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(MIAMI) — Twin sisters Hadley and Delaney Robertson created the BraceTrack app to help people who use scoliosis braces.

The twins, 15, from Miami were both diagnosed with scoliosis at age 12 during their annual checkup in January 2018. According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, scoliosis affects 2-3% of the population, or an estimated 6 to 9 million people, in the United States. It can develop as early as infancy but is typically onset between 10 and 15 years old.

While Delaney’s scoliosis didn’t require treatment, Hadley was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis and the curve of her spine was greater than 20 degrees. Doctors prescribed her a back brace that needed to be worn for 18 hours a day to stop the progression, Hadley told Good Morning America.

“Getting used to wearing a brace can be a little daunting,” Hadley, who was able to stop bracing in June 2020, said. “It’s made of a hard plastic so it can be hot to walk around in on a daily basis and it makes it a little bit difficult to do activities like sports.”

Fortunately, if Hadley needed to take off her brace for any reason, she could wear it for extra hours another day to make up for lost time. The true difficulty was in keeping track of not just those banked hours, but also her daily use.

“One thing about that I found really difficult was figuring out how to track the time that I wore it,” Hadley said. “I tried using a lot of different things. I think we tried using a notepad, a whiteboard, and I even tried looking for an app on the app store to see if there was something that could help me track that but there really wasn’t one so we decided to develop one ourselves.”

That same year, the twins began to research more about scoliosis and app development to figure out what functions would best serve people with the condition. While the girls were previously interested in STEM, they had no prior experience with building an app.

“I think one common misconception around this sort of thing is that you have to know everything about an idea to get into it,” Delaney said. “We really didn’t know everything about app development, or scoliosis even. We just jumped in and started doing a lot of research.”

They then worked with an app developer to make sure they had everything they needed to get the app into app stores across all devices, and it officially launched in May 2019.

“Since BraceTrack is a medical app, it was really important that we were HIPAA compliant and that we had all of those things in order,” Delaney said. “So we found an app developer that would be able to help us actualize all of the vision, all of the designs that we had.”

BraceTrack has several functions to assist users. It can keep track of how long a person wears their brace each day as well as how many banked hours they have, which can be applied to other days where they’ve needed to take their brace off.

It even keeps a log of past history of brace use and creates average trend data based off that. Users also have the ability to create a report with all of the data the app collects, which they can save and send to a doctor, relative, or the like.

“These reports make it more easy to interpret and understand where you could be wearing your brace more or where you’re wearing it a lot,” Delaney said.

The app has been downloaded over 1,000 times, the sisters said, and had around 500 active users last week. Currently, BraceTrack has a 4.9 out of 5-star rating on Apple’s App Store with a myriad of positive reviews.

“We’ve been really amazed by the response we’ve gotten to the app,” Hadley said. “People have said that’s made their brace experience a lot easier and that they’re able to track their time and understand better where they are with that.”

Hadley and Delaney also founded Brace for Impact in January 2021, which is a nonprofit that aims to provide funding for scoliosis braces for children and families who are unable to afford them.

“Bracing journeys can be really expensive since braces cost anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000,” Delaney said, adding that braces are custom-fitted and kids may need multiple braces as they grow.

She continued, “It can be a real financial investment and we were sort of thinking about what we could do to support kids who aren’t able to afford these braces since insurance doesn’t always cover them and they’re really important to your spinal health.”

Brace for Impact has raised $120,000 to date to for four of its partner scoliosis centers: Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, Shriners Hospital for Children, Children’s Diagnostic and Treatment Center and Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital.

“We’ve just been really amazed by the places we’ve been working with,” Delaney said. “The doctors and hospital staff that we’ve been talking to about this have just been so amazing and so inspiring.”

“It’s been really amazing so far to watch how Brace for Impact has been able to help kids,” Hadley said.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Biden White House is continuing to push back against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABC News reported earlier this week that the state of Florida had requested 300 ventilators from the federal government to help handle the recent increase in COVID-19 related hospitalizations in the state. DeSantis said Tuesday, though, that he was unaware of that request.

