all pediatrics stories

Video game technology may help surgeons operate on beating hearts

50443248 — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:20:48 -0400

Surgery has been done inside some adults’ hearts while the heart is still beating, avoiding the need to open the chest, stop the heart and put patients on cardiopulmonary bypass. But to perform intricate beating-heart operations in babies with congenital heart disease or do beating-heart complex repairs in adults, surgeons need fast, highly sophisticated real-time imaging that allows them to see depth.

Suboptimal sleep, TV watching correlate with overweight in infants and toddlers

404132862 — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:25:02 -0400

Infants and toddlers who sleep less than 12 hours a day are twice as likely to become overweight by age 3 than children who sleep longer. In addition, high levels of television viewing combined with less sleep elevate the risk, so that children who sleep less than 12 hours and who view two or more hours of television per day have a 16 percent chance of becoming overweight by age 3.

Child enrichment program still pays off after 15 years

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:25:57 -0400

Researchers have detected the lasting benefits of early childhood education 15 years after the program ended. What may have seemed like three years of fun and games at the time for the low-birth weight, premature infants translated into higher achievement scores in math and reading for the intervention group at age 18.

They also tended to have fewer risky behaviors. The study, led by Marie McCormick and published in the March 2006 Pediatrics, is believed to be the largest and most rigorous of its kind.

"Early educational intervention works," said McCormick, the Sumner and Esther Feldberg professor of maternal and child health at the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School professor of pediatrics at Children's Hospital Boston.

Researchers uncover cause of asthma

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:25:27 -0400

Medical experts have been baffled by what causes asthma. Most of them favor the idea that it stems from "helper" cells that have gone awry. But researchers at Harvard Medical School have come up with convincing evidence that the answer lies in a special type of natural "killer" cell.

We were very, very surprised," admits Dale Umetsu, a professor of pediatrics at the Medical School and at Harvard-affiliated Children's Hospital in Boston. "People have been confused about which cells in the lungs are responsible for all these years. Now, we have to rethink the results of so many studies. Our new findings were totally unexpected."

Kids too often prescribed antibiotics for sore throat

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:23:00 -0400

Each year, millions of children visit their family physician or pediatrician seeking treatment for sore throats. While a sore throat could indicate many common illnesses, physicians are often most concerned about bacterial infections that warrant antibiotic treatments. The most common cause of sore throat for which antibiotics are indicated is group A streptococcal pharyngitis, or "strep throat." Many leading health organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics indicate that a common streptococcal or "strep" test be performed prior to prescribing recommended antibiotics.

Child early intervention programs make for healthier adults

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:21:20 -0400

The Brookline Early Education Program (BEEP), a community- based child health and development program, was initiated by the Brookline Public Schools and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and ran from 1972-1979. Enrollment was open to families in Brookline, Mass., and to some urban families in neighboring Boston. The program provided health, educational, and social services to parents, and aimed to have children enter kindergarten healthy and ready to learn. Families enrolled three months before the child's birth and participated until the child reached kindergarten age.

Of 282 children initially enrolled in BEEP, the investigators were able to survey 120 as young adults, and compared them with non-participants from the same school systems. 'There were significant impacts in the lower income, high risk groups,' says Judith Palfrey, M.D., chief of the Division of General Pediatrics at Children's Hospital, Boston and the study's first author.

Within the urban group, there were significant differences: BEEP participants had, on average, completed more than one year of additional schooling; were less likely to report incomes below $20,000 than non-participants (28% vs. 72%); were more likely to report very good or excellent health (64% vs. 42%); and had higher rates of private insurance (68% vs. 42%). They also reported healthier lifestyles, more competence in taking care of their health, and less depression.

Simple tools can reduce transmission

50443248 — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:42:50 -0400

Viral upper respiratory and gastrointestinal infections are the two most common illnesses that occur in children enrolled in day care, and secondary attack rates within families can be as high as 27 percent for respiratory illnesses and 70 percent for gastroenteritis.
New research published in the April issue of Pediatrics shows that in homes with children enrolled in day care, several misconceptions regarding illness transmission may be contributing to the spread of these diseases.

Explosion of child obesity predicted to shorten U.S. life expectancy

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:19:58 -0400

A review by obesity researcher David Ludwig of Children's Hospital Boston, epidemiologist S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and colleagues concludes that obesity now reduces average life expectancy by about four to nine months, a conservative estimate. They add that if the current epidemic of child and adolescent obesity continues unabated, life expectancy could be shortened by two to five years in the coming decades.

Current trends indicate that the prevalence of obesity will continue to rise and affect ever-younger age groups.

The long-term consequences of the child obesity epidemic have yet to be seen, says Ludwig, who directs the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children's Hospital Boston. Obesity is known to increase risk of serious health problems, including some that were previously rarely found in children.

Two-thirds of American adults today are obese or overweight. Thus far, medical treatment has had little success in offsetting this trend.

Ludwig attributes much of the obesity epidemic to environmental factors linked strongly to the development of the fast food industry, as well as the increase in portion sizes and the increasingly sedentary lifestyle of children.

