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Rotavirus vaccine still effective in reducing diarrhea-related deaths in Mexico, researchers say

"The rotavirus vaccine introduced in Mexico in 2007 still appears to be preventing diarrhea-related deaths in children, despite speculation that years later the vaccine may not be as effective," according to the Los Angeles Times' "Booster Shots" blog.

26 Aug 2011

Restricting kids' unstructured play may actually cause harm

Hovering helicopter parents who restrict their kids' unstructured play may actually harm, rather than help, children according to the latest issue of the American Journal of Play, a scholarly journal which has gathered a distinguished group of experts to probe the near-extinction of free play and its effects on children and society.

26 Aug 2011

States putting more kids into CHIP programs, but some Medicaid programs squeezed

Thirty states increased the number of children under the program, Stateline reports. Also, Medicaid advocates are urging federal officials to deny California's request to cut the program, and in Georgia, officials are looking for more funding.

26 Aug 2011

IOM report: Vaccines generally safe, no link to autism

Vaccines can cause certain side effects but serious ones appear very rare - and there's no link with autism and Type 1 diabetes, the Institute of Medicine says in the first comprehensive safety review in 17 years. The report released Thursday isn't aimed at nervous parents. And the side effects it lists as proven are some that doctors long have known about, such as fever-caused seizures and occasional brain inflammation.

26 Aug 2011

Tax on sugary drinks, limits on marketing to children may help curb global obesity epidemic

The global obesity epidemic has been escalating for decades, yet long-term prevention efforts have barely begun and are inadequate, according to a new paper from international public health experts published in the August 25, 2011 edition of the journal The Lancet.

26 Aug 2011

Obesity may predipose healthy young children to Type 2 diabetes, confirms study

Research led by Dr. Melinda Sothern, Professor of Public Health and Jim Finks Endowed Chair in Health Promotion at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, has found that obese 7-9-year-old children had nearly three times the liver fat and almost double the belly fat of their nonobese counterparts and that insulin resistance was more than double and insulin sensitivity less than half respectively.

26 Aug 2011

Babies, toddlers with congenital heart disease more likely to have harmful toxins after surgery

Babies and toddlers with congenital heart disease are at an increased risk of having harmful toxins in their blood, particularly following surgery, according to research by a team at Imperial College London.

26 Aug 2011

Child-care settings can play important role in encouraging healthy eating habits

Eating and physical activity habits for a lifetime can develop at an early age. As the use of preschool child care increases and the prevalence of childhood obesity is at an all-time high, the opportunity to positively impact eating and exercise habits within this setting presents itself.

26 Aug 2011

RE Children's Project donates $111,000 to UCLA researchers for Rasmussen Encephalitis study

The Rasmussen Encephalitis (RE) Children's Project, a foundation that supports scientific research to find a cure for this devastating neurological disease, has donated $111,000 to researchers in the departments of neurosurgery and pathology/lab medicine (neuropathology) at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

26 Aug 2011

State-wide QI initiatives seek to improve outcomes of maternal, child care

Maternal/child nurses are at the forefront of efforts to design and implement effective quality improvement (QI) programs to improve care for mothers and infants throughout labor and delivery, according to the special September/October issue of MCN: The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing.

26 Aug 2011

Fludrocortisone may help reduce unexplained chronic nausea in children

Heart rate and blood pressure regulation may hold the key to treating unexplained chronic nausea in children. In a new study by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, a drug commonly used to treat a condition known as orthostatic intolerance (OI), which causes dizziness and occasional fainting when patients stand for long periods, was shown to reduce debilitating chronic nausea in patients.

26 Aug 2011

Researchers to develop diagnostic test for folate receptor autoantibody

Researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center have received a $50,000 grant from the SUNY Research Foundation Technology Accelerator Fund to develop a diagnostic test for the folate receptor autoantibody. This autoantibody is associated with neural tube defects, subfertility, cerebral folate deficiency in infants and autism spectrum disorders.

