20-year-old Woman Trapped in Child's Body

Brooke Greenberg may look like an infant, but she is actually 20 years old. Despite her increasing age, Brooke has remained physically and cognitively similar to a toddler, with an estimated mental age of nine months to one year. Brooke, who is from Maryland, is unable to talk, still has her baby teeth and like any infant, travels in a push chair - but doctors have never been able to explain why. Her father, Howard Greenberg, explained: 'From age one to four, Brooke changed. She got a little bit bigger. But age four, four to five, she stopped. 'She has been examined by some of the most prestigious medical institutions in the U.S., however no formal diagnosis for Brooke’s condition has been given, leading doctors to term her condition Syndrome X. Dr Eric Schadt, director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, explained that she has 'no apparent abnormalities in her endocrine system, no gross chromosomal abnormalities, or any of the other disruptions known to occur in humans that can cause developmental issues.'

Brooke, who has stayed the same size for 15 years, requires 24-hour care from her parents. She is fed through a tube inserted into her stomach, because her oesophagus is so small that swallowed food could back up into her lungs and cause pneumonia. Her mother, Melanie Greenberg, said: 'It's been 16 years of on the job training, giving her medicine, knowing when she's sick, knowing the right amount. 'Mr Greenberg added: 'The key with Brooke is we don't know what tomorrow brings.'

Scientists believe her unique genetic code could provide a fresh insight into the process of aging, leading to the development of new treatments for diseases related to old age, such as Parkinson's. Tests have shown that Brooke, who was born in 1993, may suffer from a gene mutation that switches off her ability to mature. Dr Schadt is in the process of sequencing Brooke’s genome, which is comprised of two long strings of letters, one from the mother and one from the father. Each string is three billion letters long, and changes in just one of these letters can lead to profound effects on development, physical appearance, and risk of disease. In the first six years of her life, Brooke suffered series of medical emergencies from which she recovered, often without explanation. She survived surgery for seven perforated stomach ulcers, and suffered a brain seizure followed by a stroke that weeks later left no apparent damage. Then at age four, she fell into a coma that caused her to sleep for 14 days. Doctors diagnosed a brain tumor, which disappeared by the time she awoke.

Key to aging: Scientists believe Brooke's unique genetic code could provide a fresh insight into the process of ageing, leading to the development of new treatments for diseases related to old age, such as Parkinson's Dr Schadt hopes to find out whether any abnormal genes identified in Brooke 'are involved in aging related processes, whether manipulating these genes could increase longevity and/or reduce aging related disorders such as Alzheimer’s, heart disease and many forms of cancer,' he said. Mrs Greenberg, who said she loves Brooke the way she is, explained that if another mother with a toddler asks her how old Brooke is, she usually doesn't answer truthfully. 'My system always has been to turn years into months. So, if someone asked today, I might say, she's [20] months old,' she said.

Girl Sentenced to Jail for Killing Rapist Father

Eighteen year old girl identified as Afuwah Namata was sentenced to jail on Monday for killing her father who had raped her.

The sentencing was ruled by Masaka High Court presided over by Lady Justice Margaret Oumo Oguli who heard that Namata killed her father identified as Ahmed Majwala on May 8, after he had raped her. However, this was not the first time that she had been raped by her father; he had done the evil deed since she was as young as 13 years of age. The 58-year-old man was allegedly violently killed according to prosecution which was led by Peter Mugisha. Namata killed her father using a knife and a panga after he performed [intimate] acts against her. Girl Sentenced to 6 Hours in Jail for Killing Rapist Father, Despite this, prosecution asked court to give her a death sentence arguing she performed an illegal act since the Ugandan Constitution condemns mob justice. His argument was that she should have reported the matter to police and not killed him. In defense, Edward Kikirengoma argued that the act the father did to his daughter was condemned, especially in Buganda kingdom.

He went on to add that Namata needed to take charge of her life since she had become tired of her father’s cruel acts, adding that court should look into the condition of the girl as she is six months pregnant, with the child of her father. “Namata revealed that as she was sleeping in the house, she did not know that her mother, Halima Nalukwago, 56, had gone out; her father learnt that his wife wasn’t in the house and came into her bed and raped her. Since they were living in a one-room rented house, the father took advantage of his own children,” Mr Kikirengoma said. It emerged that Majwala had also impregnated his three other daughters, Mariam Nanyange who has one child, Sarah Namukasa, who has two and Zaituni Nalugemwa, who has two, all sired by their late father. Defence therefore asked court to give Namata a lenient sentence.

Justice Oguli at last agreed with defence saying judicially, they condemn such acts done by parents to their children which she referred to as “[intimate] harassment”. In the ruling, Justice Oguli said Namata was sentenced from time of the pronounced judgement which was 11am to the time of court’s closure, 5pm, six hours in prison and court told her that she was free to appeal against the sentence. She was then taken to the cells to serve her time at Masaka Prisons. According to the prison warder, Sgt Hakiri, during her stay in prison, Namata was a well-behaved girl. “She interacted with the people around and looked sorry for what she had done,” he said. Despite the release, life is not good for Namata and her family. According to a neighbor, Joyce Nakitende, the family relocated to Lambu Landing Site as residents had wanted to kill them, but police came quickly and rescued them.

