A Plague of Tics

This story has to do with a guy that has tics and it discusses his struggles of everyday life. He follows the same routine everyday and has difficulty breaking the habits. It doesn't help that his parents are unsupportive and his teachers are not of much help either. The one part of this story that I found quite interesting was whenever the boy was riding in the car with his dad, and the boy went to press his nose up against the winshield and his dad slammed on the brakes. The boy's nose was bleeding, but the odd thing was that he actually enjoyed this kind of pain. In the story he said that "touching objects satisifed a mental itch, but the task involved a great deal of movement: run upstairs, cross the room, remove a shoe. I soon found those same urges could be fulfilled within the confines of my own body". I just found this remarkable because I never would have thought that someone would actually enjoy the sensation of pain. Most people would think quite the opposite so I found it interesting to see that this boy with tics actually felt a different way. He likes this feeling because it's something that he can not seem to get rid of. This same pain went on for a while, until he reached his freshman year of college. At this point in his life, he started discovering drugs, drinking, and smoking. He says "I'm unsure of the scientific aspects, but for some reason, my nervous habits faded about the same time I took up cigarettes". He was using this as a sort of medication to rid himself of the tics. It was honestly kind of hard to read this story because I felt bad for this boy. First of all, its sad enough that he had to deal with these constant struggles, but then his parents not supporting him was just making his life go even more in a downhill direction. The worst part about the entire thing was that he had to resort to smoking in order to get rid of the pain he felt inside. He shouldn't have had to do that, I mean he can't help how his behavior was. So, his parents should have been there supporting him the whole time, in order for him to make it through life a lot happier, instead of having to resort to these drugs to make him feel a little better about himself.

Thoughts on Research Topic

1) The specific question I plan on answering is "does improper prenatal and neonatal nutrition have a direct correlation with birth defects in children?

2) A working thesis statement could be that birth defects occur in all children if proper nutrition is not administered by the mother.  

3) There are a few things that I know about this topic already. In specific I know that things such as overconsumption or not consuming enough iron can actually erupt into iron-deficiency anemia. Also, if not enough folate is taken in, the child could be at risk for neural tube defects.

4) There are also a few things I would like to find out about this topic. I would like to find a possible number of how many recent outbreaks there have been on birth defects in possibly a years time period. I would then like to compare it to studies done in the past. Also, another thing I would like to find out is if there are specific reasons to why women might not follow a specific diet plan that is recommended to them. By doing this, it might be able to tell me why there has been an increase in birth defects in infants.

5) One way I could oppose my argument would be to do a compare and contrast situation. I could talk to someone whose child had a birth defect and someone whose child turned out completely healthy and see if they followed the same eating habits. If there was no change in their eating habits, then this would be able to oppose the argument by saying that nutrition is not the only factor that contributes to birth defects in children.

6) One source that I have found through my research is a video clip from thebabycorner.com and it mainly discusses the physiological aspects of what a child should eat in order to promote proper growth. Another source that I found through my research is an article that I found from the EBSCOhost database. It says that there is conflicting research on maternal nutrition and birth outcomes.