Latest news with #Elvie
7NEWS
21-05-2025
- Health
- 7NEWS
Queensland girl Elvie Luik, 13, faces leukaemia fight
For most youngsters, turning 13 marks a new and exciting chapter in their lives — the start of the teenage years and the transition from childhood to becoming an adult, and all that goes with it. When Elvie Luik turned 13 last month, she celebrated the milestone at Movie World and Wet'n'Wild with her family. But over the Easter weekend the Queensland teenager began to feel sick with headaches, vomiting and lethargy. Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Doctors diagnosed Elvie with a mild infection, telling her mother Rosie the illness should resolve itself in about a week with some rest. But Elvie did not get better and Rosie had a gut feeling something more serious was wrong. Her intuition was confirmed when another emergency hospital visit revealed the young girl had leukaemia. Doctors had never seen a white cell count so high. The mother and daughter have already been through a lot. Rosie fell seriously ill after giving birth to Elvie, developing an infection that almost killed her and put her in hospital for three months. Now Elvie faces her own fight for life. Rosie Luik, 40, and her daughter Elvie, 13. Credit: Supplied Rosie, 40, originally thought her daughter had picked up a simple, common illness from someone at one of the theme parks. 'She didn't really have a very high temperature or anything like that so we thought maybe we'll just keep her home for a few days and just see how she goes,' she told For a few days Elvie's health was up and down. Some days she felt alright but others she wasn't well at all, her mother said. When Elvie felt well enough to go back to school, Rosie soon received a call from the nurse saying Elvie needed to be picked up. 'I went and picked her up and then she threw up in the back of the car and then said she was feeling a lot better,' Rosie said. But the teenager continued to vomit and complain of a bad headache, prompting Rosie to take her to emergency a few days later. Doctors said Elvie likely had viral meningitis, an infection that is usually not very serious and goes away on its own. '(They said) just go home and rest for seven to 10 days and she'll hopefully get better,' Rosie said. 'So I took her home and she just, she just wasn't getting better.' Elvie's symptoms continued and, the day after Mother's Day, Rosie decided enough was enough. 'There's something else going on here,' she recalled thinking. Rosie drove her daughter back to the emergency department where the young girl underwent a blood test and an MRI. The results worried doctors. 'By the time we got back from the MRI, the doctor came in and said 'I need to do another blood test. Her white cell count is impossible, that's impossible to have that high of a white cell count. So, I'm just doing another test',' Rosie said. Elvie was diagnosed with leukaemia the day after Mother's Day this year. Credit: Supplied Soon after, the oncology team came to visit. With Rosie's husband listening on the phone, the family were told Elvie had leukaemia. She was declared a medical emergency and was whisked away to the paediatric ICU. Rosie said receiving her daughter's shocking diagnosis was completely overwhelming and numbing. Explaining what having leukaemia meant to Elvie was just as bad. 'It was the most heartbreaking experience I've ever had in my life, and to just hear the words that came out of her mouth were just awful,' she said. 'She was just like 'I want to live, you need me here, my brothers and sisters need me here'. 'She was just beside herself.' But as soon as Elvie was taken to the ICU, Rosie said something in her switched. She wasn't going anywhere. She was going to live. '(Elvie) just had this positive attitude. She's like 'It's OK mum, its' OK dad, I'm doing to beat this. I'm going to be here. I'm not going to leave you',' Rosie said. Elvie has three older siblings, all of whom have stepped up to help in the face of the life-changing news. Elvie and Rosie Luik. Credit: Supplied A traumatic postpartum Bringing Elvie into the world 13 years ago was no easy feat for Rosie. A year earlier, in 2011, Rosie had become Queensland's first altruistic surrogate when she gave birth to twins for her friend Lauren Lichtnauer. Lichtnauer had undergone 21 failed IVF treatments and four miscarriages, and was resigned to the fact she could not have children of her own. At this point, Rosie had already given birth three times. In 2016 the surrogacy story made headlines when 60 Minutes revealed Lichtnauer had — against all odds — become pregnant just weeks before Rosie was due to give birth to the twins. That same year, it was also revealed Rosie had almost died after giving birth to Elvie. After the twins were born, Rosie developed a severe infection. She eventually recovered and quickly fell pregnant with her own child — Elvie. But just weeks after Elvie was born in 2012, Rosie fell sick again and had to have an emergency hysterectomy. She then developed peritonitis, a life-threatening infection that causes inflammation of the abdomen and pelvic lining. Rosie spent the next three months in hospital fighting for her life before eventually making a full recovery, again. Elvie with her three older siblings. Credit: Supplied 'The most beautiful soul' Elvie is currently undergoing chemotherapy, with her prognosis at this stage unclear. Despite this she has remained as positive as ever. 'I think she's trying to be strong for everyone and she's just the most beautiful soul,' Rosie said. 'That's really shining through in this, like she's just trying to take it one step at a time and just be as positive and see the joy and when (the doctors) say 'Great job, Elvie, you've done really well' she's really proud of herself.' A GoFundMe has been set up to help Elvie and the family, with Rosie and her husband both cutting back on work to help look after their daughter. Rosie said she's been overwhelmed by the response and all the love and support the family has received. 'We're just so grateful and we can't thank people enough,' she said. 'I mean (with) the surrogacy, being in the media with that was a little bit hard but our whole family unit ... everything we're about is helping people and being there for other people and this is just showing how much of a special person Elvie is, and how she's touched so many people.'
