Children’s Health

Researchers at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands say that airborne transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is possible and should not be discounted. The team’s data showed that sneezing is associated with the most significant probability of aerosol exposure, followed by coughing, speaking, and breathing.

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Jul 6 2020 A 2020 report from the Centers for Disease Control estimates that 1 in 54 children in the United States is identified each year with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). While children can be diagnosed with ASD as early as 2 years old, most children are still being diagnosed after

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Jul 1 2020 Specific sleep problems among babies and very young children can be linked to mental disorders in adolescents, a new study has found. A team at the University of Birmingham’s School of Psychology studied questionnaire data from the Children of the 90s, a UK-based longitudinal study which recruited pregnant

There’s considerable controversy over whether “COVID toes”—red sores or lesions on the feet and hands in children and young adults—are truly caused by COVID-19. A new study published in the British Journal of Dermatology provides evidence in support of the link. In most cases, affected individuals test negative with traditional COVID-19 tests involving throat swabs

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Jul 2 2020 Use marijuana while pregnant, and your child is more likely to suffer sleep problems as much as a decade later, according to a new University of Colorado Boulder study of nearly 12,000 youth. Published in Sleep Health: The Journal of The National Sleep Foundation, the paper is the

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Jul 3 2020 Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have isolated human monoclonal antibodies that potentially can prevent a rare but devastating polio-like illness in children linked to a respiratory viral infection. The illness, called acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), causes sudden weakness in the

An international research collaboration, including Professor IIJIMA Kazumoto et al. (of the Department of Pediatrics, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine) has revealed that NPHS1 is a disease-susceptibility gene for steroid-sensitive nephrotic syndrome in children. The NPHS1 gene encodes nephrin, a component protein for the renal glomerulus slit diaphragm, which prevents protein from being passed

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Jul 2 2020 A new study published recently in “BMC Pediatrics” shows a connection between the time of the month when low-income families receive their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and the number of emergency room visits due to injuries to children from those families. Childhood injuries are the leading

Chronic liver disease represents a major global public health problem affecting an estimated 844 million people, according to the World Health Organization. It is among the top causes of mortality in Australia, the UK and the United States. At the same time, it is both difficult to manage and there is no FDA-approved anti-fibrotic liver

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Jul 1 2020 George Mason University Professor Dr. Kenneth W. Griffin, received $156,581 from National Health Promotion Associates for a project aimed at preventing prescription drug use among high school students. Griffin is a professor of global and community health in Mason’s College of Health and Human Services. His research focuses

July 1 is a big day in medical education. It’s traditionally the day newly minted doctors start their first year of residency. But this year is different. Getting from here to there — from medical school to residency training sites — has been complicated by the coronavirus. “We were all really freaking out,” said Dr.

A quality improvement initiative in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Children’s National Hospital led to a significant reduction in treatment with intravenous vancomycin, an antibiotic used for resistant gram positive infections, which is often associated with acute kidney injury. The findings, published in the journal Pediatrics, show the initiative reduceed vancomycin use in

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Jun 30 2020 How effective are we at safeguarding disabled children? An important new study which seeks to understand how to better protect disabled children and young people from abuse starts this week. Research indicates disabled children are at heightened risk of violence and abuse including child sexual exploitation. Studies show

Parents and clinicians need to be aware in looking for symptoms of multiple inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) in children who have been diagnosed or exposed to COVID-19, according to two Rutgers researchers who were among the leaders of the first nationwide study of the disease, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. MIS-C is defined

Findings A UCLA-led study has found that in 2 of 3 states and jurisdictions with policies that require students entering school to receive the human papillomavirus vaccine, vaccination rates among 13-to-17-year-olds were significantly higher than in surrounding states without such policies. In Rhode Island, the vaccination rate among adolescents was 91%, compared with an average

A new study from Stanford researchers shows that a rise in air pollution is associated with increased mortality rates among infants. This new article and its results were published today in the latest issue of the journal Nature Sustainability. Researchers said that dust and changes in climate could be responsible for the rise in infant

Jun 29 2020 Long-term morbidity as well as a lower level of education and employment rate are common among adults who underwent congenital heart surgery during childhood, regardless of the severity of the defect. A congenital heart defect in childhood increases the risk of chronic diseases, such as arrhythmia and heart failure, in adulthood. The

Young children with narrow retinal artery diameters were more likely to develop higher blood pressure, and children with higher blood pressure levels were more likely to develop retinal microvascular impairment during early childhood, according to a new study published today in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal. This is the first study to show this

Children born with cleft lip and cleft palate (CLP) commonly undergo multiple surgical procedures between infancy and adolescence. By the time they are teens, patients with CLP with more total surgeries do not have increased psychosocial problems. However, an increased number of surgeries between 8 and 10 years of age may predict increased anxiety and

Children with COVID-19 generally experience a mild disease and fatalities are very rare, according to a study of 582 patients from across Europe published today in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal. The study, which included children and adolescents aged from 3 days up to 18 years old, found that although the majority were