives when you're nervous, relaxation breathing exercises may help. But if you don't know why you get hives, it's tough to prevent them.

Some kids get hives when they have a virus, such as a bad cold or a stomach flu. Other than washing your hands regularly, there's not much you can do to avoid getting sick occasionally. The good news is that hives usually aren't serious and you might even grow out of them.

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Legs and Feet Problems

Where would you be without your legs and feet? They do a lot to get you where you need to go. But sometimes, kids have problems with these important body parts. Their legs and feet might look different or might not work exactly the way they should. The good news is that these problems usually aren't serious. They either go away on their own or the kid learns to handle them by using stuff like special shoe inserts.

Pigeon Toes

Pigeon toes, or inwardly turning toes, is a common foot condition in kids. It occurs when the front of the foot is turned inward, facing the other foot. Boys and girls both experience pigeon toes. Most children's feet straighten naturally without any medical treatment.

Bowlegs

When a person stands with their feet and ankles together but the knees remain widely apart, we call them bowlegged. Many babies are born bowlegged because their legs were folded tightly across their bellies while they were growing inside their mom. Bowlegs usually straighten once babies with this condition start to walk and their legs bear weight. By age 3, most kids grow out of the condition.

Knock-Knees

Knock-knees is a condition where the legs curve in at the knees so much that the ankles are separated. Lots of kids become knock-kneed between the ages of 3 and 5. But around age 6, the body begins to straighten naturally, and within a few years most kids can stand with their knees and ankles touching at the same time.

Flatfeet

Stand sideways in front of a mirror. Rise up on your toes. Can you see the arch (curve) in the bottom your feet? Most of us have some sort of arch on the bottom of the feet between our toes and heel. Someone who doesn't have this curve might have flexible flatfeet. That means more of the person's foot surface is in contact with the ground. In a typical foot, the arch part wouldn't touch the ground.

Most babies are born with almost no arch in their feet. Within 2 to 3 years, after kids have been walking for a while, the arch develops. Wearing the right kind of shoes - ones that are flexible, not stiff - helps kids' feet develop the way they should.

About 1 in 7 kids never develop a full arch. Very rarely, this requires surgery. Some kids might wear arch supports if their feet hurt. But most of the time, flatfeet don't cause pain or problems. In other words, if your feet are flat, they're fine!

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Genes

Genes (say: jeenz), that's what they're talking about. Genes are the things that determine physical traits — how we look — and lots of other stuff about us. They carry information that helps make you who you are: curly or straight hair, long or short legs, even how you might smile or laugh, are all passed through generations of your family in genes. Keep reading to learn more about genes and how they work.

What Is a Gene?

Each cell in the human body contains about 25,000 to 35,000 genes, which carry information that determines your traits (say: trates). Traits are characteristics you inherit from your parents; this means your parents pass some of their characteristics on to you through genes. For example, if both of your parents have green eyes, you might inherit the trait of green eyes from them. Or if your mom has freckles, you might inherit that trait and wind up with a freckled face. And genes aren't just in humans — all animals and plants have genes, too.

Genes hang out all lined up on thread-like things called chromosomes (say: kro-moh-somes). Chromosomes come in pairs, and there are hundreds, sometimes thousands, of genes in one chromosome. The chromosomes and genes are made of DNA, which is short for deoxyribonucleic (say: dee-ox-see-ri-bo-nyoo-clay-ik) acid.

Chromosomes are found inside cells, the very small units that make up all living things. A cell is so tiny that you can only see it through the lens of a strong microscope, and there are billions of cells in your body. Most cells have one nucleus (say: noo-clee-us). The nucleus, which is sort of egg-shaped, is like the brain of the cell. It tells every part of the cell what to do. How does the nucleus know so much? It contains our chromosomes and genes. As tiny as it is, the nucleus has more information in it than the biggest dictionary you've ever seen.

In humans, a cell nucleus contains 46 individual chromosomes or 23 pairs of chromosomes (chromosomes come in pairs, remember? 23 X 2 = 46). Half of these chromosomes come from one parent and half come from the other parent. But not every living thing has 46 chromosomes inside of its cells. For instance, a fruit fly cell only has four chromosomes!