'To tackle obesity, we will need unambiguous political leadership at all levels of government, to make clear that public health has to come before private profit,' Ludwig says.

Survey: Down syndrome diagnoses found wanting

50443248 — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 13:48:33 -0400

A survey of mothers in the March issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that obstetricians and genetic counselors are falling short when it comes to delivering a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome to pregnant women. Mothers who have children with Down syndrome, diagnosed prenatally, reported that doctors did not tell them about the positive potential of people with Down syndrome nor did they feel like they received enough up-to-date information or contact information for parent support groups. Further, the mothers report that all of these shortcomings are happening at an emotional time when women have to decide whether or not to continue their pregnancies. This study remains the largest and most comprehensive study on prenatally diagnosed Down syndrome to date.

Hold that penicillin

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:31:53 -0400

“The threat of resistance to antibiotics by bacteria increased so dramatically from the 1970s to the mid-1990s that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) labeled it a national public health crisis,” said Jonathan Finkelstein of the Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in Boston. The CDC has called on doctors to be sure their patients' conditions really warrant use of the drugs, and to resist parental pressure to prescribe antibiotics for their children's colds or flu. This attention by public health agencies, the news media, and others appears to be working. Finkelstein and his colleagues did a study that reveals a steep drop in prescriptions written for children from 1996 to 2000. The researchers checked information on 225,000 patients ages 3 months to 18 years in nine health plans in various parts of the United States. They found a 24 percent drop for kids ages 3 months to 3 years, 25 percent for those 3 to 6 years, and 16 percent for the 6- to 18-year group. The results were published in the September 2003 issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Bottle-feeding before bed time may increase risk of childhood asthma

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:26:20 -0400

Nearly one in 13 children in America has asthma. The National Institutes of Health reports that the prevalence of asthma around the world has doubled in the last 15 years, increasing 160 percent among pre-school age children. Asthma is the third leading cause of hospitalization among children under age 15 and accounts for more than 10 million missed school days annually. Researchers found that bottle feeding in the bed or crib before sleep time during the first year of life was a risk factor for asthma and recurrent wheezing at five years of age. It also appeared to be a risk factor for wheezing between the ages of one to five years. "For infants in a high-risk group, we found that when and how they are fed influence the onset of wheezing and asthma," said Juan Celedon of Brigham and Women's Hospital. "There is a significant relationship between the number of times children are bottle fed in the crib or bed prior to sleep time and the occurrence of wheezing during their first five years."

Maternal bone lead levels pose toxic prenatal risk

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:22:10 -0400

Although much attention has been paid to public health efforts to reduce lead exposure in children between the ages of six months and five years, when environmental lead exposures (such as from leaded paint in old houses) tend to be greatest, less attention has been paid to understanding the transfer of lead from mother to fetus and its resulting health effects. Now, Harvard researchers have concluded that elevated maternal bone lead levels are linked to impaired cognitive development in infants. Given the lengthy amount of time lead can reside in maternal bone and that bone is demineralized into the blood during pregnancy, the findings highlight a potentially significant public health problem, linking the history of a mother's lead exposure to risk for the next generation. The study appeared in the July 2002 issue of the journal Pediatrics. Howard Hu, principal investigator of the study, is associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health. The study was supported by grants from the March of Dimes, National Institute of Environmental Health and Safety, US and Consejo National de Cienca y Technologia and CONSERVA, Department of Federal District, Mexico.

Depiction of alcohol, tobacco use in G-rated animated films still high

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:12:56 -0400

Alcohol and tobacco use is depicted as normal behavior in nearly half of G-rated animated feature films. While researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health say that this is a slight decline, they note that "trends do not provide a strong indication of a commitment from the film industry to eliminate the depiction of alcohol and tobacco use in G-rated animated films." These films also offer no warnings about the effect on health from using these substances.

Breast-feeding may limit teenage obesity

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:12:31 -0400

Infants who were breast-fed more than formula-fed, or who were breast-fed for longer periods, had approximately 20 percent lower risk of being overweight in their preteen and teen years, according to a recent study. In this study, breast-feeding included feeding infants breast milk extracted from breast pumps. The implications are dramatic. "Breast-feeding may prevent obesity later in life," said lead author Matthew Gillman, associate professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. "Our study, along with others, supports the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics to breast-feed infants for the first year." The study followed 15,000 boys and girls. The research findings were reported in the May 16 Journal of the American Medical Association.

Increased consumption of soda promotes childhood obesity

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:04:40 -0400

Soft drinks are currently the leading source of added sugars in the daily diet of young Americans. Now, researchers have conducted the first long-term study to examine soda consumption and its precise impact on children's body weight. Their findings show that for each additional daily serving of a sugar-sweetened soft drink, the incidence of obesity was significantly increased. The study's authors found that, during the time of the study, 57 percent of the children increased their daily intake of sugar-sweetened soft drinks. More than half drank nearly a full extra serving per day. Researchers also found that the odds of becoming obese increased 1.6 times for each additional can or glass of sugar-sweetened soft drink consumed above the daily average.