Pediatric News

Eventhough adolescents need just as much sleep as younger children, sleep times decrease over the course of development, leaving a number of teens chronically sleep-deprived. Studies have consistently indicated that insufficient sleep can have a negative effect on a number of aspects of adolescents' lives, leading to mood disturbances, poorer physical health, and academic difficulties. But few studies have examined how sleep affects the ways adolescents function on a daily basis or how the effects of sleep change over time........

Cincinnati, OH, March 31, 2011 -- Roughly 15% of children suffer from migraines, and approximately one-third of these affected children have migraines with aura, a collection of symptoms that can include weakness, blind spots, and even hallucinations. Eventhough the causes of migraines are unclear, a newly released study soon to be published in The Journal of Pediatrics suggests a correlation between migraine headaches in children and a heart defect called patent foramen ovale, which affects 25% of people in the U.S........

A newly published report reveals that children with epilepsy are more likely to have psychiatric symptoms, with gender a determining factor in their development. Findings showed that girls had more emotional problems, while boys had more hyperactivity/inattention problems and issues regarding peer relationships. Details of this study in Norwegian children are now available online in Epilepsia, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the International League Against Epilepsy........

Adolescents and young adults are neither children nor adults and those affected by cancer require targeted care that crosses the boundaries between pediatric and adult oncology, as per several pioneers in this still-developing field of adolescent and young adult oncology. An illuminating roundtable discussion by these experts would be reported in the premier issue of Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology, a multidisciplinary peer-evaluated publication of Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The Roundtable has been published ahead of the print issue and is available at www.liebertpub.com/JAYAO. The full issue will launch in April 2011........

Young adults whose parents monitor their social interactions appears to be less likely to display impulsive behavior traits and to have alcohol-related problems, a newly released study suggests. The level of monitoring is associated with parenting style, and the link is stronger with the parent of the opposite gender........

Children experiencing an asthma attack who are treated with a short burst of oral steroids may have a transient depression of immune response as per a newly released study led by Universit� de Montr�al. These findings, published in this month's issue of Pediatric Allergy, Immunology and Pulmonology, have implications for asthmatic children who have flare-ups and who appears to be exposed to new contagious diseases........

A computational physicist and a cognitive neuroscientist at Children's Hospital Boston have come up with the beginnings of a noninvasive test to evaluate an infant's autism risk. It combines the standard electroencephalogram (EEG), which records electrical activity in the brain, with machine-learning algorithms. In a pilot study, their system had 80 percent accuracy in distinguishing between 9-month-old infants known to be at high risk for autism from controls of the same age........

Research presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science highlights the importance of callous-unemotional traits (CU) in identifying children at risk of antisocial behavior and other adjustment problems. The research, presented by Indiana University Bloomington faculty member Nathalie M.G. Fontaine, finds that the emergence of CU traits in childhood is in most cases influenced by genetic factors, particularly in boys. However, environmental factors appear to be more significant for the small number of girls who exhibit high levels of CU traits........

When it comes to curing skin infected with the antibiotic-resistant bacterium MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), timely and proper wound cleaning and draining appears to be more important than the choice of antibiotic, as per a new Johns Hopkins Children's Center study. The work is reported in the recent issue of Pediatrics.......

Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are two to three times more likely than children without the disorder to develop serious substance abuse problems in adolescence and adulthood, as per a research studyby UCLA psychology experts and his colleagues at the University of South Carolina........

Two years after the reauthorization and expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a new Commonwealth Fund state-by-state scorecard evaluating how the health care system is working for children finds that federal and state action on behalf of children has helped preserve, and even expand, health coverage for this group, despite the severe recession. Yet wide differences persist among states when it comes to health insurance coverage, affordability of health care for families, children's receipt of preventive care and therapy, and the opportunity for children to lead healthy lives. Children living in the five top-ranked states�Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire�are more likely to be insured and to receive recommended medical and dental check-ups than children living in poorer-performing states like Florida, Texas, Arizona, Mississippi, or Nevada........

Alexandria, VA � Tonsillectomy is the most common major surgical procedure performed in children. Children who undergo the surgical removal of their tonsils (tonsillectomy), with or without the removal of their adenoids (adenoidectomy), are at increased risk for becoming overweight after surgery, as per new research reported in the February 2011 issue of Otolaryngology � Head and Neck Surgery.......

Visionaries in the field of cardiac therapeutics have long looked to the future when a damaged heart could be rebuilt or repaired by using one's own heart cells. A study reported in the recent issue of Circulation, a scientific journal of the American Heart Association, shows that heart stem cells from children with congenital heart disease were able to rebuild the damaged heart in the laboratory........

There's a reason why Hollywood makes movies like Arachnophobia and Snakes on a Plane: Most people are afraid of spiders and snakes. A new paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reviews research with infants and toddlers and finds that we aren't born afraid of spiders and snakes, but we can learn these fears very quickly........

Current guidance advising mothers in the UK to exclusively breast feed for the first six months of their baby's life is being questioned by child health experts on bmj.com today. The authors, led by Dr Mary Fewtrell, a consultant paediatrician at the UCL Institute of Child Health in London, have evaluated the evidence behind the current guidance and say the time is right to reappraise this recommendation........