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Rising youth e-cigarette use threatens children’s health and human rights

Exposing children to e-cigarettes compromises their human rights. These products should be regulated in a way that puts children's best interests first and protects them from the harms associated with nicotine consumption in all its forms, argue experts in The BMJ today.

12 Nov 2025

Doubling rates of childhood hypertension signal urgent health concern

The rate of children and adolescents experiencing high blood pressure worldwide nearly doubled between 2000 and 2020, according to a new meta-analysis published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal.

12 Nov 2025

How parental stress and long work weeks shape children’s reading outcomes

Parents working long hours provide less homework help, and this reduced support is linked with weaker reading comprehension in children. The study reveals that parental stress exacerbates this pattern, rendering demanding work schedules even more detrimental to learning.

12 Nov 2025

Study clarifies how biliary atresia overlaps with multiple congenital syndromes

Biliary atresia (BA) represents one of the leading causes of pediatric liver failure, often requiring surgical intervention or transplantation in early infancy.

12 Nov 2025

Study: Biological underpinnings of autism and ADHD may transcend traditional diagnostic boundaries

A new study published in Molecular Psychiatry reveals that the biological underpinnings of autism and ADHD may transcend traditional diagnostic boundaries.

12 Nov 2025

School vaping prevention lessons show promise but misconceptions remain

Teachers in the UK report increased confidence in addressing vaping, but ongoing confusion about its dangers indicates a need for improved prevention materials.

12 Nov 2025

No, taking paracetamol while pregnant doesn’t cause autism or ADHD, major review finds

Researchers reviewed nine systematic reviews on paracetamol use during pregnancy and found that while some studies suggested links to ADHD or autism, the evidence was of low quality and confounded by shared familial factors. Sibling-controlled analyses showed no causal relationship between prenatal paracetamol exposure and neurodevelopmental disorders in children.

11 Nov 2025

Hearing loss in infancy linked to disrupted brain organization and language pathways

Infants born deaf or hard of hearing show adverse changes in how their brains organize and specialize, but exposure to sound and language may help them develop more normally, according to new research.

11 Nov 2025

New expert recommendations redefine exercise as therapy for children with asthma

Asthma is one of the most common chronic respiratory diseases among children, affecting nearly 475 million globally. For decades, exercise was discouraged due to the risk of triggering wheezing and breathlessness, known as exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB).

11 Nov 2025

Unraveling Tanzania’s Breadbasket paradox in child nutrition

Tanzania's "Breadbasket Regions (BBRs)" are the core of the country's food supply, contributing over 38% of Tanzania's national maize production.

11 Nov 2025

Study warns of unsafe antiseizure drug use despite rising access

In a study carried out in collaboration with the World Health Organization, two Aston University academics have found that while access to antiseizure medication in low- and middle-income countries is growing, it is not necessarily always prescribed safely.

11 Nov 2025

Study provides a new perspective for optimizing School Feeding Programs

School Feeding Programs (SFPs), as crucial public policies for improving children's nutrition and development globally, have covered 388 million children across 161 countries.

11 Nov 2025

Study maps racial and ethnic differences in repeated reading struggles

Early struggles with reading can have lifelong impacts on mental, physical and emotional health. Understanding who is most at risk of experiencing reading difficulties can inform strategies for early interventions to support students before they fall further behind.

11 Nov 2025

Study explores lasting effects of maternal diet on food choices

A University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson researcher will explore how maternal diet influences offspring food choices later in life thanks to a National Institutes of Health's New Innovator award, a five-year, $1.5 million "high-risk, high-reward" grant given to early-career scientists advancing ambitious hypotheses with intriguing potential.

11 Nov 2025

St. Jude study maps treatment strategy for rare infant gliomas

Clinician-scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and collaborators have conducted the largest study of infant-type hemispheric glioma (IHG) ever reported, uncovering key factors that could be used to guide treatment strategies for this rare pediatric brain tumor.

11 Nov 2025

Clinical trial confirms ivermectin safety in very young children down to 5 kg

Millions of very young children currently excluded from treatment with the drug ivermectin could be safely included in ongoing campaigns against challenging and often neglected tropical diseases such as intestinal worms, scabies and river blindness, according to results from a clinical trial presented today at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH).

10 Nov 2025

GLP-1 drugs beat metformin for weight control in teens with type 2 diabetes

In youth newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, GLP-1–based therapies, including semaglutide and tirzepatide, achieved similar blood sugar control but significantly greater reductions in body mass index than metformin. These findings highlight the potential of high-potency GLP-1 agents as effective monotherapy options in managing obesity and glycemic control in adolescents.

10 Nov 2025

Babies show stronger brain response to their mothers’ voices

In a new JNeurosci paper, Sarah Jessen and colleagues, from the University of Lübeck, explored how infants track their mothers' voices compared to unfamiliar voices.

10 Nov 2025

Understanding communication complexity among infants with neurogenetic syndromes

Nancy Brady has been gratified to see the tool she and colleagues pioneered over a decade ago to measure the growth of infants' pre-speech communication skills translated into several languages and referenced in more than 100 research papers, including a åçnew one published in the Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research.

10 Nov 2025

Uppsala researchers develop Trojan horse approach for medulloblastoma treatment

The malignant pediatric brain tumor medulloblastoma is driven by proteins deep within the cancer cells, for which there are often no effective drugs available.

10 Nov 2025