Health

When you are a parent, you’re making choices for your kids day-in and day-out.

Life can throws plenty of curve balls to a family, whether health, financial, or emotional. So how do families weather life’s challenges and make the right choices?

Michigan writer Robert Omilian tackles those key questions in his book, No Fear, No Doubt, No Regret: Investing In Life’s Challenges Like A Warrior.

The book was published by Ferne Press of Northville.

It recently won the 2013 Pinnacle Award for Parenting Books.

His insights were hard-won as he walked alongside his son Alan, who was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy. The disease unfortunately, claimed his life in July of 2010.

You can listen to the full interview above.

Men who live on one side of Rawsonville Rd. have a life expectancy that's six years longer than men on the other side.

In fact, the life expectancy for males in Washtenaw County is the equivalent of Switzerland, while in Wayne County it's the equivalent of Syria. 

Ron French is a contributing writer for Bridge Magazine, and recently published a story about the health disparities between Wayne and Washtenaw counties, and spoke with us about what he found.

University of Michigan researchers say more than forty percent of parents are making a serious mistake when they try to treat their toddlers for a cough or cold.

In 2008, the Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory that over-the-counter cough and cold medicines should not be used in children under age of four. The drugs have not been proven effective for young children and may cause serious side effects.

But a new poll by U of M researchers says more than 40% of parents are using the medicine to treat their toddlers.

The state is encouraging Michigan health plans to provide genetic counseling and testing for some types of breast cancer. 

Breast and ovarian cancer can run in families. Sometimes it's caused by an underlying genetic change passed from parent to child.

Jenna McLosky, who's the cancer genomics education coordinator for the Michigan Department of Community Health, says women who have a family history of breast cancer should consider tests for a change in the BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 genes.

The University of Michigan is set to lead a national trial in the use of stem cell injections to study their effects on the symptoms of ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease.

U-M will collaborate with Emory University in the Phase II clinical trial, pending approval by  the Institutional Review Board, which could take about a month. The FDA has approved the trial.

It's estimated between 30,000 to 50,000 people in the United States have ALS.

On an average day in Michigan, two babies die. That alarming statistic comes from the Michigan Department of Community Health, which says only 14 other states have worse infant mortality rates.

Jane Zehnder-Merrell is with the Kids Count project at the Michigan League for Public Policy. She says expanding Medicaid coverage under the federal Affordable Care act could make a big difference in reducing this sad statistic.

"If we care about what's happening to kids in this state, we need to make this investment at the very beginning of life to make sure that more kids are born healthy."

"The Affordable Care Act would insure that more mothers to be would have ongoing access to care which is important in order to have a healthy pregnancy."

Lawmakers in Lansing are debating whether to expand Michigan's Medicaid rolls. There is some opposition to the idea. Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government would pick up the tab for the expansion through 2016.