Coffee has always been a crowd favorite drink among all age groups. But we all know that caffeine has a different effect on everyone. Doctors often express how young kids and teens should be careful about caffeine but new guidelines regarding this set a firm boundary when it comes to teen health and caffeine. Health experts, working with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, have new advice on healthy drinks for kids and teens in the age group of 5-18. The guidelines say that water and milk are the best drinks for them. They want kids to get into good drinking habits early so they can stay healthy. They're also worried about kids drinking too many sugary and caffeinated drinks. This new guide helps parents know what's good for their kids to drink.

How Did Caffeine Become So Popular Among Teens?

The new guidelines are especially relevant because caffeinated drinks have become increasingly popular among teenagers. Coffee shops, like Starbucks, are popular hangouts for teens, and energy drinks, often packed with caffeine and promoted by social media influencers, are widely available. And a very popular theme on social media is coffee, people enjoy having different varieties of it, making to a very affordable and trendy thing to enjoy! There are accounts dedicated to coffee consumption and often kids and teens partake in these trends.

A recent poll by the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital found that nearly a quarter of parents say their teens consume caffeine almost every day. The most common sources are sodas, followed by coffee and tea, and then energy drinks. Even chocolate contributes to caffeine intake. The amount of kids who consume coffee raises concerns about the potential health effects of caffeine on young people, whose bodies and brains are still developing. The easy access to these beverages and the marketing strategies targeting young audiences contribute to the problem.

Could The Lack Of Guidelines Be A Reason?

Right now, there aren't any official rules about how much caffeine kids can have. This makes it hard for parents and doctors to know what to tell kids about caffeine. The new report tries to fix this by giving some advice based on research. Experts are worried about how caffeine affects kids' sleep, mood, and health. Kids are more sensitive to caffeine than adults. Caffeine can keep them awake, make them anxious, and might even affect their hearts. Because there aren't any rules, it's important to have experts telling us what's safe.

How Caffeine Affects Kids

Caffeine is something that makes your body speed up. Adults can usually handle some caffeine, but it's different for kids and teens. Their bodies are smaller, and their brains are still growing, so caffeine can affect them more. It can make it hard for them to sleep, make them nervous, and even give them headaches or stomachaches. It can also raise their blood pressure and heart rate. Caffeine can also change their mood, making them cranky or unable to focus. We don't know all the ways caffeine affects kids in the long run, and that's another reason to be careful.

The report says that plain water and plain milk are the healthiest drinks for kids and teens. They say it's okay to have a little bit of 100% juice, plant-based milk, or flavored milk, but not too much. They also say kids should stay away from sugary drinks like soda, sports drinks, and lemonade. And, very importantly, they shouldn't drink caffeinated drinks or other things that give you a jolt. This advice is based on what we know about how these drinks affect kids' health. Sugary drinks can cause weight gain and other problems, and caffeine can mess with sleep and other things.

Maternal vaccination with the COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy can be effective against severe disease and hospitalization from the SARS-CoV-2 virus in babies, according to a large study.

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, revealed that COVID vaccination during pregnancy can protect the children against hospitalization for COVID during the first six months of life.

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Amid continuing COVID cases, babies under six months old continue to have one of the highest rates of hospitalization — one in five — due to the COVID virus in the US, as per a 2024 study.

As currently no vaccines against COVID are available for neonates and babies, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends maternal vaccination during pregnancy.

Maternal COVID Vaccination Prevented Other Infections

The retrospective study included 146,031 infants born in Norway between March 2021 and December 2023. Of these, 37, 013 (25 percent) were exposed to COVID-19 vaccination in utero.

The findings showed that babies exposed to the vaccine before birth were no more likely to visit the hospital for overall infections (of any kind) than those whose mothers did not get vaccinated in pregnancy.

However, infants whose mothers were vaccinated were about half as likely to visit the hospital specifically for COVID in their first two months of life compared to babies not exposed to the vaccine in utero.

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Among 3 to 5-month-old babies, the risk of a hospital visit for COVID was 24 percent lower in those exposed to the vaccine, but the vaccine's protection against COVID wore off by the time infants were older than 6 months.

Importantly, the mothers' vaccine also prevented the risk of other infections in children.