Good Parents Discipline Without Yelling

"Once upon a time, I thought, as did and still do many if not most people in my profession, that behavior modification was going to make the discipline of a child as simple and straightforward as teaching a rat to run a maze. I should have known better. As a graduate student in psychology, I had trained a rat to run a maze. Indeed, it was simple. At the same time, I was struggling to discipline our first child, then a toddler. That wasn't simple at all. Ignoring his misbehavior didn't work. Neither did punishing him; nor did rewarding him when he behaved properly. In fact, the more I tried to discipline him using behavior modification-based methods, the worse his behavior became. I realized, belatedly, that he was trying to tell me something: to wit, the principles that govern the behavior of a rat do not govern the behavior of a human being. A rat is subject to the force of reward and punishment. A human is not. Reward a child for obedience and he is likely to turn right around and disobey the first chance he gets. Punish a child for misbehaving and the misbehavior may get worse. This is not because the child carries a gene that makes him impervious to "normal forms of discipline." It is because of all the species on the planet, only human beings are capable of acting deliberately contrary to their best interests, even when they know where their best interests lie. (The tale about lemming hordes committing mass suicide by running off cliffs is a myth.)

That's why the toddler and many a contemporary teen (as opposed the typical teen of 60-plus years ago) both boast that they will submit to no one's authority. This is a self-destructive impulse because it is clearly in the best interest of a child to submit to legitimate adult authority, beginning with his parents' authority. The research finds that the happiest children are also the most obedient children, and that obedient children tend to have parents who score high on measures of authority. In other words, parents who are most comfortable with the responsibility of providing authority to children tend to raise the happiest kids.

These are parents who go about the discipline of their children without great fanfare. Yelling, threatening, inconsistency — those are the hallmarks of parents who do not have a firm grip on their authority, who do not therefore know how to convey it in a calmly compelling way.

The clearer a parent is concerning his or her expectations, the more likely it is the child will obey. Say what you mean and mean what you say, and communicate your expectations in the least number of words. The more words you employ, the more it appears that you are pleading as opposed to directing.

And while "Because I said so" is sometimes a legitimate response to a child's demand to know why your expectations, limits, and prohibitions are what they are, it is also necessary that a child eventually come to understand the moral principles behind your decisions. That "moral compass" endows your decisions with a coherence and consistency that would otherwise be absent."

Do you agree?

When can my child safely sit in the front seat of a car

The answer in almost every case is not until he or she is at least 13 — and passenger safety organizations recommend going even further and keeping your child in the backseat until he or she is ready to drive himself or herself.                                 

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Why? Because riding in the front seat simply isn't as safe as riding in the back. Buckling a child into the backseat instead of the front reduces by a third his/her risk of death in a collision. In a head-on crash (the most common — and deadly — type of collision), a child in the front seat can be thrown into your car's dashboard or through the windshield. Even if he or she is properly buckled in, he/she is at much greater risk for being harmed by objects intruding into the car in the front than in the back.

What's more, in cars with passenger air bags (which includes most newer models), the air bags deploy with such force that they can cause severe head and neck injuries to a child. Nationwide, more than a hundred children have been killed by air bags in recent years, and many of these deaths were in slow-speed collisions that should have been minor. Infants and toddlers in rear-facing car seats are at extreme risk from air bags when placed in the front seat because the back of their car seat is so close to the dashboard.

If, despite these very real dangers, you absolutely must put a non-rear-facing child in the front seat, check to see whether your car's air bag has an on-off switch, and if so, turn it off. If not, have an air-bag switch installed by a car dealership or one of the specialized companies that have sprung up to deal with this situation. If you can't disable your passenger air bag, then have the child who's most securely restrained in a front-facing car seat with a full harness (in other words, the child who's least likely to wiggle out of his restraints, or, if your passengers have all moved out of the car seat phase, your biggest or tallest passenger) ride in the front seat, and move his/her seat as far back from the dashboard as possible.

Bubble boy: Baby born inside intact amniotic sac

"Born in the caul" is a phrase that's connected with a lot of cross-cultural myths and superstitions — babies born in the caul are supposed to be destined for lives of fame and fortune (or, possibly, misfortune and grisly death, depending on which legends you're listening to). Biologically, though, it refers to a baby that's born with part of the amniotic sac — the bubble of fluid a fetus grows in inside the uterus — still attached. Usually, a piece of the sac is draped over the baby's head or face. These are called caul births, and they're rare. But, about once in every 80,000 births, you'll get something truly extraordinary — "en-caul", a baby born inside a completely intact amniotic sac, fluid and all. There's a photo of a recent en-caul birth making the rounds online. The photo is being attributed to Greek obstetrician Aris Tsigris. It's fascinating. But it's also pretty graphic, so fair warning on that. (If the sight of newborn infants and blood gives you the vapors, you might also want to avoid most of the links in this post, as well.)