How Do Genes Work?

Each gene has a special job to do. It carries blueprints — the instructions — for making proteins (say: pro-teens) in the cell. Proteins are the building blocks for everything in your body. Bones and teeth, hair and earlobes, muscles and blood, all are made up of proteins (as well as other stuff). Those proteins help our bodies grow, work properly, and stay healthy. Scientists today estimate that each gene in the body may make as many as 10 different proteins. That's over 300,000 proteins!

Like chromosomes, genes come in pairs. Each of your biological parents has two copies of each of their genes, and each parent passes along just one copy to make up the genes you have. Genes that are passed on to you determine many of your traits, such as your hair color and skin color.

Maybe Nancy's mother has one gene for brown hair and one for red hair, and she passed the red hair gene on to Nancy. If her father has two genes for red hair, that could explain her red hair. Nancy ended up with two genes for red hair, one from each of her parents.

You can see genes at work if you think about all the breeds of dogs there are. They all have the genes that make them dogs instead of cats, fish, or people. But those same genes that make a dog a dog also make different dog traits. So some breeds are small and others are big. Some have long fur and others have short fur. Dalmatians have genes for white fur and black spots, and toy poodles have genes that make them small with curly fur. You get the idea!

When There Are Problems With Genes

Scientists are very busy studying genes. What do the proteins that each gene makes actually do in the body? What illnesses are caused by genes that don't work right? Researchers think genes that have changed in some way, also known as altered (or mutated) genes, may be partly to blame for lung problems, cancer, and many other illnesses.

Take the gene that helps the body make hemoglobin (say: hee-muh-glow-bin), for example. Hemoglobin is an important protein that is needed for red blood cells to carry oxygen throughout the body. If parents pass on altered hemoglobin genes to their child, the child may only be able to make a type of hemoglobin that doesn't work properly. This can cause a condition known as anemia (say: uh-nee-mee-uh), a condition in which a person has fewer healthy red blood cells.

Anemias that are inherited can sometimes be serious enough to require long-term medical care. Sickle cell anemia is one kind of anemia that is passed on through genes from parents to children.

Cystic fibrosis (say: sis-tick fi-bro-sus), or CF, is another illness that some kids inherit. Parents with the CF gene can pass it on to their kids. People who have CF often have trouble breathing because their bodies make a lot of mucus (say: myoo-kus) — the slimy stuff that comes out of your nose when you blow — that gets stuck in the lungs. They will need treatment throughout their lives to keep their lungs as healthy as possible.

What Is Gene Therapy?

Gene therapy uses the technology of genetic engineering to cure or treat a disease caused by a gene that has changed in some way. This is a new kind of medicine, and scientists are still doing experiments to see if it works. One method they are trying is replacing sick genes with healthy ones. Gene therapy trials — where the research is tested on people — and other research may lead to new ways to treat or even prevent many diseases.

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Bedwetting

Things that are cool to talk about with friends:

• your new computer games
• going to the movies
• what to do this weekend

Things that you probably don't talk about with friends:

• how you cry when you watch the movie Barbie
• the day you accidentally wore your underwear inside out
• how you wet the bed when you sleep

Millions of kids and teenagers from every part of the world wet the bed every single night. It's so common that there are probably other kids in your class who do it. Most kids don't tell their friends, so it's easy to feel kind of alone, like you might be the only one on the whole planet who wets the bed. But you are not alone.

The fancy name for bedwetting, or sleep wetting, is nocturnal (nighttime) enuresis (say: en-yoo-ree-sus). Enuresis runs in families. This means that if you urinate, or pee, while you are asleep, there's a good chance that a close relative also did it when he or she was a kid. Just like you may have inherited your mom's blue eyes or your uncle's long legs, you probably inherited bedwetting, too.

The most important thing to remember is that no one wets the bed on purpose. It doesn't mean that you're lazy or a slob. It's something you can't help doing. For some reason, kids who wet the bed are not able to feel that their bladders are full and don't wake up to pee in the toilet. Sometimes a kid who wets the bed will have a realistic dream that he or she is in the bathroom peeing - only to wake up later and discover he or she is all wet.

