Mom’s Heartbreaking Story of Her Son Suffering From Shaken Baby Syndrome Is Going Viral

A mom from Seattle, Washington has shared her heartbreaking story with Love What Matters in order to raise awareness of shaken baby syndrome.

In her emotional first person piece, Angie Setlak explained that after a “stressful pregnancy due to his father not being faithful to me,” and her blood pressure being affected, her son Xavier “was born four weeks early because he wasn’t growing.” Her son was born healthy but spent 16 days in the NICU before coming home. Everything was “perfect” for three months, Setlak wrote, but that all ended during her first day back from maternity leave.

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“I had been fielding text messages from Xavier’s father all day about how difficult he was being, and I told his dad we would find another solution so he didn’t have to watch him during the day,” she wrote. “While on maternity leave, Xavier’s father had been alone with him for two hours tops, and everything had been fine. His father worked nights, and the plan was for him to watch Xavier during the day while I worked, and then I would watch him at night when he worked. My former partner had raised a 10-year-old after all, so even though I was very nervous about the situation, he kept reassuring me everything would be alright.” She says it never occurred to her that her baby might be in danger, but at one point, Xavier’s dad texted her asking “if he could murder the baby now.” She reassured him that she’d be home soon.

“I kept thinking, ‘just a few more hours and then I can be back home with my baby,'” Setlak shared. “Then, at 2:30 I got the message every mother hopes they will never get. ‘Xavier stopped breathing. Come home now.’ I called his father and asked what happened, to which he replied, ‘He choked on milk and we are going to Seattle Children’s hospital.’ I gathered my things, choked down my tears, and made my way to the hospital. When I got there, I heard my baby crying so I thought everything would be okay. There was a room full of doctors all for my tiny 10-pound baby. After things had settled down, they let me go over to him and hold his hand. He was suddenly quiet and pale. I knew something was not right.”Doctors eventually confirmed that Xavier’ brain was bleeding. In a fit of rage, the boy’s father had shaken him and the baby was in a medically-induced coma, suffering seizures.  “I heard everything from ‘he might be blind’ to ‘he may never be able to learn, walk, talk, move…’” Setlak wrote. “But still I knew he would come back to me.”

Seventeen days later, Xavier was cleared to go home. “His father was arrested the night of the injury for first degree child abuse,” Setlak noted. “I still don’t know the details of what happened that day, and I don’t know if I ever will. Since we are almost three months out from the injury, I focus less on the ‘why’ and more on the ‘now what.'”

She explained that she tries to be “present” with her child and she “thanks God every day for bringing my baby back to me.” The little boy still goes to physical therapy and occupational therapy weekly. “He has a neurologist,” Setlak wrote. “An ophthalmologist, a neurodevelopmental specialist, is in speech therapy, and is now going to be going to Anat Baniel Method therapy to help awaken his brain and re-wire it. Everyone keeps telling me how lucky we are this happened while he was so young, how resilient babies are, and how plastic the brain is at this age. He is at high risk for developing Cerebral Palsy, but we won’t get that diagnosis for another 1.5 years, if he has it. He sees people for early intervention services, and I firmly believe the more we work with him, the better his odds are.”

The optimistic mom tells Parents.com that she shared her story in order to let people know this can happen to anyone. “We watched the videos about PURPLE Crying,” she shares. “I thought stuff like this didn’t happen to ‘people like me.’ And I left him in the care of the person who was supposed to love him and take care of him, not hurt him. I understand getting frustrated, I do. I got frustrated with him when he wouldn’t stop crying. But that’s why they teach you to put the baby down and walk away.”

Setlak elaborated on this in her Love What Matters piece: “You go cry somewhere, or scream, or talk to someone. You get your frustrations out, and then come back to your sweet baby and start over again. To this day, Xavier still cries. And fusses. And I have moments I have to put him down and walk away. Because that’s what you do as a parent. I hope someone reading our story will take all of it to heart and realize how important it is to not shake a baby. No matter what, you never shake a baby. It’s so easily avoidable. A moment of rage changed my baby forever.”

You can support Xavier on Angie’s Give InKind fundraising page. 

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Vigorous Exercise May Help Prevent “Silent” Strokes

By Matt McMillen

WEDNESDAY, June 8, 2011 (Health.com) — Small strokes that cause no outward symptoms yet have potentially serious long-term consequences may be kept at bay by vigorous exercise such as jogging and cycling, a new study in the journal Neurology suggests.

Walking and other light exercise, by contrast, appears to offer no protection against these so-called silent strokes, which cause small brain lesions and have been linked to an increased risk of falling, memory problems, dementia, and full-blown strokes.

“The more reasons we can tell our geriatric patients to exercise, the better,” says the lead author of the study, Joshua Z. Willey, MD, an assistant professor of neurology at Columbia University Medical Center, in New York City. “Not only does [exercise] prevent stroke and heart disease, it also prevents these markers that are linked to other diseases, including dementia, and overall mortality.”

The study included 1,238 men and women in northern Manhattan who are part of a larger, ongoing study of stroke risk factors funded by the federal government. The participants ranged in age from about 60 to 80 and had no known history of stroke. Just under two-thirds were Hispanic, and the remainder were roughly evenly split between blacks and whites.

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Each of the participants answered survey questions about their exercise habits, including which activities they took part in, how often, and for how long. Forty-three percent of the participants did not exercise at all; 36% engaged in light workouts such as walking, playing golf, or bowling; and 21% reported getting regular, moderate-to-vigorous exercise from bicycling, swimming, racquetball, and similarly intense activities.

