HEALTHY LIVING
23
TIP BY DR. OZ
Five snacks for better sleep
S
leep has a lot in common
with that other popular
bedroom activity most of
us would love to have a
little more of.
Getting enough sleep, just like
sex, has been proven to extend
your life. Less than six hours of
sleep a night increases your risk
of heart disease, stroke and viral
infections. Getting six and a half
to seven and a half hours can
make your RealAge up to three
years younger.
Humans die faster when they
go without sleep than when they
go without food. Fortunately, food
may hold the solution to getting
the ZZZs you need. A couple of
hours before bedtime, curl up
with one of these snacks. All of
them get your brain to release
sleep-friendly chemicals that
will help you nod off like a baby.
1. Almonds. A handful
contains muscle-relaxing mag-
nesium and sleep-inducing
tryptophan, which increases the
brain’s level of feel-good sero-
tonin.
2. Bananas. Beneath the
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peel is a trifecta of soothers: not
only serotonin and magnesium
but also melatonin, your body’s
natural sleep regulator.
3. Skim milk. Yep, Mom was
right. A nice warm glassful will
help you snooze. Could be the
mild sedating effect of milk’s
tryptophan, or its calcium, which
helps your brain use trypto-
phan. Or maybe it’s just calming
thoughts of mother.
4. Oatmeal. Oats are rich in
sleep-regulating melatonin. If
you drizzle just a little honey on
top, it tells your brain to turn off
orexin, a neurotransmitter linked
to alertness.
5. Whole-wheat bread. A
slice of toast dotted with banana
slices releases insulin, which
helps tryptophan get to your
brain, where it changes into
serotonin and whispers, “Sweet
dreams.”
The YOU Docs, Mehmet Oz and
Mike Roizen, are authors of “YOU: On
a Diet.” Want more? See “The Dr. Oz
Show” on TV (check local listings). To
submit questions, go to RealAge.com.
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PREGNANCY
Laughing gas returning as option for laboring moms
By Holly Ramer
The Associated Press
Labor pain is nothing to laugh at. Yet.
The use of nitrous oxide, or laugh-
ing gas, during childbirth fell out of
favor in the United States decades
ago, and just two hospitals — one in
San Francisco and one in Seattle —
still offer it. But interest in returning
the dentist office staple to the delivery
room is growing: respected hospitals
including Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medi-
cal Center plan to start offering it, the
federal government is reviewing it,
and after a long hiatus, the equipment
needed to administer it is expected to
hit the market soon.
Lori Rowell, due to give birth to her
second child in June, is intrigued by
the option.
“I would definitely think about it,
and read about and talk to my doctor
about it,” said Rowell, 36, of Concord.
“It is nice to know that it doesn’t affect
the baby, because that’s what scares
me about an epidural.”
Though nitrous oxide is commonly
used for labor pain relief in Canada,
Great Britain and other countries, it’s
been all but abandoned in the United
States in favor of other options, such
as epidurals, said Judith Bishop a cer-
tified nurse midwife at the University
of California San Francisco Medical
Center and leader in the effort to rein-
troduce nitrous oxide for labor.
With an epidural, medication to
block pain seeps through a tube into
space surrounding the spinal cord.
Because it must be administered by
an anesthesiologist, an epidural is sig-
nificantly more expensive than nitrous
oxide. Both are covered by insurance.
“In this country, most people when
they hear about nitrous, they think
it sounds pretty retro, that it sounds
very old-fashioned and they’re sure
there’s something bad or danger-
ous about it and we must’ve chosen
to eliminate it. But I think we elimi-
nated it because we went for the more
specialized, higher-tech options,” said
Though nitrous oxide is commonly used for labor pain relief in Canada, Great Britain
and other countries, it’s been all but abandoned in the United States.
Bishop, who will be among the speak-
ers Monday at a conference for New
Hampshire, Vermont and Maine hos-
pital officials.
She and other advocates of reintro-
ducing nitrous oxide emphasize that it
is no silver bullet — it “takes the edge
off” pain rather than eliminates it.
But they say it should be among the
options offered to women, particularly
those who give birth at small or rural
hospitals that lack round-the-clock
anesthesiologists. Laughing gas is
easy for women to self-administer,
takes effect quickly, and can be used
late in labor.
“It’s not right for everybody, but
it’s something that for many women
will offer a certain amount of relief,”
Bishop said.
Michelle Collins, a certified nurse
midwife and assistant nursing profes-
sor in Tennessee, previously worked
as a nurse in London and saw how
widely and well nitrous oxide was used
there. She has been working with an
anesthesiologist to bring nitrous oxide
for laboring women at Vanderbilt Uni-
versity Medical Center and said she
expects it to become available later
this year.
Early Wednesday morning, she
delivered a baby to a woman she said
would have been a perfect candidate
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for nitrous oxide: the mother arrived
at the hospital at midnight and gave
birth about three hours later.
“There was a period of time just
before birth when she was starting
to lose it. Nitrous would’ve been awe-
●
some for her: just a few puffs to get her
over that hump,” she said.
T H E WA S H I N G T O N E X A M I N E R
Vanderbilt has purchased second-
hand equipment to deliver nitrous
oxide, but Dartmouth-Hitchcock and
others are hoping to buy new equip-
ment that is expected to become
available in April. After obstetric
demand for nitrous oxide dropped,
the one company that made the equip-
ment stopped. But a new company has
stepped into that gap and has begun
taking orders.
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