Many kids who wet the bed are very deep sleepers. Do your parents complain that it's hard to wake you up? Could you sleep through a marching band parading outside your bedroom door? Or a pack of dogs howling at the moon? Trying to wake up someone who wets the bed is often like trying to wake a log - they just stay asleep.

Some kids who wet the bed do it every single night. Others wet some nights and are dry on others. A lot of kids say that they seem to be drier when they sleep at a friend's or a relative's house. That's because kids who are anxious about wetting the bed may not sleep much or only very lightly. So the brain may be thinking, "Hey, you! Don't wet someone else's bed!" This can help you stay dry even if you're not aware of it.

Good News

The good news is that almost all kids who wet the bed eventually stop. So if you wet every night, don't be discouraged. And don't worry that you're not normal, either physically or emotionally. Sleep wetting is not usually caused by a problem with your body or your feelings.

It's likely that bedwetting will go away on its own. In fact, 15 out of 100 kids who wet the bed will stop every year without any treatment at all. But if you have this problem it's still a good idea for you and your parents to talk to your doctor about it.

Your doctor will ask you some questions, and it's important to answer them truthfully and not feel embarrassed. Remember, bedwetting is so common that your doctor probably treats a lot of kids who do it. The doctor will examine you and probably ask for a urine sample to test. Some kids who have other problems, like constipation (when you aren't pooping regularly), daytime wetting, or urinary infections, may need some extra tests.

More Good News

If you wet the bed, there are some things you can do to stay dry. Try not to drink anything after dinner and remember to go to the bathroom before going to bed. If you do wet the bed, help with the cleanup by pulling off the sheets and putting them in the laundry.

A lot of doctors think that the best treatment for enuresis is a program that retrains your brain to do one of two things:

1. wake you up so you can go to the bathroom
2. stay asleep and hold it until morning

This program includes doing bladder exercises, such as waiting a little longer to pee during the day, reading about and imagining staying dry, or even using a tiny alarm. The alarm is connected to a pad placed in your underwear at night. If you start to urinate, the pad senses the moisture and sets off the alarm. Different alarms buzz, vibrate, or do both, but they're all easy to use and can help wake even the deepest sleeper.

There are medicines that can help kids who wet the bed, including a nose spray or tablet that you take before going to bed. This may temporarily help you out, but it really isn't a cure. Medicines to treat enuresis work best when combined with the alarm or other training programs.

It may take some practice to retrain your brain, and you'll need to be patient. But eventually, you will stop wetting the bed.

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Blood

You know what blood is — it’s that red stuff that oozes out if you get a paper cut. The average person has about 1 to 1-½ gallons (4-6 liters) of it. But what is blood, really, and where does it come from?

How Does the Body Make Blood?

It’s not made in a kitchen, but blood has ingredients, just like a recipe. To make blood, your body needs to mix:

• red blood cells, which carry oxygen throughout the body
• white blood cells, which fight infections
• platelets, which are cells that help you stop bleeding if you get a cut
• plasma, a yellowish liquid that carries nutrients, hormones, and proteins throughout the body

Your body doesn’t go to the store to buy those ingredients. It makes them. Bone marrow — that goopy stuff inside your bones — makes the red blood cells, the white blood cells, and the platelets. Plasma is mostly water, which is absorbed from the intestines from what you drink and eat, with the liver supplying important proteins.

Put all these ingredients together and you have blood — an essential part of the circulatory system. Thanks to your heart (which pumps blood) and your blood vessels (which carry it), blood travels throughout your body from your head to your toes.

Let’s find out more about each ingredient.

Red Blood Cells

Red blood cells (also called erythrocytes, say: ih-rith-ruh-sytes) look like flattened basketballs. Most of the cells in the blood are red blood cells. They carry around an important chemical called hemoglobin (say: hee-muh-glow-bin) that gives blood its red color.

Blood and breathing go hand in hand. How? The hemoglobin in blood delivers oxygen, which you get from the air you breathe, to all parts of your body. Without oxygen, your body couldn’t keep working and stay alive.

