News

Almost one third of women participating in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program report sharing a bed with their infant, as reported in the October Journal of Pediatrics.

Young people with ADHD may be at increased risk of becoming addicted to tobacco, according to a report in the Journal of Pediatrics.

With Halloween just around the neighborhood corner, kids are undoubtedly looking forward to participating in time-honored traditions of the season: wearing costumes, ringing doorbells, and perhaps most fun of all, eating lots of candy. But Halloween has also been a time of concern for parents worried about sick stomachs and trick-or-treating safety.

The prevalence of food or digestive allergies among children increased 18% in the past decade, reported the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

More than 2 million US children with no health insurance have at least one parent who receives insurance, as reported in the October 22 JAMA.

Tobacco smoke and lead exposure may be linked to a particularly high risk of ADHD, according to findings presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.

The rate of US infant deaths decreased by 2% in 2006, but is still not lower than that of other industrialized countries, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.

In 2006, 4,144 teens ages 16 through 19 died in motor vehicle crashes, and nearly 400,000 were treated in emergency departments for related injuries, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, statistics are not so precise regarding a little-known, yet dangerously lethal, teen phenomenon known as "car surfing."

Pay-for-performance (P4P) programs may be in their infancy, but they are inevitably coming to a pediatric practice near you, explained Keith Dveirin, MD, at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 2008 National Conference and Exhibition in Boston.

Stephen G. Rice, MD, PhD, provided an overview of the major changes in the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)'s new clinical report on medical conditions affecting sports participation. He also addressed controversial topics that were confronted in the update process.

Aaron Friedman, MD, reviewed maintenance and rehydration fluid therapy in the pediatric setting, as well as treatment management scenarios for common electrolyte abnormalities, at the American Academy of Pediatrics 2008 National Conference and Exhibition in Boston.

Evoking their inner Car Talk guy, David Stockwell, MD, a critical care specialist at Children's National Medical Center, Washington, DC, and Andy Spooner, MD, a general pediatrician and chief medical officer at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Ohio, talked about handheld electronic devices to a group of pediatricians at the American Academy of Pediatrics 2008 National Conference and Exhibition.

All-terrain vehicles (ATV) were introduced to the public in 1972, and are now the fastest growing sports vehicle in the US. M. Denise Dowd, MD, MPH of the University of Missouri-Kansas City said to attendants of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 2008 National Conference and Exhibition that the number purchased rose from 5 million in 1972 to 50 million in 2006.

Lab technicians can run a test for lead, and for ammonia, but not for pesticides. They’re concocted from a mix of chemicals in different quantities, with different properties and tolerance levels. If only the difficulty of tracking them down in the bloodstream was their only downside.

Geneticist Francis Collins, MD, PhD, wearing a double helix tie, told a story of a man who drops his keys in a dark parking lot, but only looks under one floodlight. It’s not where he dropped his keys, but it’s the only place he can see.

The stem cell’s pluripotency is an almost mythical mutability, able to turn into a nerve cell, a bone marrow cell, a muscle cell, a hepatic cell–anything. Turning that myth into a reality is the work of George Q. Daley, of the Harvard School of Medicine.

A new American Academy of Pediatric (AAP) clinical report, “Prevention of Rickets and Vitamin D Deficiency in Infants, Children, and Adolescents,” recommends all children receive 400 IU a day of vitamin D, beginning within the first few days of life.

In assessing the current state of vaccine management in the pediatrician’s office, Stuart Cohen, MD, did not mince words.

Heidi Feldman, MD, PhD of the Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, Calif. helped pediatricians gained insight into how to recognize normal development in speech and language in children.

Speaking to an overflow audience at this year’s AAP Conference, Robert Frenck, MD, a professor of infectious diseases (ID) at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, prefaced his talk on community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA- MRSA) management by saying, “we just don’t know the all answers yet.”

A 14-year-old boy who recently moved to the area comes to your practice for a sports physical. When you enter the exam room, you are immediately struck by his stature; he is tall and thin, with long arms and legs. He is also wearing glasses. You greet your patient first, and then stretch out your hand to greet Mom, who rises from a chair in the exam room. You note that Mom is markedly tall as well. The question for you is: Is this Marfan syndrome, or is your patient simply near-sighted and naturally tall?

Over the last few years, the incidence of hypertension (HTN) in children has risen, noted Beth Vogt, MD, of Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, as she spoke in Boston to a packed room of concerned pediatricians. In addition to a rise in HTN, the average blood pressure (BP) of American children is also increasing. Several studies have shown that elevated blood pressure is under-recognized; the increase in HTN may also be associated with the childhood obesity. The recommendations below offer some insight in how to identify the child with elevated BP, and how to approach treatment.

About ten minutes into the plenary presentation by Jack Shonkoff, MD, Harvard School of Public Health, he said, essentially, “no kidding.”

When is a one-week-old newborn not one week old? When she’s a late preterm baby, delivered before 37 weeks-gestation. Late preterm children often have slower biological development, are at greater risk for cerebral palsy, and suffer cognitive deficits, said Marliee C. Allen, MD, of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

“The mind is what the brain does,” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s John D. E. Gabrieli, PhD, leading off Sunday’s connected plenary sessions on the brain and early childhood development. His focus was on how functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has changed what we know about how child brains differ from adult brains.

In April 2008 the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) came out with its latest policy statement on strength training by children and adolescents. The statement considers weight training or resistance training safe, with the proper supervision and technique. However, longer-term injury data is needed, and weight training is not recommended for the general population. The AAP policy also states that it is against competitive power lifting and body building.

Newborn screening has been a major advance in preventative medicine, Harvey Levy, MD, FAAP, explained. However, are too many infants being diagnosed due to newborn screening?

The respective roles of communication, phone triage management, and documentation are essential if pediatricians want to protect themselves from possible costly malpractice lawsuits, emphasized Gary N. McAbee, DO, JD, Professor of Pediatrics (Neurology) at the Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine in Camden, N.J.

It’s not the first, or for that matter, the second or third most pressing issue for office-based pediatricians. But disaster preparedness is steadily becoming more relevant issue.