"There is often an increased risk for a subsequent infection after a viral infection, such as an increased risk of pneumonia after influenza infection, so we wanted to study whether protection against COVID-19 could influence the risk of other infections as well," said lead author Dr. Helena Niemi Eide, from the University of Oslo in Norway, the NPR reported.

"But we found that COVID vaccination in pregnancy protected the infant against COVID and had no apparent effect on other infections," Eide added.

Maternal Vaccine Recommendation in the US

Last week, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists reiterated its recommendation for COVID vaccination during pregnancy.

Despite changes in federal vaccine recommendations due to the US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine stance, the ACOG urged COVID vaccination for

• people who are pregnant,
• recently pregnant,
• considering pregnancy,
• lactating.

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"Accumulated safety data from millions of administered doses show no increased risk of adverse maternal, fetal, or neonatal outcomes associated with COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy,” the ACOG said.

When 36-year-old mom Angela Sanford, from Fort Mill, SC, went for an appointment for a Pap smear five years after she had her first child in 2008, her nurse midwife, who she has never seen before asked her a question she did not expect. "Who stitched you up after your first birth?"

Speaking to Healthline, Sanford shared that she just started crying when the nurse said, "This is not right." Sanford said that this was the first time she ever heard the term 'husband stitch'. Sanford was told that her stich was "too tight" by the hospitalist who managed her after her first delivery.

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“He gave you what some people call a husband stitch,” Sanford recalled the midwife telling her.

“I couldn’t connect in my mind why it would be called that. My midwife said, ‘They think that some men find it more pleasurable,’” she recalled. “My husband has been worried about me and fearful of hurting me. He would never have asked for this.”

A 'Husband Stich' - What Is It?

During vaginal delivery, a woman undergoes perineal tears or vaginal lacerations which means tears between the vaginal opening and anus. This causes pain, and requires stitches for grades two and higher. It also takes 4 to 6 weeks to heal. Women can experience from first to fourth degree tears.

Sometimes, a surgical incision is made in the perineum during childbirth to enlarge the vaginal opening, this is called an episiotomy. However, it is not medically necessary or a routine procedure, unless it is a case of emergency.

Stiches are required in such cases that dissolves on its own. However, a 'husband stitch', also known as "daddy stitch" is an unethical practice where an extra stitch is given during the repair process that 'tightens the vagina' to increase sexual pleasure for a male partner. While it is considered a medical malpractice, it is still done to women after vaginal delivery.

Many women face difficulty after the extra stich is given to them. In Sanford's case, she felt "excruciating" pain during sex afterwards.

Read: Romanticization And The Silent Dismissal Of Women’s Pain

When Objectifying Women's Bodies Is Made A Medical Practice

Stephanie Tillman, CNM, a certified nurse midwife at the University of Illinois at Chicago and blogger at The Feminist Midwife told Healthline: “The fact that there is even a practice called the husband stitch is a perfect example of the intersection of the objectification of women’s bodies and healthcare. As much as we try to remove the sexualization of women from appropriate obstetric care, of course the patriarchy is going to find its way in there."

Harkins, 37, said that she "kind of" laughed it off when an "old, crusty Army doctor" overstitched her so she could give her husband more pleasure. In many cases, doctors do it as a routine practice without even being told by anyone. “I couldn’t even process [it], but I kind of laughed, like what else do you do when someone says that? I had just had a baby. I didn’t think much about it because the whole birth experience was so traumatizing, but now that I think about it differently, the implications of that are just crazy.”

Episiotomy Is An Excuse For 'Husband Stitch'

Dr Robert Barbieri, chair of obstetrics and gynecology and reproductive biology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told the Huffington Post that doctors were taught in the 50s and 60s that "routine episiotomy was good for women".

“What they thought is that if they did a routine episiotomy, they’d have a chance to repair it and that during the repair, they could actually create a better perineum than if they hadn’t done it. The idea [was] that we could ‘tighten things up,’” explains doctor.

However, a 2005 systematic review in the Journal of the American Medical Association found no benefit to routine episiotomy use. A 2017 Cochrane review “could not identify any benefits of routine episiotomy for the baby or the mother.” In 2016, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommended that clinicians “prevent and manage” delivery lacerations through strategies like massage and warm compresses rather than making cuts on the perineum. Yet, this practice still continues inside the labor rooms.