Roughly six years later, the participants each underwent an MRI to look for signs of silent strokes, also known as subclinical brain infarcts. Roughly 1 in 6 had lesions consistent with silent stroke.

The odds of having a silent stroke were 40% lower in the heavy exercise group than in the sedentary group. However, the light exercisers were just as likely to have lesions as those who did not exercise at all, even when the researchers took other risk factors (such as cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and diabetes) into account.

This doesn’t mean that low-intensity exercise has no value. As Dr. Willey and his coauthors are quick to point out, light physical activity has other health benefits. It’s also possible that, with a larger study population, they might have found a subtle yet measurable relationship between low-intensity exercise and a lower risk of silent stroke.

“Maybe it was simply that they could not measure a difference,” says Helmi Lutsep, MD, a stroke expert and vice chair of neurology at Oregon Health and Science University, in Portland.

But the findings do echo similar research on exercise and (non-silent) strokes. Previous studies, including one from Dr. Willey’s team, which includes researchers at Columbia and the University of Miami, have consistently linked vigorous exercise—but not mild exercise—to a lower risk of stroke.

Dr. Lutsep, who was not involved in the study, says that some of her elderly patients have difficulty sticking to a regular regimen of intense exercise. She often advises these people to include short bursts of intense activity in their exercise routine.

“Even if they can’t maintain an intense level of activity, they can often make their exercise a little more vigorous for a short time, for, say, 10 minutes,” she says.

One of the study findings surprised Dr. Willey: Uninsured participants, as well as those with Medicaid, saw no reduction in silent-stroke risk no matter how vigorously they exercised. While he’s unable to explain why, he suspects that it’s because those participants have underlying medical problems that are not being adequately treated.

Dr. Lutsep agrees. “If we have a patient who is uninsured, it’s likely he’s not taking blood-pressure medications that help prevent strokes,” she says. “The risks are magnified.”

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Walk Off 10 Pounds in 3 Weeks

Walk Off 10 Pounds in 3 Weeks



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How the Keto Diet Can Affect Your Workouts

The low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diet continues to be the trendiest weight-loss plan around. Maybe that’s because following keto is relatively simple: by cutting way back on your carbohydrate intake while eating lots of fat and a moderate amount of protein, your body goes into a state of ketosis, burning fat instead of carbs for energy. 

Stories of keto diet weight-loss success are all over social media. Yet the plan isn’t without some side effects, especially when it comes to the way it can affect your workout. Here are four must-knows if you’re an athlete or regular exerciser who’s gone keto—or is thinking of trying it. 

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You might feel weak during the first few weeks

Transitioning from burning carbs to burning fat takes about two weeks, so at the diet’s start, your system is not in ketosis yet. “That means that your body is still using stored glucose for fuel rather than ketones,” says Jim White RDN, ACSM exercise physiologist, and owner of Jim White Fitness and Nutrition Studios in Virginia. “But because your carbohydrate intake is restricted, the amount of stored glucose (or energy) is limited, which can cause you to feel weak and fatigued.”

Some people experience symptoms such as brain fog, headaches, chills, and a sore throat during this transition. These symptoms are collectively referred to as “the keto flu,” explains Dave Asprey, founder and CEO of performance nutrition company Bulletproof. It’s not really the flu, of course. But symptoms like these will make you feel like a flu sufferer and “will negatively affect your ability to tackle a workout,” says Asprey.

The “keto poops” could interrupt your workout

Yep, this is a real thing. It’s also known as keto diarrhea, and it can strike in the middle of a gym session. Keto poops are a common side effect of the high-fat diet. “This is likely due to the gallbladder—the organ that produces bile to help break down all the fat in the keto diet—feeling overwhelmed or overworked,” says Josh Axe, a natural medicine physician and author of the upcoming book Keto Diet.

Feeling an urgent need to go number two during yoga or CrossFit isn’t too much of an issue; you can just hightail it to the gym restroom or locker room and then resume your workout. But when you’re on an outdoor run, well, that could be a problem. If you’re a casual runner, just pick a shorter route or one with known bathroom stops. And consider adjusting your meal schedule, so any poop problems happen before or after you lace up your running shoes.

RELATED: Keto vs. Atkins: Which Is the Better Low-Carb Diet?

You’ll need to hydrate a lot more often

Dehydration is another common side side effect of keto. “Ketosis causes you to lose electrolytes because it increases urine output,” says Axe. (That’s one of the reasons people lose pounds so quickly on the plan; it’s water weight at first.) Also, because many fruits are high in carbs and you have to dial back your carb intake on the keto diet, you probably won’t be consuming as much fruit as usual. Fruits have a high water content, so without them, you might be more dehydrated.

Thirst during a workout is your first clue that you need a water bottle break. But you might also notice an increase in fatigue and cramping as you get more into your routine. These are also signs of dehydration, and if you sense them, it’s important to rehydrate ASAP. “If you’re dehydrated and fatigued, you’ll either feel less motivated to work out, or your workouts will feel crappy,” says Axe. 

You might consume fewer calories—and have less energy

The keto diet is high in fat, and fat tends to be more filling than protein or carbohydrates. If you’re feeling full, you could end up not having the proper amount of energy needed to power through a tough workout. “If you’re not eating enough calories, you could send your body into starvation mode, which would make you feel even more fatigued,” says Will Cole, functional medicine practitioner and author of Ketotarian. 

You don’t want to force yourself to eat when you’re not hungry. But if you stash some workout snacks in your gym bag, you’ll always have a keto-friendly source of energy to turn to if you need it. “Some of my favorite fatty pre-workout snacks are single serving packets of nut butters, avocados with a little sea salt and pepper, seeds, and grass-fed meat,” says Cole.

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