26 Aug 2011

Heart Rate Observation System effectively reduces NICU infant mortality

In a long-running randomized study of over 3,000 preterm infants, those whose care included the Heart Rate Observation System, or HeRO monitor, experienced greater than 20 percent reduced mortality, effectively saving one infant's life for every 48 who were monitored.

26 Aug 2011

KFC withdraws toys from kid’s food

Australian fast-food chain KFC has promised to remove the toys from its children's meals. This has been cheered by anti-obesity lobby groups.

25 Aug 2011

Removal of OTC drugs for toddlers from the market reduces therapeutic errors

A new study by researchers at the University of Maryland has revealed a 46 percent drop in reported errors after drugmakers in October 2007 removed from the market a number of over-the-counter cough and cold medications labeled for children under the age of 2.

25 Aug 2011

OHA, Plackers announce five winners of Smiles Across America Innovation Grants

Plackers, makers of the first disposable dental flosser, and Oral Health America (OHA), a national, charitable non-profit, announced five winners of the first-ever Smiles Across America Innovation Grants, each of whom will receive monetary grants to kick-start innovative new programs intended to deliver oral health preventative products and services to children at increased risk for oral diseases.

25 Aug 2011

Crime and violence overshadowing malnutrition in Guatemalan presidential campaign

"Malnutrition, one of the leading killers of children under five in the Central American nation of Guatemala, is receiving scant attention on the campaign trail" ahead of the country's presidential elections scheduled for September, AlertNet reports.

25 Aug 2011

Implementation of maternal and child health innovations important

In a Huffington Post opinion piece, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah writes about the Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge in Development competition, which "called for groundbreaking prevention and treatment approaches for pregnant mothers and newborns around the time of birth in rural settings."

25 Aug 2011

Northwestern Mutual Foundation donates $47,110 to Easter Seals' kids initiative

Easter Seals, the nation's leading non-profit provider of services for individuals with autism, developmental disabilities, physical disabilities and other special needs, today announced that it received a grant totaling $47,110 through the Northwestern Mutual Foundation's Click for Kids program, a Facebook-driven campaign that launched earlier this summer.

25 Aug 2011

South African Health Minister promotes exclusive breastfeeding to fight rising infant mortality rate

Speaking at a breastfeeding conference on Tuesday in Johannesburg, South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said that "reducing child mortality is one of the most important priorities in our country and central to this is breastfeeding as a child survival strategy," Agence France-Presse reports.

25 Aug 2011

Child Health News

Rotavirus vaccine still effective in reducing diarrhea-related deaths in Mexico, researchers say

Restricting kids' unstructured play may actually cause harm

States putting more kids into CHIP programs, but some Medicaid programs squeezed

IOM report: Vaccines generally safe, no link to autism

Tax on sugary drinks, limits on marketing to children may help curb global obesity epidemic

Obesity may predipose healthy young children to Type 2 diabetes, confirms study

Babies, toddlers with congenital heart disease more likely to have harmful toxins after surgery

Child-care settings can play important role in encouraging healthy eating habits

RE Children's Project donates $111,000 to UCLA researchers for Rasmussen Encephalitis study

State-wide QI initiatives seek to improve outcomes of maternal, child care

Fludrocortisone may help reduce unexplained chronic nausea in children

Researchers to develop diagnostic test for folate receptor autoantibody

Heart Rate Observation System effectively reduces NICU infant mortality

KFC withdraws toys from kid’s food

Removal of OTC drugs for toddlers from the market reduces therapeutic errors

OHA, Plackers announce five winners of Smiles Across America Innovation Grants

Crime and violence overshadowing malnutrition in Guatemalan presidential campaign

Implementation of maternal and child health innovations important

Northwestern Mutual Foundation donates $47,110 to Easter Seals' kids initiative

South African Health Minister promotes exclusive breastfeeding to fight rising infant mortality rate

Real-time Raman monitoring for pharmaceutical hot melt extrusion

Synthetic Psychedelics: A Growing Public Health Concern

How the Vutara VXL simplifies single-molecule imaging

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