Health Buzz: MRI Birth Video Sheds Light on Labor

Health Buzz: MRI Birth Video Sheds Light on Labor

MRI Video Captures Childbirth From the Inside

It's birth like you've never seen it before. For the first time, researchers have used magnetic resonance imaging to peer inside a woman's body during labor. The images were shot during a normal birth at a German hospital in November 2010, and while still MRI images were previously published, the video was not available until this week. It's made with time-lapsed images over the final 45 minutes of labor. The video is intended to help doctors learn more about how to deliver and manage labor, while preventing complications. "The main reasons for the research are to answer the question of why a birth may stall and to visually capture the birthing process and any complications," Christian Bamberg, who led the research team, told Reuters in 2010. "The images are spectacular. They show which movements the fetus makes in the birth c anal, how its bones move and how its head changes shape during birth."

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Children's Cereal: Healthy Start or Junk Food?

Imagine you are 5 years old. In the supermarket cereal aisle. Towering above you are rows upon rows of cardboard boxes, brightly colored like construction paper, and emblazoned with your favorite mascots or silly characters that seem to hug you from their perch on the shelves. Sure, there are some understated choicesâ€"the simple yellow Cheerios box, offering up a bowl of mutely-colored rings. But remember, you're 5. You're more likely drawn to the rainbow of fun featured on the Fruity Pebbles package. Not only does this cereal come techicolored, but it's got Fred Flintstone on the box. You wish you could go barefoot and drive a car with your feet.... you tug at your mom and begin begging: "Please, please, please, can we get Fruity Pebbles?!!" 

Pebbles (the fruity and cocoa versions) was ranked the least nutritious cereal in a recent report by Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity that lambasted cereal companies for peddling their poorest choices to kids. 

Yale decided to check up on the food industry's plan to police itselfâ€"the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative. Formed in 2006, the initiative called for promoting healthy foods and lifestyles to kids. Two years later, Yale studied the cereal market and reviewed the landscape last year. The first report found that companies were "doing zero marketing of their healthiest cereals," to kids, says Kelly Brownell, a Yale University professor of psychology who directs the Rudd Center. Today, "the number is still zero," and, furthermore, "they're doing aggressive marketing of their least healthy foods. [Read more: Children's Cereal: Healthy Start or Junk Food?] 

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Try These At-Home Sunburn Treatments

It's all fun in the sunâ€"until someone gets burned. Looking and feeling like a lobster? Ouch. We've all been there: Half of American adults under 30 say they've had a sunburn at least once in the previous year, according to government data released in May. And just one blistering burn can double the risk of developing melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. "It's not worth having such a bad sunburn after day one that you have to stay inside the rest of the weekend and watch everyone else having fun through the window," says dermatologist Jessica Krant, founder of the Art of Dermatology practice in New York.

Prevention, of course, is easier than treatment. The smartest advice: Avoid the sun between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., the hottest hours of the day. Wear thin clothing that covers your skin, a wide-brimmed hat, and sunglasses. "Don't underestimate how quickly you can get burned," Krant says. Slather sunscreen on 15 to 30 minutes before heading into the sun, and make sure it's at least SPF 30 and marked with the phrase "broad spectrum," which indicates that it protects against the two types of ultraviolet rays capable of causing sunburn: UVA and UVB.

If it's too late, and that burn has already made its mark, aloe vera isn't your only option. "There's no 'cure' for a sunburnâ€"it simply has to run its course," says Cynthia Bailey, a dermatologist practicing in Sebastopol, Calif. "But you can sooth inflammation to make your skin more comfortable." [Read more: Try These At-Home Sunburn Treatments]

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Angela Haupt is a health reporter for U.S. News World Report. You can follow her on Twitter or reach her at ahaupt@usnews.com. 

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