Miami Herald
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Katherine Schwarzenegger jokes her household is ‘thriving' as kids fall sick
Katherine Schwarzenegger is having quite an eventful start to her 2025. The 35-year-old daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver took to her Instagram Stories March 18 to provide an update on life with three kids — and the wins and losses that come with it. 'I'd like to know what's going on with 2025,' she began in the clip. 'We have all the kids with viruses in the house. And my daughter Eloise just broke her wrist.' 'So, we're thriving over here,' she jokes. Schwarzenegger shares three children — daughters Lyla Maria, 4, and Eloise Christina, 2, and son Ford Fitzgerald, 4 months — with husband Chris Pratt, whom she has been married to since 2019. She's also the stepmother of Pratt's older son Jack, 12, whom the actor shares with ex-wife Anna Faris. Despite the recent illnesses and broken wrist, Schwarzenegger has a silver lining to appreciate. 'Luckily, I have the calmest 3-month-old ever,' she says in a separate Instagram Story. 'So, that's a huge win.' As far as her breastfeeding journey goes, Schwarzenegger admits that 'life has been kind of back to a little bit of a normal' her third time around. And part of that 'normal' includes being away from her newborn and pumping on-the-go. 'So, I went away from my baby for the first time to go to Chris' premiere earlier this week,' she said, referring to Pratt's new Sci-Fi movie 'The Electric State,' released March 14. 'Used my pump on-the-go that I had bought in my first postpartum with Lyla,' she continued. Her update comes three weeks after she shared a series of photos and videos from Pratt's premiere, which included a look at what she described as the 'glamorous part of motherhood.' 'Got all dressed up for a date night out and got headed out just in time to pump on the way home!' she wrote in the Feb. 25 Instagram caption. In one of the selfies, Schwarzenegger and her husband are smiling as she uses her on-the-go pump made by Elvie. Schwarzenegger also showed off cuddle pillows and a security blanket personalized with her kids' names — both made by Comfort Silkie. 'What a cute newborn gift,' she said of the blanket. On March 18, she posted an Instagram carousel showing off how she celebrated St. Patrick's Day with her little ones. In the video, she follows a trail of small, green, Leprechaun-like footprints, gold coins and Lucky Charms through her house — which led to a secret Leprechaun stash filled with goodies. 'Luck of the Irish,' she wrote in the caption.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Millennial parents are obsessed with high-tech baby gear
This year's hottest new consumer tech product isn't a personal robot or a self-driving car — it's a crib. The $800 Elvie Rise, which debuted in January at the annual CES tech trade show, is an app-controlled bouncer that automatically repeats a baby's unique preferences and can transform into a bassinet after an infant falls asleep. Why exactly should you shell out for a "smart bouncer" when other products do basically the same job for hundreds of dollars less? Elvie says it comes down to infant safety: In a company survey of American parents, a majority of respondents with newborns said they were using products that didn't meet some federal safe-sleep guidelines. Elvie's claims implicitly suggest that dropping nearly a grand on a product that's meant to be used for only six months of a child's life isn't only sensible but also the responsible thing to do. Elvie is far from the only company cashing in on parental anxiety. Baby-product peddlers have learned that it pays to remind new parents of the myriad dangers that lurk around every corner and threaten their helpless bundles of joy. If they play their cards right, companies can position their wares as the answer to a parent's darkest fears. Savvy entrepreneurs are also taking advantage of the growing overlap between evergreen parental anxieties and the distinctly modern impulse to always be optimizing through gadgets and apps. CES launched its annual BabyTech Summit in 2016, where the now legendary Snoo smart bassinet debuted the following year with a $1,200 price tag. Since then, the baby-tech market has boomed with products such as the Owlet Dream Sock (an app-linked "smart sock" that lets parents track their baby's vital metrics) and the Nanit Plus smart baby monitor (whose night-vision-equipped video camera can track an infant's breathing), as well as a slew of WiFi-enabled breast pumps (including a nearly $400 model from Elvie). Between 2018 and 2019, submissions to CES's Best