Check this out. I mean, seriously. That's awesome.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of information on the details of this particular birth, but, most of the time, when a baby is born this way it's also born premature. Sometimes, really premature. There are case reports in medical literature of babies being born en-caul at 23 weeks, 6 days gestation, which, for context, is a little over half the weeks you'd want a baby to gestate. Fetuses aren't large or well-developed enough to even be able to clearly tell their sex on an ultrasound until about 20 weeks gestation.

The premie connection is probably more than coincidence. For one thing, the smaller the fetus, the more space the sac around it has to ballon outward and come through the birth canal intact. What's more, there's evidence that being born en-caul has a protective effect for premature infants. Nobody is exactly sure why. But it might have something to do with the physical mechanics of birth, which, I'm sure you're aware, can be a little rough on both mother and baby. Premies born en-caul essentially come with their own cushiony air bag, which might protect them from physical injuries that could otherwise be life-threatening. So, in that sense, babies born en-caul really are lucky. Just not in the way the ancient legends would have you believe. In fact, in 1975, a newborn survived for 25 minutes outside the uterus, but inside the fluid-filled amniotic sac, not breathing air, and turned out completely healthy.

Speaking of legends of the caul, back in 1952 The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine published a manuscript by Thomas Forbes, which collected literary and documentary references to caul-related superstitions dating back to Roman times. I wanted to share one particularly fun story from Forbes' account. This refers to a caul birth, rather than an en-caul birth, so the amniotic sac wasn't totally intact. Instead, just a part of it was draped over the newborn baby's head.

Tragic plight of seven-month-old boy born with a spinal defect as he develops a 10 centimetre 'tail'

A seven-month-old boy is suffering with a large growth that resembles a tail and it is growing longer every week. The growth developed a result of the boy, named Xiao Wei, being born with spina bifida. His mother Chen Wei, from Guangdong in Southern China, said she has asked for the growth to be removed but surgeons say it isn't possible, at least at the moment. She said: 'We have asked the surgeons to remove the tail but they tell us it is not that simple.' Spina bifida or 'split spine' is a fault in the development of the spine and spinal cord which leaves a gap in the spine.  The spinal cord is responsible for connecting all parts of the body to the brain. In the first month of life, a developing baby in the womb grows a structure called the neural tube. It is this that will eventually form the spine and nervous system.

But in cases of spina bifida,  the spinal column  - the bone that surrounds and protects the nerves - does not fully close. The exact causes are unknown, but several risk factors have been identified, the most significant being a lack of folic acid before and at the very start of pregnancy. There are a number of different types of spina bifida but Xiao has myelomeningocele, the most serious variant of the condition. It affects one pregnancy in every 1,000 in Britain. Myelomeningocele spina bifida causes the spinal column to remain open along the bones making up the spine. The membranes and spinal cord push out to create a sac in the baby’s back. This sometimes leaves the nervous system vulnerable to infections that may be fatal.

In most cases surgery can be can close the defect but damage to the nervous system will usually already have taken place, resulting in a range of symptoms, including paralysis and incontinence. Chinese medics say the growth at the base of Xiao's spine has been caused by damage to the outer wall of the child's spinal canal. Surgeon Huang Chuanping explained: 'Xiao's growth is quite well developed and now measures some 10 centimetres.''If we cut it off it will simply grow again. We need to repair the spinal canal first to stop it reoccurring.'

Bride Aged 8 Dies After Suffering Internal Sexual Injuries During Wedding Night With Man, 40

An eight-year-old Yemeni girl has died of internal sexual injuries after spending her wedding night with a husband five times her age.The girl, identified as Rawan, is believed to have suffered tearing of her genitals and a uterine rupture, Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al Watan reports. It says Kuwaiti activists have called for action against the man, who is 40, as well as the girl’s family for allowing the marriage. The girl died in the tribal area of Hardh in northwestern Yemen, which borders Saudi Arabia. Gulf News quotes blogger Angry Man as posting the husband is “an animal who deserved to be punished severely for his crime.”

“All those who supported such a crime should also be punished,” he added.

Al Bawaba reports over a quarter of young girls in Yemen are married before the age of 15.

It points the country passed a law in February 2009 setting the minimum age of marriage at 17, but that it was repealed after conservative lawmakers declared it “un-Islamic”. In 2010 a 13-year-old Yemeni girl who was forced into an arranged marriage died five days after her wedding when she suffered an internal rupture, a local human rights organisation declared.

Ilham Mahdi al Assi died in Yemen's Hajja province, the Shaqaeq Arab Forum for Human Rights told the AFP in a statement quoting a medical report. According to a World Vision study released in March, more child brides are being led into arranged marriages due to an increase in global poverty and crises. Parents who live in fear of natural disasters, political instability and financial ruin look to arranged marriages as a way to save their struggling families.

Every day, 39,000 girls younger than 18 will marry, according to the World Health Organization. This madness must stop!