Children News and Research

RSS

Sunny days pose risk of 'flicker illness' for a few airlifted patients

"This shouldn't preclude transporting a patient from point A to point B in an aircraft, but this concern does need to register as a legitimate risk for a small number of patients. Personnel ought to know how to guard against it."

8 Mar 2007

High-deductible health plans could lead to less preventive care

High-deductible health plans could lead people -- especially children in low-income families -- to forgo or delay health care, according to a policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics published on Monday in Pediatrics, Reuters reports.

8 Mar 2007

Congressional hearings begin for Walter Reed Army Medical Center

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs on Monday held a hearing to address concerns about quality of care and living conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, during which Army officials "acknowledg[ed] ... that they have failed in the care of wounded veterans," the Los Angeles Times reports.

8 Mar 2007

Pregnant women should supplement vitamin D

Pregnant women should take steps to ensure they have adequate vitamin D in their diet, or they and especially their unborn children may run the risk of developing autoimmune diseases such as diabetes and thyroid diseases.

7 Mar 2007

Surgeon General gets serious about underage drinking

The Surgeon General's Office has appealed to Americans to do more to stop the nation's 11 million underage drinkers from using alcohol, and to discourage other young people from taking it up.

7 Mar 2007

Women in the U.S. too tired for sex

It seems American women have a problem with sleep and are not getting enough of it.

7 Mar 2007

Children under stress develop more fevers

Children whose parents and families are under ongoing stress have more fevers with illness than other children. Published this month in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, the study also shows the unanticipated conclusion that children's natural killer cell function, part of the body's innate immune system, increases under chronic stress, unlike adults, whose function is decreased.

6 Mar 2007

Teens at school short changed on training and safety in the workplace

According to researchers in the U.S. teenagers working part-time in retail and service jobs during the school year, do an average of 16 hours a week, often at jobs that are dangerous and unsupervised.

6 Mar 2007

When it comes to easing the pain, Ibuprofen best for children

Research carried out in Canada on pain relief drugs for children has found that ibuprofen is more effective than either acetaminophen or codeine.

5 Mar 2007

Clean hands save patient lives

Experts on patient safety are urging countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to join a global effort to improve hand hygiene and related practices in hospitals and health care facilities to help reduce the growing number of deaths and illnesses due to health care-associated infections.

5 Mar 2007

Debate over mandatory HPV vaccination

The Washington Post on Sunday examined the "widespread backlash" toward proposals to mandate human papillomavirus vaccination for school attendance after dozens of states "enthusiastic[ally] embraced" HPV vaccines.

5 Mar 2007

Mayo Clinic tests engineered measles virus against multiple myeloma

Mayo Clinic Cancer Center has opened a new Phase I clinical trial testing an engineered measles virus against multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow that currently has no cure. This is the third of a series of molecular medicine studies in patients testing the potential of measles to kill cancer.

5 Mar 2007

Democrats, Republicans disagree on funding for SCHIP reauthorization

As Congress begins considering reauthorization of SCHIP, Republican and Democratic lawmakers continue to disagree about funding levels and enrollment eligibility, the Washington Post reports.

5 Mar 2007

Effect of depression in mothers with breast cancer on their children's concerns

A woman's breast cancer diagnosis can wreak as much havoc on her emotions as it does on her physical health. Mothers who experience bouts of depression during their battles with breast cancer may find that the effects reach beyond their own psyches to those of their children.

5 Mar 2007

Senate hearing to debate junk food in schools

Tomorrow the Senate Agriculture Committee will hold a hearing on school nutrition issues, a move that the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) says signals new hope for strong, national action to get junk food out of schools.

5 Mar 2007

Women who smoke during pregnancy can cause permanent vascular damage in their children

The Netherlands Atherosclerosis Risk in Young Adults (ARYA) study showed that participants who were exposed to smoke when their mothers were pregnant resulted in permanent cardiovascular damage that could be detected in young adulthood.

5 Mar 2007

Shyness, genetics and parents

New research from the Child Development Laboratory at the University of Maryland shows that shyness in kids could relate to the manner in which a stress-related gene in children interacts with being raised by stressed-out parents.

5 Mar 2007

Vaccines for measles-mumps-rubella and varicella are effective in extremely preterm infants

The study, which included 16 term and 16 extremely preterm (born before about 6 months of pregnancy) infants born between May 2002 and May 2005, is the first of its kind to examine the antibody levels of measles, mumps, rubella and varicella in this population before and after vaccination. It was published in this month's Pediatrics.

5 Mar 2007

Preemie lung treatments turn out to be safe

Preemies between 28 and 32 weeks are not harmed by a treatment no longer used to help their lungs mature before birth, according to findings of a study in this month's Pediatrics.

5 Mar 2007

Obesity epidemic fuelling premature puberty in girls

Researchers in the United States say girls who are overweight at the age of three run the risk of reaching puberty as early as nine years old and warn that the obesity crisis is now affecting children's development.

5 Mar 2007