of Baby Tech Awards increased by 88%. And in 2024, EMARKETER found that products for babies and children had the fastest-growing digital ad spend of any market category. These days, it's hard to avoid the tens of thousands of moms who have taken to TikTok to show off their favorite devices. As more millennial and Gen Z "digital natives" become parents, it's no surprise that devices providing real-time data on a baby's squirms, temperature shifts, and even bowel movements are hot commodities. But while this information is reassuring to some parents, it can exacerbate anxiety in others — particularly those already struggling during the fraught, sleep-deprived months of early parenthood. Instead of fueling connection, some of the products might even make parents less attuned to their kids and to themselves. From the very beginning, the baby-tech industry has been sown in the threat of worst-case scenarios. The first commercial baby monitor — a simple radio-based device — landed in American nurseries in 1938, a mere six years after the nation was rocked by the kidnapping and murder of the aviator Charles Lindbergh's 20-month-old son. In the 1980s and '90s, the devices became commonplace as fear spread about cases of sudden infant death syndrome in babies' cribs. By the early 2000s, baby monitors were getting regular tech upgrades, from cameras and two-way communication to heart-rate and temperature monitoring and even REM sleep cycle detection. Though these updates weren't necessarily filling a void in what parents needed, they quickly found a market. Becca Susong, a Chattanooga, Tennessee, pediatrician and perinatal care consultant, says fear of SIDS continues to be a major driver behind parents' interest in purchasing the WiFi-connected, app-paired baby monitors that emerged after the rise of smartphones. Some parents — especially those with neonatal intensive care unit experiences or past health scares — say they feel reassured by features like oxygen and heart-rate tracking. But there's no clear evidence linking baby monitors to a decrease in cases of SIDS, so the American Academy of Pediatrics actually cautions against monitoring for it at home. "I tend not to recommend getting the high-tech kind," Susong says about baby monitors, citing their high costs and unnecessary bells and whistles. Instead, she redirects the discussion to sleep safety like using a firm mattress with nothing else in the crib and putting the baby on their back to sleep — tangible, science-backed methods for averting SIDS. "I think they give people a sense of control over something that feels very uncertain," says Emily Guarnotta, a Long Island clinical psychologist who specializes in perinatal mental health. "SIDS is terrifying because it's so unpredictable." Eventually, baby-tech merchants got a little carried away by the market possibilities. A $3,000 self-driving AI stroller? Yours for the taking, courtesy of the Canadian startup Glüxkind. Guarnotta says she's observed that type A, control-seeking parents are particularly prone to look for reassurance from baby-monitoring devices. "There are many times when fear of something happening is already present, and then a product comes along or is recommended, and you think, 'This is going to help me. This will make me feel better and keep my baby safe,'" she says. "It can turn into a vicious cycle — you get some relief from using the product, but then the anxiety returns, and the cycle repeats." David Lesner, a 39-year-old software engineer who lives in Israel, acknowledges that part of the initial appeal of a smart baby monitor was the gadgetry itself. Before his 11-month-old son was born, he spent countless hours descending into Reddit rabbit holes to figure out which models parents liked best. But Lesner says that even his final, meticulously considered pick — the Nanit Pro — is less than perfectly accurate. While he's never experienced one of the monitor's false alarms that his baby had stopped breathing or moving, he says he knows others who have. "It can be very terrifying," Lesner says. "Those three seconds that you are going from one room to another to see that your child is fine can be like an eternity." Not even a few false alarms could deter Logan Blackburn-Issitt, a 41-year-old entrepreneur in the West Midlands, England, who used infant-movement-detection devices with all six of his children. The four older kids, now between 7 and 13, slept on an Angelcare sensor pad, which sounds an alarm if it doesn't detect movement for 20 seconds. The youngest, 3-year-old twins, wore Snuza Hero movement monitors clipped onto their diapers. If Blackburn-Issitt or his partner forgot to