White Blood Cells

White blood cells (also called leukocytes, say: loo-kuh-sytes) are bigger than red blood cells. There are usually not a whole lot of white blood cells floating around in your blood when you’re healthy. Once you get sick, though, your body makes some more to protect you.

There are a couple types of white blood cells that do different things to keep you well:

Granulocytes

You know how your skin gets a little red and swollen around a cut or scrape? That means the granulocytes are doing their jobs. They have a lot to do with how your body cleans things up and helps wounds heal after an injury. Granulocytes also help prevent infection by surrounding and destroying things that aren’t supposed to be in your body and by killing germs.

Lymphocytes

There are two types of lymphocytes, B cells and T cells. B cells help make special proteins called antibodies that recognize stuff that shouldn’t be in your body, like bacteria or a virus you get from a sick friend. Antibodies are very specific, and can recognize only a certain type of germ. Once the antibody finds it, it gets rid of the germ so it can’t hurt you.

The really cool part is that even after you are better, B cells can become memory cells that remember how to make the special antibody so that if the same germ infects you again, it can kill the germ even faster! T cells also battle germs that invade the body, but instead of making antibodies, they work by making special chemicals that help fight the infection.

Monocytes

Monocytes are white blood cells that fight infection by surrounding and destroying bacteria and viruses.

Platelets

Platelets, also called thrombocytes (say: throm-buh-sytes) are tiny round cells that help to make sure you don’t bleed too much once you get a cut or scrape. Cuts and scrapes break blood vessels. If a platelet reaches a blood vessel that’s been broken open, it sends out a chemical signal that makes other nearby platelets start to stick together inside the vessel.

After the platelets form this plug, they send out more chemical signals that attract clotting factors. These clotting factors work together to make a web of tiny protein threads. The platelets and this web of protein come together to make a blood clot. The clot keeps your blood inside the vessel while the break in the blood vessel heals up. Without platelets, you’d need more than a bandage to catch the blood when you scrape your knee!

Plasma

Plasma is a yellowish liquid that is mostly water. But it also carries important nutrients, hormones, and proteins throughout the body. Nutrients are chemicals from the food you eat that give your body energy and other things your body’s cells need to do their work and keep you healthy.

Hormones carry messages throughout your body, telling it what to do and when. An example of a hormone is growth hormone. It gets your bones and muscles to grow. Many proteins in plasma are really important to your body, like the clotting factors that help you stop bleeding if you get a cut or a scrape.

Plasma also carries away cell waste — chemicals that the cell doesn’t want anymore. Nutrients, hormones, proteins, and waste are dissolved in the plasma — kind of like the cocoa mix that dissolves in a cup of hot water. What are the marshmallows? The blood cells — they float in the plasma.

Hey, What’s Your Type?

Everybody’s blood is red, but it’s not all the same. There are eight blood types, described using the letters A, B, and O. Those letters stand for certain proteins found on the red blood cells. Not everyone has the same proteins.

In addition to getting a letter or two, a person’s blood is either "positive" or "negative." That doesn’t mean one person’s blood is good and another person’s blood is bad. It’s a way of keeping track of whether someone’s blood has a certain protein called Rh protein. This protein is called "Rh" because scientists found it while studying Rhesus monkeys. If your blood is positive, you have this protein. If it’s negative, you don’t. Either way is totally fine.

People have one of these eight different blood types:

1. A negative
2. A positive
3. B negative
4. B positive
5. O negative
6. O positive
7. AB negative
8. AB positive

Blood types are important if a person ever wants to donate blood or needs a blood transfusion. Getting blood of the wrong type can make a person sick. That’s why hospitals and blood banks are very careful with donated blood and make sure the person gets the right type.

Someone might need a blood transfusion when they’re sick or if they lose blood. Without enough healthy blood, the body won’t get the oxygen and energy it needs. Healthy blood also protects you from germs and other invaders.

Now that you know how important blood is, what can you do? Kids generally aren’t allowed to donate blood, but when you’re older consider giving the gift of life!

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