Dutch experience shows opposite is true; and parents involved in decisions Fears that legalising euthanasia for very sick newborns would prompt the start of a "slippery slope" and lead to abuse of the option have proved groundless, says the architect of a dedicated protocol used by doctors in The Netherlands, in a special issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics...

Babies who are above average in size when they are born are at a greater risk of autism, as well as those who are born below average in size, according to the biggest study of fetal growth and autism to date. The findings, published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, show the first clear link between large babies at birth and the risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder...

Over 4,400 kids are injured on amusement rides each year in the U.S., according to a new study. The research was conducted by scientists in the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital and was published in Clinical Pediatrics...

New research from The University of Edinburgh has found that in a study of 2000 families with five year olds, those children who eat the same meals as their parents are far more likely to have healthier diets than those who eat different foods...

A team of international researchers led by Northwestern Medicine scientists has identified how a defective protein plays a central role in a rare, lethal childhood disease known as Giant Axonal Neuropathy, or GAN. The finding is reported in the May 2013 Journal of Clinical Investigation...

A research report released today from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) provides specific recommendations for optimizing the rear seat of passenger vehicles to better protect its most common occupants - children and adolescents...

New recommendations from the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) urge physicians to screen all adults and adolescents aged 15 - 65 for HIV. In addition, all pregnant women should receive screening, even those who are in labor but have not yet been screened. Rapid screening tests and conventional tests are considered equally accurate for screening...

A recent Saint Louis University study revealed that Medicaid-insured children with eczema, an inflammatory skin condition that affects 20 percent children in the United States, do not have easy access to dermatologists. "This is a complex problem and a major health disparity in our country," said Elaine Siegfried, M.D., professor of pediatrics at SLU and the principal investigator of the study...

Babies should be given a daily dose of vitamin D of 400 IU (international units) to help them stay healthy, according to a new study in JAMA. Vitamin D is important for the growth of healthy bones and to prevent rickets, and it is particularly crucial that infants get enough of it during their first year life because their bones are growing very quickly...

Researchers have found that foreign born children who reside in the U.S. have a lower risk of allergic diseases, however, their risk increases in time the longer they live in the country, according to a study published Online First in the journal JAMA. The study, which was led by Jonathan I. Silverberg, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., of St...

Smoking prevention in schools reduces the number of young people who will later become smokers, according to a new systematic review published in The Cochrane Library. For young people who have never smoked, these programmes appear to be effective at least one year after implementation...

A collaborative team of physician-scientists at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) and Children's Hospital of Wisconsin Research Institute has developed a new evidence-based, clinical algorithm to help physicians treat complex patients with autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease (ARPKD). Their invited manuscript, written by Grzegorz Telega, M.D...

New research out of the George Washington University Cancer Institute (GWCI) focuses on the difficulties of transitioning to adulthood while dealing with the long-term and late effects of cancer and its treatment. The study was recently published in the Journal of Oncology Navigation and Survivorship, titled "Improving Cancer Survivorship for Adolescents and Adults...

Babies who regularly spit up after a meal do not necessarily have gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), according to a new study in the journal Pediatrics. Reflux-related symptoms need to be effectively managed and treated, and in order to do so, pediatricians need to differentiate infants with physiologic gastroesophageal reflux (GER) from those with GERD...

As the rate of home births continues to rise in the U.S., the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a new policy statement published in the journal Pediatrics, titled "Planned Home Birth", which includes a number of new recommendations for the care of children born at home...

School violence is a very important social issue world-wide. It poses a significant threat to the health, achievement, and well-being of students...

An atomic-level snapshot of a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) protein bound to a human antibody represents a leap toward developing a vaccine for a common - and sometimes very serious - childhood disease...

Metabolic disorders, such as excess abdominal fat, raised blood pressure, higher levels of insulin, glucose and triglycerides and lower levels of the beneficial HDL cholesterol can be found in children as young as 6 to 8 years of age, according to a study carried out at the University of Eastern Finland...

Early, substantive dialogue between parents and their grade-school age children about the ills of tobacco and alcohol use can be more powerful in shaping teen behavior than advertising, marketing or peer pressure, a University of Texas at Arlington marketing researcher has shown...

Children who are exposed to negative parenting - including abuse, neglect but also overprotection - are more likely to experience childhood bullying by their peers, according to a meta-analysis of 70 studies of more than 200,000 children...