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ABM treatments can address childhood anxiety

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, one in eight children suffers from an anxiety disorder. And because many anxious children turn into severely anxious adults, early intervention can have a major impact on a patient's life trajectory. The understandable reluctance to use psychiatric medications when it comes to children means child psychologists are always searching for viable therapeutic alternatives.

12 Jun 2012

Children of older fathers inherit longer telomeres

If your father and grandfather waited until they were older before reproducing, you might experience life-extending benefits. Biologists assume that a slow pace of aging requires that the body invest more resources in repairing cells and tissues.

12 Jun 2012

VOA reports on global polio vaccination challenges

"International health experts say the global campaign to eradicate polio has reached a critical stage, with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria the only countries where the crippling and potentially deadly virus is still prevalent," VOA News reports.

11 Jun 2012

New understanding about how placental growth is regulated before birth

Scientists at the Babraham Institute have gained a new understanding of how the growth of the placenta is regulated before birth, which has important implications for a healthy pregnancy.

11 Jun 2012

Study compares breast milk fatty acid composition in the U.S. and Tsimane women

Working with researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the Cincinnati Children's Hospital, anthropologists at UC Santa Barbara have found high levels of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids in the breast milk of economically impoverished Amerindian woman as compared to women in the United States.

11 Jun 2012

VHC extends Obstetrics services to Kaiser Permanente members

Virginia Hospital Center announced today an expansion of services offered at Virginia Hospital Center, to include Obstetrics for Kaiser Permanente's members.

11 Jun 2012

Discovery answers why mother's immune system does not reject developing fetus as foreign tissue

Researchers at NYU School of Medicine have made an important discovery that partially answers the long-standing question of why a mother's immune system does not reject a developing fetus as foreign tissue.

8 Jun 2012

New fetal genetics testing technique could offer less risk, more controversy

The full genetic code of a fetus has been cracked.

8 Jun 2012

Tackling diarrhea, pneumonia could save 2M children, according to UNICEF report

"Two million of the world's poorest children could be saved by introducing routine vaccination programs against diarrhea and pneumonia," according to a new report (.pdf) from UNICEF, BBC News reports (6/8).

8 Jun 2012

Forbes interviews UNFPA Executive Director regarding global progress in reducing maternal mortality

In this post in the Forbes "Leadership" blog, contributor Rahim Kanani interviews U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Babatunde Osotimehin about a report titled "Trends in maternal mortality: 1990 to 2010" -- released by UNFPA, WHO, UNICEF and the World Bank in May -- "which shows that the annual number of women who die in pregnancy or childbirth has dropped from more than 543,000 to 287,000, a decline of 47 percent."

8 Jun 2012

Decision Resources forecasts the launch of four new agents to treat DMD by 2021

Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms focusing on pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that interviewed experts unanimously identify a disease-modifying therapy as the highest unmet need in the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

8 Jun 2012

Second-hand cigarette smoke linked with moderate to severe urinary disorders in children

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, parents are responsible for 90 percent of children's exposure to environmental (second-hand) tobacco smoke. Children with mothers who smoke are at even higher-risk for developing health disorders.

8 Jun 2012

Preterm birth rates over past 20 years only dropped in 3 countries

Nearly 15 million babies were born prematurely in 2010—more than one in ten of all births. Sixty percent of these premature babies were born in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, but this is not just a problem of the poorest nations: the USA (517 000 preterm births) and Brazil (279 300) ranked in the top ten countries with the highest number of premature births in 2010. Worse still, over the past 20 years preterm birth rates have decreased in just three countries, according to the first ever national level estimates and time series published in this week’s Lancet.

8 Jun 2012

Study identifies 29 potential DS biomarker proteins in maternal serum

Prenatal screening for Down syndrome (DS) is still in need of improvement. Perinatal medicine experts have worked hard to find new biomarkers for screening of DS. Dr. Shi he Shao and his co-investigators, from Jiangsu University and Changzhou Woman and Children Health Hospital, report in the May 2012 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine that they have successfully identified twenty-nine differentially expressed proteins in maternal serum from pregnancies carrying DS fetuses with proteomic approaches.

8 Jun 2012

Study explores effects of letter spacing on the reading ability of dyslexic children

Increasing the spacing between characters and words in a text improves the speed and quality of dyslexic children's reading, without prior training. They read 20% faster on average and make half as many errors. This is the conclusion reached by a French-Italian research team, jointly headed by Johannes Ziegler of the Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive.

8 Jun 2012

Food allergies more prevalent among urban children

Children living in urban centers have a much higher prevalence of food allergies than those living in rural areas, according to a new study, which is the first to map children's food allergies by geographical location in the United States. In particular, kids in big cities are more than twice as likely to have peanut and shellfish allergies compared to rural communities.

8 Jun 2012

BRF to fund research that focuses on sports-related concussive injuries among young children

The Brain Research Foundation (BRF) today announced it will fund research that aims to improve pediatricians' ability to evaluate and manage sports-related concussive injuries among young children, and guide future research regarding the diagnosis, treatment and long term effects of these events.

7 Jun 2012

Disney to ban junk food ads in obesity fight

The change from the children's entertainment company got a prominent backer Tuesday as First Lady Michelle Obama offered her praise for the move.

7 Jun 2012

Dengue fever vaccine 'may be in sight,' Reuters reports

Reuters reports on efforts to develop a vaccine for dengue fever, writing that "victory over ... the intensely painful 'breakbone fever' ... may be in sight." Paris-based firm Sanofi "hopes for positive results in September from a key trial among children in Thailand that would set it on course to market a shot in 2015, which would prevent an estimated 100 million cases of dengue infection each year," the news service writes.

7 Jun 2012

Appropriate CT scans may save and extend lives of children

The American College of Radiology (ACR) urges that results of a study (Pearce et al) to be published in the Lancet regarding radiation risk from pediatric computed tomography (CT) scans should not keep parents from getting needed medical imaging care for their children, but should be discussed with their physician and factored into their shared decision making before an imaging scan is performed.

7 Jun 2012