Child Health News

RSS

ATA to honor Loyola pediatrician for contributions in the field of telemedicine

Loyola University Medical Center pediatrician Dr. Kathleen Webster, a leader in the growing field of telemedicine, is being honored by the American Telemedicine Association.

25 Apr 2012

Magnet hospitals can save lives of very low birth weight infants

Choosing the right hospital may make the difference between life and death for very low birth weight infants, according to research led by the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and released today in JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association.

25 Apr 2012

NCH opens first suburban ambulatory surgery center

Nationwide Children's Hospital has opened its first suburban ambulatory surgery center. Located in Westerville, Ohio, the center is an extension of the current surgical services on the main campus, one that gives families an option for convenient access to a full spectrum of pediatric outpatient surgical services.

25 Apr 2012

Clinical trial to evaluate IGF-1 in children with SHANK3 deficiency

In an important test of one of the first drugs to target core symptoms of autism, researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine are undertaking a pilot clinical trial to evaluate insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) in children who have SHANK3 deficiency (also known as 22q13 Deletion Syndrome or Phelan-McDermid Syndrome), a known cause of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

25 Apr 2012

Study shows not all ADHD children benefit from dietary changes

Together with child and adolescent psychiatrists, researchers from the University of Copenhagen have just completed an extensive report which reviews the studies which have been done so far on the significance of diet for children and young people with ADHD. The report shows that there are potential benefits in changing the diets of children with ADHD, but that key knowledge in the area is still lacking.

25 Apr 2012

Stress can shorten telomeres at a very young age

Children who have experienced violence might really be older than their years. The DNA of 10-year-olds who experienced violence in their young lives has been found to show wear and tear normally associated with aging, a Duke University study has found.

24 Apr 2012

Nigeria's first-ever national Vaccine Summit addresses child mortality burden

Nigeria's top government officials, civil society leaders and leaders of private industry resolved today to join forces to expand vaccine access nationwide, a major step in the fight to reduce child mortality in a country with the world's second highest number of child deaths.

24 Apr 2012

Study finds better outcomes in VLBW infants born at RNE hospitals

In a study that included more than 72,000 very low-birth-weight infants, among those born in hospitals with recognition for nursing excellence (RNE), compared with non-RNE hospitals, there was a significantly lower rate of hospital infection, death at 7-days and severe intraventricular hemorrhage but not lower rates of death at 28-days or hospital stay mortality, according to a study in the April 25 issue of JAMA.

24 Apr 2012

CDC Director calls for 'final push' to eradicate polio

"A 'final push' is needed toward eradication of polio worldwide, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said" in an online update on the agency's polio eradication efforts, United Press International reports. "Polio incidence dropped more than 99 percent since the launch of global polio eradication efforts in 1988 and no polio cases have been reported since January 2011 in India, one of the four remaining endemic countries, a CDC report said," UPI writes.

24 Apr 2012

Link between under-controlled temperament in early childhood and later compulsive gambling

Give me the child at 3 and I will give you the adult compulsive gambler. That is the striking finding of a new study in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.

24 Apr 2012

USAID's Shah urges cooperation to improve child health, survival

"Seeing a child die from pneumonia, diarrhea or a mosquito bite is simply unimaginable to most parents. But that is the sad reality for many families each day," USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah writes in a Huffington Post Blog opinion piece, noting, "Last year over seven million children under five died of largely preventable causes."

24 Apr 2012

Collective bargaining agreements mean public employee benefit changes in Conn., Wis.

Collective bargaining agreements are changing health plans in Connecticut and Wisconsin for home care workers, teachers and a police union -- which, if it was not granted an injunction from a judge, would have had to pay new deductibles and copays in Milwaukee.

24 Apr 2012

Text messaging increases flu vaccination coverage in low-income children

A text messaging intervention with education-related messages sent to parents increased influenza vaccination coverage compared with usual care in a traditionally hard-to-reach, low-income, urban, minority population of children and adolescents, although coverage overall remained low, according to a study in the April 25 issue of JAMA.

24 Apr 2012

IADR/AADR publish two studies about dental caries in children

The International and American Associations for Dental Research have published two studies about dental caries in children. These articles, titled "Hypoplasia-Associated Severe Early Childhood Caries - A Proposed Definition" and "Deciduous Molar Hypomineralization and Molar Incisor Hypomineralization" discuss the definitions of dental caries susceptibility to the hypomineralization and hypoplasia.

24 Apr 2012

Rising food prices affecting efforts to reach MDGs for food, nutrition, World Bank/IMF report says

"Higher global food prices are hampering attempts to hit targets for food and nutrition," and "rates of child and maternal mortality are still 'unacceptably high' -- partly as a result of surging commodity prices," according to the Global Monitoring Report 2012, released by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday in Washington, D.C., the Guardian reports.

24 Apr 2012

Study finds high levels of cancer-fighting TRAIL in human milk

The benefits of breast milk are well known, but why breastfeeding protects against various forms of cancer remains a mystery. A new study in the Journal of Human Lactation found high levels of cancer-fighting TNF-related apoptosis inducing ligand (TRAIL) in human milk, which might be one source of breast milk's anticancer activity.

24 Apr 2012

Study finds increase in use of emergency CT in pediatric patients with abdominal pain

Computed tomography (CT) utilization in pediatric patients with non-traumatic abdominal pain increased in emergency departments each year between 1999 and 2007, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology. The study authors found no corresponding increase in ultrasound use during the same period, despite research supporting it as an important diagnostic tool for assessing pediatric abdominal pain.

24 Apr 2012

Women & Infants named lead center in 14-site study of cytomegalovirus

Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, through its participation in the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units Network, has been named the lead center in a 14-site, $25 million study of cytomegalovirus (CMV), the most common infection during pregnancy.

24 Apr 2012

Strategic innovations will help prevent HIV transmission from mothers to children, high-level meeting attendees state

At a High-Level Meeting on Innovation for Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission (EMTCT) on Friday in Washington, D.C., "HIV experts, business leaders, aid agencies and ambassadors of 22 priority countries -- home to 90 percent of new HIV infections among children --" agreed that strategic innovations are necessary to curb the spread of the virus from women to their children, PANA/Afrique en Linge reports.

24 Apr 2012

Twins born to brain dead mother on a respirator for a month

Christine Bolden – a 26 year old woman was already brain dead from aneurysms, but doctors at a western Michigan hospital kept her on a respirator for a month to allow for the development of babies who were born prematurely at 25 weeks.

24 Apr 2012