FROM OUR EXPERTS
UPSTATE
ANSWERS
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“When somebody in my family dies, we have an open casket at the calling hours. If I sign up to be an organ donor, can I still have an open casket when my time comes?” –TIM JONES OF SYRACUSE
Many people have the same concerns, so thank you for the opportunity to reassure that someone who has donated his or her organs can still have an open casket. Donation does not disfigure the body or change the way it looks in a casket. Every donor is treated with great care and dignity during the donation process, including careful reconstruction of one’s body. Surgery lines will be fully covered by most clothing chosen for the viewing. For skin donation, skin is taken from the back and the legs and is not visible with clothing. For bone donation, a stand-in plastic bone is used to allow the shape of the arms and legs to remain the same. For eye donations, plastic caps are placed over the eye to maintain the shape of the closed eyelid.
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Organ donation, as a rule, does not delay funeral plans.
–NURSE ELLEN HAVENS, CERTIFIED CLINICAL TRANSPLANT COORDINATOR, UPSTATE TRANSPLANT CLINIC.
Urge to smoke begins in utero
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abies born to mothers who smoke during pregnancy are four times more likely to begin smoking in adolescence.
Scientists at Upstate recently showed that nicotine, the most addictive of more than 4,000 chemicals in tobacco, modifies part of the brain responsible for smell and changes the neural sensitivity of the olfactory cells in the noses of the babies in utero. This is what leads them to develop a preference for the sweet, warm and spicy odor of nicotine, according to Nicole Mantella, a graduate student in the lab of professor Steven Youngentob, PhD. Youngentob’s lab in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences explores what drives kids to have that first cigarette, or that first drink. He has done similar work showing how alcohol exposure in the womb can create a craving in adolescence. He is alarmed that with all we know about the dangers of smoking, 25 percent of smoking women who become pregnant continue to smoke during pregnancy. Not only does this put babies at risk for stillbirth or prematurity, but they are also more likely to have behavioral problems such as hyperactivity and impulsivity and defects in learning, memory and attention – and to become smokers, themselves. ●
Listen to an interview at upstate.edu/healthlinkonair by searching “Youngentob.” winter 2014
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