Children's Health
Parents win high court battle to keep their baby alive
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The parents of an 18-month-old boy with a terminal muscle-wasting disease, won a High Court legal battle to stop doctors turning off the ventilator keeping him alive.
The ruling comes despite the belief of doctors that his life is so intolerable that he should be allowed to die.
The boy was born with spinal muscular atrophy, an incurable and degenerative muscle wasting disease that eventually causes total paralysis.
Birth defects from mom’s West Nile infection rare
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Birth defects appear to be uncommon in infants born to women infected with West Nile virus (WNV) during pregnancy, according to a new report.
“The current study’s findings are overall reassuring in that the majority of the women for whom there was information delivered apparently healthy infants with normal growth and development,” Dr. Daniel R. O’Leary from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, Colorado told Reuters Health.
O’Leary and colleagues studied 77 pregnant women with WNV illness. Twenty-five women were believed to have been infected during the first trimester, 27 in the second trimester, and 24 in the third trimester. Time of infection was unknown for 1 woman.
Dogs bite babes and toddlers more often
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According to a new study, dog bites in children occur frequently and the breed of dog, behaviour of dog owners, children, and parents are all influencing factors.
Dogs bite very young children more often, and the researchers say that children 1 year of age or younger have the highest risk of being bitten, while children up to age 10 have a higher risk than older individuals.
In the study Dr. Johannes Schalamon and associates at the Medical University of Graz, reviewed the cases of 341 children treated for dog bites at a trauma center in Austria over a 10-year period.
Dog bites more common in very young children
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Dog bites occur more often in very young children, so families should consider waiting until their children are of school age before they introduce a new dog into the household. Even then, parents might want to think twice about getting a Doberman pinscher or German shepherd, according to a study published on Monday.
Dr. Johannes Schalamon and associates at the Medical University of Graz, conducted a review of 341 children treated for dog bites at a trauma center in Austria over a 10-year period.
They found that children 1 year of age or younger had the highest risk of being bitten, although children up to age 10 also had a higher risk than older individuals.
Girls drinking more sodas and less milk
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According to researchers in the U.S. concerns that teens are drinking too many sodas and fruit drinks are well founded.
A study in which food diaries kept by girls over a ten year period were examined, have shown that milk consumption decreased by over 25% during the course of the study, while soda intake, on average, nearly tripled, becoming the number one beverage consumed by older girls.
Kids, Sports and Head Injuries
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With spring football practice comes injuries, including head injuries. The signs of a concussion aren’t always obvious, said UAB neuropsychologist Paul Blanton, Ph.D., who directs the UAB Sports-Related Concussion Clinic and Research Program. “The biggest mistake parents and coaches make is that if the child isn’t knocked unconscious or dazed over an extended period of time, they tend to dismiss the possibility of a concussion.” Blanton says loss of consciousness during a game is rare. The more subtle signs of concussion can include irritability, headache and drowsiness. Blanton warns parents against dismissing or ignoring complaints or symptoms and to seek a medical evaluation.
Obese boys, girls more likely to be bullied
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Obese grade-school children are more likely to be the targets of bullying than their leaner peers are, a UK study suggests.
Researchers found that among more than 8,000 7-year-olds, obese boys and girls were about 50 percent more likely to be bullied over the next year than their normal-weight classmates.
On the other hand, obese boys were also more inclined to describe themselves as bullies. Compared with normal-weight boys, they were 66 percent more likely to physically or verbally harass their peers—presumably, the study authors speculate, because of their dominant size.
Parental conflict may negatively affect children by disrupting their sleep
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For years, researchers have known that children who grow up in homes with high levels of conflict tend to have behavior and learning problems. But they didn’t know why.
Now a new study published in the January/February 2006 issue of the journal Child Development finds parental conflict may negatively affect children by disrupting their sleep.
Researchers from Auburn University in Alabama and Brown University in Providence, R.I., assessed children’s sleep in 54 healthy 8- and 9-year-old children, along with parental conflict from both the child and parental viewpoint. None of the children had any previously diagnosed sleep disorders, and their parents experienced conflict levels in the normal range.
Alternating drugs best for lowering fever in kids
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Alternating between acetaminophen (in painkillers such as Tylenol) and ibuprofen (for example, Advil) is better than sticking with either agent alone at bringing down a fever in a young child, a study shows.
The study involved 464 children, between 6 and 36 months of age, with a rectal temperature of at least 38.4 degrees Celsius who were randomized to receive acetaminophen (12.5 mg/kg per dose every 6 hours), ibuprofen (5 mg/kg per dose every 8 hours), or alternating doses of each drug (every 4 hours) for 3 days.
Treatment with the alternating regimen provided many benefits over the two types of single therapy, Dr. E. Michael Sarrell, from Tel Aviv University, and colleagues report in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
Impact of parental behavior on children’s future behavior
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How parents handle everyday marital conflicts has a significant effect on how secure their children feel, which, in turn, significantly affects their future emotional adjustment.
This finding, from researchers at the universities of Notre Dame, Rochester (NY) and Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., was published in the January/February 2006 issue of the journal Child Development. It provides powerful new evidence regarding the impact of parental behavior on children’s future behavior.
Child’s popularity may predict good reading skills
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How are you first grader’s social skills? If his calendar is jammed with play dates and the phone rings off the hook, say a silent thanks -your child’s popularity may predict good reading skills by the third grade. That’s the finding from a study published in the January/February 2006 issue of the journal Child Development.
The study, from researchers from Stanford University, also finds the opposite - that children with low reading skills in first and third grade are more likely to have relatively high aggressive behavior in third and fifth grades.
The researchers chose to explore this question in light of the fact that the social and academic realms in school are inextricably connected. “Children’s social behavior can promote or undermine their learning,” explains lead author Sarah Miles, a Ph.D. student at Stanford University, “and their academic performance may have implications for their social behavior.”
Babies may have abstract numerical sense: study
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Even before babies learn to talk they have a bit of a grasp of math, according to new research concluding that infants may have an abstract sense of numerical concepts.
In the study, published in this week’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, seven-month-old babies demonstrated an ability to match the number of voices they heard to the number of faces they expected to see.
All Children Need to Be Safely Secured in Motor Vehicles
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Infants should ride in rear-facing car safety seats until they have reached both 20 pounds AND one year of age. The AAP recommends keeping children rear-facing to the highest weight or height allowed by their car safety seat’s manufacturer. Never place a rear-facing car safety seat in front of an air bag.
Children who have outgrown their rear-facing seats should ride in forward-facing car safety seats for as long as they fit well (ears below the top of the back of the seat and shoulders below the top harness slots or until they reach the top weight or height allowed for their seats).
Premature birth may affect adult personality
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Young adults who were born very prematurely tend to be more anxious and prone to depression than their peers, a new study suggests.
UK researchers found that among 18- and 19-year-olds, those who were born very prematurely - before the 33rd week of pregnancy - generally scored higher on a standard measure of “neuroticism.” That is, they were by nature more nervous, moody and lacking in self-esteem than their peers who were born full-term.
Breastfeeding protects babies against lung disease
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Exclusive breastfeeding for at least the first six months of an infant’s life reduces the risk of respiratory tract infections, compared with breastfeeding for shorter durations, according to a new study.
The authors of the report, in the medical journal Pediatrics, point out that the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended a 6-month breastfeeding duration—in part, based on study findings showing protection against gastrointestinal infection. While it had been thought that this practice would also protect against respiratory tract infections, data supporting this was lacking.