 On Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded to DeSantis, saying that “as a policy, we don’t send ventilators to states without their interest in receiving the ventilators.”

“I think the most important question here is why would you oppose receiving ventiltators when you clearly need those in your state, given the percentage of hospitalizations that are occuring in Florida,” she added. When asked whether it was possible that DeSantis could have been unaware of the request, she suggested the question was better posed to DeSantis and his office.

The pushback, Psaki said, wasn’t a personal attack on DeSantis.

“Our war is not on [him]. It’s on the virus, which we’re trying to kneecap, and he does not seem to want to participate in the effort to kneecap the virus.”

DeSantis has also instituted a statewide ban on mask requirements. Earlier this week, he suggested that the state Board of Education could withhold pay from school leaders who implement mask mandates for students.

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(ATLANTA) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday announced new evidence that strengthens its recommendation for pregnant people to get vaccinated.

“CDC recommends that pregnant people should be vaccinated against COVID-19, based on new evidence about the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines. COVID-19 vaccination is recommended for all people 12 years and older, including people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or trying to get pregnant now or might become pregnant in the future,” the CDC said in a summary of its updated guidance.

The update is based on further research that found pregnant people can receive an mRNA vaccine with no increased risk to themselves or their babies. Getting the vaccine early in pregnancy, including anytime before 20 weeks, poses no increased risk for miscarriage, CDC scientists found, and there are no safety concerns for pregnant people vaccinated late in pregnancy, or for their babies.

Preliminary: New CDC study found no increased risk of miscarriage after #COVID19 vaccination during early pregnancy. These findings can help inform discussions about COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy between pregnant people & healthcare providers: https://t.co/pBVlI6STf8 pic.twitter.com/kruX8OJvyl

— CDC (@CDCgov) August 11, 2021

“In a new analysis of current data from the v-safe pregnancy registry, scientists did not find an increased risk for miscarriage among people who received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine before 20 weeks of pregnancy. This adds to the growing evidence of the safety of these vaccines,” the CDC said.

Until Wednesday, the CDC’s guidance for pregnant women was that they were eligible and could get vaccinated. The new guidance, which is that pregnant women should get vaccinated, is armed with more data and safety assurances. It also comes as the nation sees a significant spike in COVID cases and hospitals near capacity in states like Texas and Florida.

The risk of severe illness from COVID is much higher for pregnant women.

Pregnant women are more likely to be hospitalized and need critical care, including ventilation and admission to the intense care unit (ICU), according to the CDC, and COVID-19 during pregnancy increases the risk for preterm birth of the infants — a birth that is three or more weeks ahead of the expected due date.

Last week, two of the nation’s leading women’s health organizations, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM), came out in full support of vaccinations for pregnant women.

“ACOG is recommending vaccination of pregnant individuals because we have evidence of the safe and effective use of the vaccine during pregnancy from many tens of thousands of reporting individuals, because we know that COVID-19 infection puts pregnant people at increased risk of severe complications, and because it is clear from the current vaccination rates that people need to feel confident in the safety and protective value of the COVID-19 vaccines,” ACOG president Dr. J. Martin Tucker said in a statement. “Pregnant individuals should feel confident that choosing COVID-19 vaccination not only protects them but also protects their families and communities.”

Both ACOG, a national membership organization for more than 60,000 OBGYNs, and SMFM, a global organization with more than more than 5,000 physicians, scientists and women’s health professionals, previously recommended that pregnant people have access to vaccines and should “engage in shared decision-making” about the vaccine with their doctors.

Currently, the rate of vaccination among pregnant women is very low. Just 23% of pregnant women received one dose of a vaccine during pregnancy as of July 31, per CDC data.

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(NEW YORK) — As the number of pediatric COVID-19 cases continues to rise across the United States, parents are adding face masks to the top of their back-to-school shopping lists.

For the 2021-2022 school year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommends all students ages 2 and older wear face masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, an organization of nearly 70,000 pediatricians, has also called on schools to enforce universal masking mandates.

