Health News

My kids want to trick-or-treat, but coronavirus rates are rising. Do I have to change plans and disappoint them?

Rates of COVID-19 transmission in your community and your kids' eagerness to trick-or-treat are only two factors to consider when deciding what level of Halloween risk you can live with.  Consider whether your community tends to follow public health measures, and whether your kids are good rule-followers. There are some creative alternatives, like scavenger hunts […]

Personal Health

What Congenital Heart Disease Means for Your Child

Congenital heart defects are the most common of all birth defects. But if your child is diagnosed with one, it feels like you’re entering strange, uncharted territory. Instead of welcoming your newborn to a cozy nursery at home, you’re glued to the hospital, immersed in a crash course on an unfamiliar condition such as ventricular […]

Health News

Trauma begets trauma: Bullying associated with increased suicide attempts among 12-to-15-year-olds: International study finds bullying victimization is associated with suicide attempts across 48 countries

A new study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), published by Elsevier, reports that bullying victimization may increase the risk of suicide attempts among young adolescents by approximately three-times worldwide. “Globally, approximately 67,000 adolescents die of suicide each year and identifying modifiable risk factors for adolescent suicide is […]

Health News

For malnourished children, new therapeutic food boosts gut microbes, healthy development: New approach targeting gut microbes proves superior to standard treatment

A new type of therapeutic food, specifically designed to repair the gut microbiomes of malnourished children, is superior to standard therapy in an initial clinical trial conducted in Bangladesh. An interdisciplinary team of investigators from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh, have […]

Health News

Protect protruding teeth from damage and long-term consequences

Children with their first or early adult set of teeth that stick out have an increased chance of damaging them, but the risk can be easily reduced without being prohibitively costly. A study undertaken at the University of Adelaide of more than 50,000 children aged under 19 years published in the journal Dental Traumatology, confirms […]

Health News

Too hungry to learn: New research provides food for thought

Food insecurity — that is, limited access to sufficient safe and nutritious food at home — negatively impacts on the learning ability of adolescents in India, new research shows. The research team investigated inequalities in learning achievements at 12 years by examining test scores. They then looked at whether food insecurity at home at the […]

Health News

First genetic clue for elusive pediatric liver disease: Biliary atresia with splenic malformation — connection to ciliopathy gene

A nationwide consortium of researchers has identified the first genetic defect linked to biliary atresia, a mysterious liver disease that is the leading cause for liver transplantation in children. The results were published in the journal Hepatology. The causes of biliary atresia were unknown, so this is a major advance that will move the field […]

Health News

Maternal stress leads to overweight in children

Overweight is unhealthy. Yet more and more people in Germany are overweight, particularly children. As part of the LiNA mother-child study coordinated by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), researchers were able to identify mother’s perceived stress during the first year of the child’s life as a risk factor for developing overweight in infancy. […]