switch off the pad when they lifted their babies out of the crib, or if the Snuzas got jostled out of place, the devices would blare. But if anything, these occasional mishaps only fortified his peace of mind. "If the babies stopped breathing, we would be alerted quickly," he says. Eventually, baby-tech merchants got a little carried away by the market possibilities. A $3,000 self-driving AI stroller? Yours for the taking, courtesy of the Canadian startup Glüxkind, which launched its first of two smart-stroller systems in 2023. (But be warned: There's a waitlist for its anchor product, the Ella.) How about a Bluetooth-connected diaper sensor that spares caretakers from sniff-checking for number twos? Look no further than the Korean startup Monit, whose smart-baby-monitor system was the talk of the 2019 BabyTech Summit — though the high-tech poo detector proved a little too weird to gain market traction. Or what about an AI-powered changing pad? The startup Woddle is on a mission to bring fresh data insights to the changing table. But it's still to be determined whether there's a real market for a tech-infused mat for changing diapers. Combining a gloss of scientific credibility with promises of safety and efficiency, the allure of baby-tech innovation outstrips its occasional silliness. The industry meets its target customers at the intersection of some of our most deeply entrenched habits. Millennials, who now make up the largest share of new parents, have entered their child-rearing years amid the proliferation of network-connected home appliances, wearable fitness-tracking devices, and urban infrastructure designed to make everyday tasks more efficient and convenient. In the past several years alone, the "Internet of Things" has evolved from a novel subcategory of consumer products to a term that encompasses so much of what we buy and use that it barely warrants distinction. Add a dose of standard-issue parental worry to this tech-propelled drive toward optimization, throw in a revolving cast of parenting experts and influencers, and you have a consumer base that's perfectly primed to seek solace in stuff. In an ideal world, new parents would become more confident in reading and responding to their baby's cues without feeling the need to rely on gadgets and apps. Of course, there are baby-product innovations that have seriously improved people's lives. Balance bikes, for instance, have been found to better prepare kids for riding a real bicycle than the training wheels most of us grew up with. And countless articles and testimonials have praised everything from the Snoo bassinet to the Doona car-seat-stroller combo as life-changing. But optimizing everything doesn't always make life easier. Ellie Messinger-Adams, a Southern California mom of two in her mid-30s, used Wyze baby-monitoring cameras for both of her children, now 6 and 3, until about a year ago. While the cameras provided momentary reassurance that her kids were alive and well in the middle of the night, checking them wound up becoming something of a compulsion. "We don't have any of the cameras hooked up anymore, and it sort of feels like freedom," she says. "If a mom is already feeling overwhelmed, distressed, or excessively worried, adding the responsibility of monitoring data and interpreting its meaning could make things worse, increasing hypervigilance and potentially worsening anxiety or postpartum OCD," Sogand Ghassemi, a perinatal psychiatrist who practices in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, says. In an ideal world, new parents would become more confident in reading and responding to their baby's cues without feeling the need to rely on gadgets and apps. And it's not only the parents whose emotional well-being stands to benefit from a more intuitive dynamic of communication and care. "Over time, this supports the baby's ability to develop self-soothing skills, which is important for resilience," Ghassemi tells me. When it came to raising her own two children, Guarnotta, the Long Island psychologist, was firmly "anti-baby monitor," she says. It's a matter of personal preference, she tells me. Seeing other parents obsess over surveilling their babies was enough to convince her she was better off going the old-fashioned route: listening for cries and responding to them. A fancy, camera-equipped monitor wouldn't be able to tell her anything she couldn't hear for herself. "I'm already an anxious person," Guarnotta says. "I didn't really want any part of that." Kelli María Korducki is a journalist whose work focuses on work, tech, and culture. She's based in New York City. Read the original article on Business Insider