Dr. Allison Bartlett, a pediatric infectious diseases physician at University of Chicago Medicine, is the mother of three sons who are all under age 12 and therefore not yet able to be vaccinated. Bartlett said her sons will be attending in-person school in the fall and will be wearing face masks.

“The whole COVID pandemic has changed with the delta variant and the very high levels of spread,” Bartlett told ABC’s Good Morning America, explaining the increased urgency for mask wearing. “It’s true that most kids don’t get sick, but most kids are not all.”

“I hope that parents understand that no kid likes wearing masks, but the kids that I have interacted with completely understand why they’re doing this, that they’re doing this to protect other people,” she said. “It’s a team effort and everyone has to contribute.”

With unvaccinated children at risk, parents have questions about which types of face masks will keep their children and those around them the safest.

GMA spoke with Bartlett along with Dr. Richard Malley, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital, and Dr. Edith Bracho-Sanchez, a pediatrician at Columbia University, to break down what parents need to know.

1. Children do not need N95, KN95 masks.

All three experts agreed that while N95 and KN95 masks, the types of masks often used in hospitals, provide the best protection, they are not designed nor needed to be used by children.

“N95 masks on a child may not fit and even if they do fit, they’re not as comfortable,” said Malley. “We don’t want to be recommending masks that kids are not willing to wear.”

Both Malley and Bartlett also pointed out N95 and KN95 masks do not work if they do not fit properly, which is why medical staff who wear them undergo intense fitting procedures to make sure they are secure.

“Absolutely an N95 that has been fitted to you provides the most protection. It is true in a healthcare setting but not relevant to kids and schools,” said Bartlett. “They don’t really make child size N95s and unless you’ve gone through the fit testing, it doesn’t really provide any extra protection.”

2. The mask your child will wear is the best mask.

All three experts also agreed that whatever face mask your child is willing to wear indoors at school is the best mask for them, whether it is surgical, cloth or disposable.

“It all comes down to if they’re not going to wear it, it doesn’t matter how high quality the mask is,” said Bartlett, adding as an example, “A well-fitted cloth mask works much better than a poorly-fitted surgical mask.”

Malley suggests letting a child pick out their own masks can help motivate them to wear them and help them feel part of the solution.

“Everybody recognizes that [mask wearing] is an inconvenience for kids, so one way to help the process is to let the child choose,” he said. “Go online or go to the store and have the child select the mask they’re going to wear.”

3. Parents and kids need to regularly check the fit of the mask.

In order for a mask to be effective, it needs to fit over the nose and cover under the chin, according to Malley.

“You want something that covers the nose and mouth and when they speak or laugh, that the mask is not falling off their face,” he said. “You want the jaw to be able to move.”

The face mask should also lay flat on the skin, according to Bartlett.

“In my experience, sometimes the surgical masks tend to gape more at the side because they’re rectangular,” she said. “And sometimes fabric masks work better because they fit better and are softer or more comfortable to fit the face.”

Both experts also noted it is perfectly fine for kids to use clips or bands to relieve pressure on their ears when wearing a mask.

4. Face masks can be re-worn by kids.

“As long as your mask is fitting well, as long as the mask is taut and you have a good fit at the top and at the bottom, you can keep washing it and wearing it,” said Bracho-Sanchez.

5. A sun test can help check the quality of your child’s face mask.

One technique to check the quality of your child’s mask is hold the mask up to the sun. If you can see light through the mask as you hold it stretched, it’s not thick enough.

6. Children will not get sick from wearing face masks.

Concerns about children not being able to breathe while wearing face masks or risking illness from germs in their masks are not founded in science, according to Bartlett.

“There is not a risk to kids of CO2 [carbon dioxide] retention or not getting enough oxygen,” she said. “There is no medical concern to having your face covered with a mask like this.”

When it comes to germs, Bartlett said the masks prevent foreign pathogens from coming in, so the only germs kids could have in their masks are the same germs from their body.

She did suggest though that parents send their children to school with clean, spare masks so they have one on hand to swap out if, for example, they sneeze in the mask.

“Send kids to school with a few masks and, at home, wash masks regularly and have a constant supply of masks on hand,” said Bartlett.

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