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6A Daily News – Monday, June 13, 2011 Vitality & health (MCT) Alice Domar is a modern-day mom, so she knows the drill: "When you're at work you feel guilty that you're not at home, and if you go home at 5 or 6 p.m. to pick up the kids from day care, you feel guilty you're not at work — or you do what I do: You have your Blackberry in hand, and every time you get to a stoplight, you check your email." She gets home, she says, and she's greeted by clutter. Then maybe there's an email like the one she received the other day, asking her to help out at a school event on a weekday afternoon. "I emailed back, 'I'm really sorry, I'm seeing patients until 7 that day,'" she says. "But you know what I did? And I shouldn't have: I said I'd bake some- thing." Ouch. The pressures of modern mother- hood run the gamut. There are the souped-up societal expectations, the costs and logistics of day care and the division of household labor that usual- ly still leaves mom with the lion's share of cooking and cleaning. Experts also point to biology (moms are quicker to respond to a cry- ing infant than dads) and to the rise of perfectionist parenting, in which par- ents invest vast amounts of time and energy in their children's education and extracurriculars — and are really hard on themselves if something should turn out less than ideal. A whopping 40 percent of working moms say they always feel rushed, compared with 25 percent of working dads, according to a 2009 report from the Pew Research Center. At-home moms, now the minority in families with kids 17 or younger, are less rushed, but 82 percent still say they experience stress sometimes or frequently, the Pew report says, com- pared with 86 percent of working moms and 74 percent of working dads. "From the research I've seen, (mom stress) is just going exponentially up," says Domar, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and author of "Be Happy Without Being Perfect: How to Worry Less and Enjoy Life More." The good news is that moms, over- all, report that they're happy with their frazzled 21st century lives. "I make a lot of sacrifices," says Jana Mathews, 34, a college professor from Orlando, Fla. "I don't have any friends or any sort of social life to speak of. I go to work. I get home when my kids get off the bus from school, and then I work from when they go to sleep at night until 1 o'clock in the morning. But I'm pro- foundly happy. I've found what I want to be doing in life." The bad news is that stress, in large doses, can lead to headaches, back pain and sleep problems. It's also been High-stress motherhood "I don't have any friends or any sort of social life to speak of. I go to work. I get home when my kids get off the bus from school, and then I work from when they go to sleep at night until 1 o'clock in the morning. But I'm profoundly happy. I've found what I want to be doing in life." — Jana Mathews, mother linked to more serious health condi- tions such as depression and Type 2 diabetes, according to Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, author of "The Hid- den Feelings of Motherhood: Coping with Stress, Depression, and Burnout." "We used to say 10 to 15 percent of new moms got depressed, and now it's more accurate to say anywhere from 15 to 25 percent," Kendall-Tackett says. A certain amount of stress is built into motherhood. Anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy points to an ingenious experiment in which researchers played recordings of crying infants to new parents. Although moms and dads responded with equal alarm when a baby was crying hard, moms were much quick- er to respond to the baby who was cry- ing softly. That difference in response isn't huge, Hrdy says, but it's likely to grow as, day after day, the baby becomes accustomed to the mother responding first and begins to prefer her attention. As biology nudges the modern mom into the traditional position of comforter-in-chief, she starts to con- tend with the dazzlingly high domestic standards promoted by everyone from Martha Stewart, to HGTV, to your friendly neighborhood alpha mom. Today's perfectionist parent might, among other things, sign up her kid for two or three organized sports, when a generation ago one would've sufficed. And guess who guides, supervises and chauffeurs them? College-educated moms have increased their child care time by more than nine hours per week since the mid-1990s, according to an analysis by Garey and Valerie Ramey of the University of California at San Diego. Less educated moms are putting in an additional four hours per week. "We get so much information and advice about everything we do, how could any mother currently feel like she's doing a good job?" says Domar. "We need to get to the point of say- ing look at our mothers, our grand- mothers, our great-grandmothers who didn't do anything like what we're doing for our kids now and, first of all their kids turned out OK, and second, what kind of toll is this taking on us? What kind of pressure are we putting on ourselves to excel in every way?" Throughout our evolutionary his- tory, mothers have been working moms, Hrdy says, gathering food and performing tasks in addition to child care. What's different now is that the strong networks of friends and family that traditionally helped with child care have eroded, due to factors such as geographic mobility. "Mothers don't have enough social support," Hrdy says. "That's the bot- tom line. The idea that mothers were ever meant to care for children by themselves in our species is not real- istic." High-quality day care could help fill the gap for some moms, she says, but progress in that area has been slow. A recent study by the Organisa- tion for Economic Co-operation and Development found that the U.S lags behind more than a dozen countries, including Britain, Italy, Mexico and the Czech Republic, when it comes to government spending on child care. Even