Children’s Health

It’s 7:30 a.m. on a school day. Two parents are racing to get their three young children dressed, fed, packed for the day, into coats and out the door when 6-year-old Hallel runs downstairs, crying. Ari, Hallel’s father, is the first to ask “What’s wrong?” The answer launched a journey these parents never envisioned, described

A new University of Iowa study challenges the idea that gray matter (the neurons that form the cerebral cortex) is more important than white matter (the myelin covered axons that physically connect neuronal regions) when it comes to cognitive health and function. The findings may help neurologists better predict the long-term effects of strokes and

Neonatal hypothermia — which occurs when an infant’s core body temperature falls below the normal range needed to maintain health — contributes to approximately one million deaths each year, and countless cases of stunted growth, almost exclusively in low- and middle-income countries. To address this common but preventable condition, researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital, engineers

The 2021 Montana legislative session will be remembered as one of the state’s most consequential as a Republican-led legislature and governor’s office passed new laws restricting abortions, lowering taxes and regulating marijuana. But the debate over those and other highly publicized issues may have caused other meaningful legislation related to health care to slip off

Determining safe yet effective drug dosages for children is an ongoing challenge for pharmaceutical companies and medical doctors alike. A new drug is usually first tested on adults, and results from these trials are used to select doses for pediatric trials. The underlying assumption is typically that children are like adults, just smaller, which often

Researchers have conducted an analysis of nationwide surveillance data from Israel demonstrating the real-world effectiveness of Pfizer-BioNTech’s BNT162b2 vaccine at protecting against infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) – the agent that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The team – from the Israel Ministry of Health in Jerusalem, Pfizer in Collegeville, Philadelphia,

A new USC study suggests that certain neighborhoods – particularly those characterized by poverty and unemployment – may pose an environmental risk to the developing brains of children, impacting neurocognitive performance and even brain size. The research was published May 3 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. These findings highlight the importance of neighborhood environments for

A hot topic symposia session during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2021 Virtual Meeting will address the persistent controversies and questions in preterm infant nutrition. After six years of interdisciplinary expert discussion and critical evidence review, the 2014 vision to develop evidence-informed guidance for the nutritional care of preterm infants has come to fruition. The

A state of the art plenary session during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2021 Virtual Meeting will bring together national experts on child poverty, racism and racial inequities, immigrant health, Native American culture, and environmental threats to discuss the intersectionality of child poverty. Poor children do not just suffer from double jeopardy, but frequently multiple

There is currently no consensus on what quality end-of-life care for children with cancer looks like, or how to measure and deliver it; however, investigators recently assembled an expert panel to help fill this void. In a study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the panel endorsed 16

A biomedical research company founded by a University of Alabama at Birmingham physician-scientist has received $3 million in seed funding. ResBiotic Inc. — spun off from UAB last year — will use the money to develop and commercialize groundbreaking probiotic formulations for lung health, says founder C. Vivek Lal, M.D., an associate professor in the

Besides being underweight, babies born to women whose diet lacked sufficient protein during pregnancy tend to have kidney problems resulting from alterations that occurred while their organs were forming during the embryonic stage of their development. In a study published in PLOS ONE, researchers affiliated with the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in the state of

In the current pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), pregnant women have wrestled with the question of whether they and/or their babies are at higher risk due to the direct or indirect effects of infection by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). A new study, recently released as a preprint on the medRxiv*

In a multi-institutional study, researchers in the Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics Research Network (DBPNet), led by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), have conducted the first and largest analysis to date comparing the effectiveness and side effects of stimulants like methylphenidate (Ritalin) and alpha-adrenergic agonists like guanfacine (Tenex) in preschool-age children. The researchers found that both classes of

A state of the art plenary session during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2021 Virtual Meeting discussed prenatal environmental contaminants and childhood disease, and the latest evidence for epigenetic mechanisms associated with transgenerational disease and public policy implications. Three generational animal models now conclusively demonstrate that fetal exposure to the same environmental chemicals now found

Yale researchers have shown that developmental abnormalities, including those that lead to pregnancy loss and autism, are controlled by the genetics of the fetus and placenta — and not the mother’s intrauterine environment. The findings are reported in the April 28 online edition of the journal Placenta. One out of every 33 children is diagnosed

A hot topic symposia session during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2021 Virtual Meeting will discuss a multipronged approach to addressing childhood adversity and promoting resilience – at the clinical, systems, community and educational levels. The effect of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on health outcomes across the lifespan is well recognized among pediatric practitioners. Increasing

Research by scientists at the University of Texas at Austin, the Santa Fe Institute, and  Fractal Therapeutics suggests infection rates in the surrounding community are not a reliable measure for estimating the level of risk for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission in schools. Claims of in-person schooling being safe and not increasing

A new study published in the journal JAMA offers reassuring evidence that infants born to mothers with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), or even asymptomatic infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), have little increase in respiratory symptoms over babies born to uninfected mothers. Evidence of the virus has been found in placental and

A new study led by a University of Miami Miller School of Medicine researcher underscores the importance of screening adolescents with hearing loss for depression and anxiety. Mental health issues are often overlooked in treating patients with chronic health conditions such as hearing loss. We need to develop and implement a universal screening protocol for