National Children's Study

[ladyelmo1]

Has anyone else heard about this? They are starting a randomized, long-range study of 100,000 children in the US, following them from before birth to age 21. There have been a ton of radio ads in my area lately, because southern Maine was selected as one of the study sites. I called the hotline because I was curious about signing up, and the lady told me that they were going to randomly select neighborhoods to draw people from so I couldn't just enroll. I was really bummed until I got a card in the mail yesterday and my neighborhood was selected! Am I weird? Cause I am really excited about my baby participating in this study. But then I wonder if it is intrusive on his/her life to have medical information sent to this study for 21 years.

Would you enroll, if you were given the opportunity? Do the benefits to future generations outweigh any potential risks/nuisance?

[sonshine_rae]

I probably wouldn't be involved given a choice... but it just sounds like a hassle to me in my busy life. And I wonder if they'd want more medical records that I'd care to aquire.. as we don't vax or do things along that line.

[_ktg_]

DDCC here - We have a County here in WI which is participating in it and I have mixed feelings.

I think overall - the purpose of the study is to examine all the variables of childhood and if there are links to disease dx, development or etc.

I've reviewed the study given the position I am in, and I think the one flaw the study is going to have is not being able to reach the population which chooses not to vax, to have homebirth, and minimal MD interactions or chooses alternative homeopathic options. That's a tragedy because I think a lot of data could be quite useful in supporting some of the choices we make.

Everyone has a choice to participate, since they do have to get consent from the parents before any data is collected. and I believe if you google National Children Study - you should be able to access their website to learn more about the study overall.

[annaconda]

Don't know anything about this study particularly but I was in some sleep studies (control group) when I was little and I liked them. The followup interviews were every six months, then every year, and they were about 20 minutes each and they interviewed me and my parents all over the phone separately.

They also sent me b-day cards till I was like 21 years old.

It was not a negative experience for me but this was through a university hospital not a national study.

[camprunner]

Our county is participating in this. I don't like the idea of my child's information being tracked by anyone. A lady I know is participating. The last time we talked, she'd had 5 ultrasounds and two of them were require (but free) by the study. She and I have different birth philosophy so she is thrilled.