reducing stress can be stress- ful for the modern mom. Mathews, author of the popular Meanest Mom blog, (themeanest- mom.blogspot.com), agonized for three months after being offered her dream job at a large public research institution in 2008, but ultimately decided that she couldn't have a high- pressure career and still be the kind of hands-on parent she wanted to be. "It was arguably one of the hardest decisions I had to make, but I chose (to sacrifice some) glory and fame and future job prospects just to try to relieve some of these pressures that I had felt building," says Mathews, an assistant professor at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla. "Now it's kind of the happy medi- um where there's enough pressure to keep me motivated but not so much pressure that I'm going nuts." Stressed out? If your stress level isn't manage- able, you should talk to your doctor, according to womenshealth.gov, a Web resource of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Your doctor can help you get counseling, suggest ways to better handle your stress and prescribe antidepressants and sleep aids. If you're coping well but would like to do better, womenshealth.gov suggests a wide range of stress man- agement options. Breakfast can help prevent weight gain (MCT) Eat to stay slim. Yes, there's a catch. When the diet expert told me, "Start eating," she total- ly had my attention. Unfortunately, her next word was "breakfast." Breakfast time is the only time I'm not hungry, so why would I want to eat then? Studies show that fewer Americans are eating when they wake up, and that's a mistake, says Angela Ginn, the Baltimore expert who first told me to start eating something in the morning. Ginn, a registered dietit- ian at the University of Maryland, says there's sci- entific evidence that if you eat breakfast you're less like- ly to gorge later. She TEHAMA ESTATES PROVIDES: Active Senior Citizens A Retirement Community for the ◆ Independent Living ◆ Private Apartments ◆ Three Nutritious Meals Daily ◆ 24 Hour Secure Environment ◆ House Keeping Services ◆ Warm & Friendly Staff ◆ Recreational Programs ◆ Scheduled Transportation ◆ Private & Formal Dining Rooms EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY 750 David Avenue, Red Bluff • 527-9193 emailed me the "Breakfast and Health" report by the International Food Informa- tion Council (ific.org) — with 153 footnotes. I'll save you the trouble: "Eating breakfast may help prevent weight gain" (Foot- note 41). "Eating breakfast each day may be a smart strategy for maintaining weight loss" (43). "Skipping breakfast may lead to increased risk for obesity" (40). There is, however, a huge asterisk to all this. "Break- fast" does not mean eggs slathered in hollandaise sauce with bacon. Even grab-and-go items that sound kind of healthy often aren't. The cranberry orange scone (fruit, right?) at Star- bucks has 460 calories and 17 grams of fat. On both counts, that's really a lot. The report advises whole-grain cereal, fat-free or low-fat milk, fruit and 100 percent fruit juices (six separate footnotes). That, sadly, is a lot healthier than a buttery croissant (310 calo- ries; 18 grams of fat). "Just grab a piece of fruit or a yogurt," Ginn says. I'm peeling a banana right now — and pretending it's a croissant. fitness The eyelids have it DEAR DR. GOTT: I have itchy, dry eyelids that burn. My doctor prescribed 10 mil- ligrams of pred- nisone, a steroid. It seemed to help, at least while I was taking it, but I can feel the burning sen- sation coming back. He asked me if I had done something new or contaminated my eye, but I can’t think of anything that I’ve applied or eaten differ- ently. I don’t wear eye make- up. Is there something safe that I can put on my eyelid that will help with that? I’m assuming it’s either psoriasis or eczema of the eyelid. I’ve looked online for a cure, and there seem to be so many people with this ailment who can’t seem to find relief. I hope you can help. DEAR READER: Unfortunately, the cure for itchy eyelids depends on the source of the irritation, so I cannot be as precise as I might like, but I will hit on a few possibilities. Blepharitis can be caused by a bacterial infection, allergies, rosacea, eyelash mites and more. The outside of the lid will be crusted and look like dandruff. Dryness, swelling, itching, crusting, burning and redness may also occur. Treatment includes warm compresses and daily cleansing of the edges of the eyelids with baby shampoo or special cleaners to help remove skin oils. In some cases, antibiotic ointments or topical steroids may be rec- ommended. 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In those cases with persistent symp- toms from a bacter- ial infection, there are a number of pre- scription drugs your physician might consider. Frequent hand washing is vital. Allergies can occur at any time of the year as the result of dust, pollen, mold, grass, fragrances and chemicals, with the eyes literally bear- ing the brunt of the problem with itching, irritation, red- ness, pain and a host of other symptoms. Exposure can be so minimal as to be inconse- quential. For example, I had one patient who cleaned a bathroom floor with a well- known cleaner the day before. By the following morning, her eyes had all the classic symptoms. She vociferously denied using anything unusual but did so without realizing it. Allergies can generally be treated with over-the- counter drops, allergy med- ication or through prescrip- tion. Avoidance of the offending substance is nec- essary. If I had to wager a guess, and bypassing countless other possibilities, I would say you have blepharitis (infection of the eyelash fol- licles). Your physician may be able to diagnose you through visual examination and get you on a course of treatment. Speak with him or her regarding the treatment possibilities I mentioned before attempting to try any on your own. You simply cannot afford to guess about your eyes.