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Starting as a seedy, possible root cause of drug abuse, marijuana has branched out and grown into a redwood-sized recreational drug industry not unlike the tobacco industry.

To continue our ongoing theme of “taking back” the practice of pediatrics for ourselves and our patients, I’d like to discuss utilizing behavior portals to facilitate the diagnosis of patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), developmental delay, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as depression and anxiety.

A baffled mother brings her 14-year-old son for evaluation of an asymptomatic bump that appeared on the side of his right third finger 1 week ago.

It’s a delicate and potentially volatile topic: testing for pediatric drug abuse. So, how is a physician to walk this high wire, assessing patients and providing care while respecting and protecting those patients’ rights, especially when those patients are minors?

A new urine test that quantifies very low biomarkers of marijuana smoke can help assess how much children are being passively exposed.

“Dabbing” is a way of inhaling a highly concentrated preparation of cannabis comprised of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive cannabinoid found in the marijuana plant.

Sharon Levy, MD, MPH, FAAP discusses the clinical report "Testing for drugs of abuse in children and adolescents" with Contemporary Pediatrics.

Early puberty can result in a lot of parental anxiety, and many pediatricians are unsure of how to assess for true early pubertal onset versus a more serious condition.

Cases of early childhood dental caries are greater than they were in the 1990s, and few children visit a dentist before age 3, leaving pediatricians in a position to offer possibly the only dental care to young children. Find out more about how pediatricians can help head off tooth decay and why early dental care matters.

Imagine living in a world where you cannot hear anything: your mother’s loving voice, your siblings’ laughter, normal environmental sounds and music, someone standing behind you and calling your name.

New statistics from the CDC show that teen drinking and driving rates are declining, but that driving under the influence of marijuana is on the rise. Additionally, the report notes that while, drinking and driving rates may be dropping, the statistic does not signal an overall drop in drug and alcohol use.

What has traditionally been a condition most prevalent among school-aged, white males is increasing among all demographic groups, including females, according to a new report.

Pediatricians are now being asked to add depression, HIV, and dyslipidemia screening to preventive care visits, but guideline authors say the changes will help improve efficiency.

Jamie Glater, MD, discusses an NIH-sponsored study investigating the effectiveness of an auditory brain stem implant in young children with congenital cochlear nerve agenesis.

Myopia prevalence across the age spectrum is increasing, nearly doubling over the last 40 years in adolescents, but there are many theories as to why this is occurring. Learn about you can help your patients stave off nearsightedness.

After blood pressure, heart rate, oxygenation, temperature, and pain, pediatricians should include an evaluation of menstrual cycles for adolescent females when assessing overall health, according to a recommendation from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

With newborn hearing screening mandated in all states, the pediatrician has seen a profound reduction in the age when hearing loss is identified and advances in treatment that now allow treatment at very early ages.

A study that followed more than 19,500 children aged from 2 to 18 years for about 8 years found that those who were overweight or obese made more hospital emergency department (ED) and outpatient clinic visits than children of normal weight.

Adolescents and young adults who reported using electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) in a national survey were more likely to have progressed to smoking cigarettes 1 year later than their peers who did not use e-cigarettes.

Tertiary pediatric institutions differ greatly in how often they use computed tomography (CT) imaging, whether for emergency department (ED), inpatient, or observation encounters, and regardless of body region.

Adjunctive laser acupuncture reduces the need for morphine therapy in neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS).

A previously healthy 8-year-old Hispanic boy presented to the emergency department (ED) with a 2-day history of abdominal pain and 2 episodes of nonprojectile vomiting in the last 24 hours.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is struggling to know how to set guidelines for research to bring about more maternal vaccination as a means of protecting the infant.

The parents of a 4-year-old girl are worried about a bald area on the back of her scalp that has been present since birth.

In his final installment of the series "Pearls from the trenches," Dr. Farber encourages pediatricians to think outside the box, to trust their "sixth sense" when it comes to treating patients, and always to look at what they are doing from the parents' and child's point of view.

Let’s begin our recovery of medical practice by discussing alternative ways of documenting office visits.

A recent randomized, controlled trial showing the utility of balloon autoinflation for otitis media with effusion (OME) in general practice perhaps raises more questions than it answers, experts tell Contemporary Pediatrics.

Unidentified children who are deaf or hard of hearing may have delayed speech and language development that can interfere with daily functioning. Unidentified hearing loss also places a cost burden on families and the healthcare system, with the lifetime educational cost of hearing loss estimated in 2007 at $115,600 per child.

The non-profit ECRI Institute has ranked the top health technology hazards in 2015 to highlight the often overlooked risks that medical technology poses to patient care.

Caring for the medically complex neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) graduates is a challenge for everyone: the very stressed parents and family members, physicians, physician specialists, nurse practitioners, nurses, and early intervention specialists including physical therapists, occupational therapists, and education specialists.