Young Moms Give Birth to Sick Kids
Published: October 26, 2011 (Issue # 1680)
St. Petersburg women born in the 1980s or early 90s have difficulty giving birth to healthy children, the head of the city’s Health Committee Yury Scherbuk said at an administration meeting on Tuesday.
Currently the most common health issue among children is musculoskeletal problems. Women born in these years have musculoskeletal problems themselves and pass this complication on to their children. Only 36 percent of children born to these women are healthy, Scherbuk said.
St. Petersburg governor Georgy Poltavchenko commissioned the Health Committee to think about how to solve the problem.
“Maybe pregnant women aren’t getting some minerals that should be in our water? We also need to pay attention to the conditions our children exposed to at kindergartens and schools,” Poltavchenko said, Fontanka reported.
In addition, the city administration expressed its concern for the fact that many St. Petersburg children have problems with their teeth.
Almost all first grade students have cavities in their baby teeth. More than half of 12-year-old schoolchildren have had problems with their permanent teeth already, Scherbuk said.
Scherbuk said that according to statistics, in 2010 local dentists at children’s dental offices had to pull out 82,500 teeth, including 5,500 permanent teeth.