August 16, 2007, 9:24 PM CT

Umbilical cord clamping should be delayed

Clamping and cutting of the umbilical cord should be delayed for three minutes after birth, especially for pre-term infants, suggests a senior doctor in this weeks BMJ.

Early clamping and cutting of the umbilical cord is widely practised as part of the management of labour, but recent studies suggest that it may be harmful to the baby. The rate of early cord clamping varies widely in Europe, from 17% of units in Denmark to 90% in France.

So Dr Andrew Weeks, a senior lecturer in obstetrics at the University of Liverpool, looked at the evidence behind cord clamping.

For the mother, trials show that early cord clamping has no ill effects, he writes. But what about the baby".

At birth, he says, the umbilical cord sends oxygen-rich blood to the lungs until breathing establishes. So as long as the cord is unclamped, the average transfusion to the newborn is equivalent to 21% of the neonates final blood volume and three quarters of the transfusion occurs in the first minute after birth.

For babies born at term, the main effect of this large autotransfusion is to increase their iron status. This may be lifesaving in areas where anaemia is endemic.

In the developed world, however, there have been concerns that it could increase the risk of polycythaemia and hyperbilirubinaemia (abnormally high levels of red blood cells and bile pigments in the bloodstream, often leading to jaundice). But trials show this is not the case......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 15, 2007, 9:34 PM CT

Fat still on the children's menu

Parents should think twice before offering a low-fat menu to youngsters, despite concerns over obesity. Children burn more body fat than adults for each calorie spent, as per research in the online open access publication, Nutrition Journal, evidence that fat can be included as part of a childs healthy and balanced diet.

A US team led by John Kostyak from The Pennsylvania State University used calorimetry to measure whole body fat oxidation in 10 children (aged 6-10) and 10 adults. All had a body mass index (BMI) within the healthy, middle range. Kostyak's team checked subjects cardiovascular fitness and body fat, and all were given the same typical American diet for three days previous to testing (eventhough adults had larger portions). Test subjects spent nine hours on three separate days at a low physical activity level, watching movies or reading, in either a room calorimeter or under a hood system, which quantify oxygen and carbon dioxide gas levels. The authors also measured the total amount of nitrogen in the subjects urine, and used these measurements to calculate how much fat they oxidised.

Eventhough the absolute amount of fat burned in a day did not differ greatly between children and adults, children burned considerably more fat relative to the amount of energy they used. In an attempt to determine the contribution of fat oxidation to daily calorie expenditure, the scientists calculated the grams of fat oxidized per kcal of energy expenditure. This value was higher in children (0.047 0.01 g/kcal) in comparison to adults (0.032 0.01, p<0.02). Women and girls used fat at a higher rate than men and boys of a comparable age......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

August 15, 2007, 8:54 PM CT

Toddlers are capable of introspection

Preschoolers are more introspective than we give them credit for, as per new research by Simona Ghetti, assistant professor of psychology at UC Davis.

Ghetti and her co-investigator, Kristen Lyons, a graduate student in psychology at UC Davis, will present their findings Friday morning, Aug. 17, at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco.

Researchers have demonstrated that dolphins, monkeys and even rats can engage in some form of "metacognition," or an awareness of their own thought processes. But developmental psychology experts have assumed that human children do not develop this capability before about age 5.

Lyons and Ghetti have toppled that assumption by teaching 3- and 4-year-olds to communicate their awareness of their thought processes using pictures rather than words.

"We've shown that even very young children can think about their thinking," Ghetti said. "The reason we haven't appreciated it before now is that the studies that have been used to test for it have been too verbally demanding".

The UC Davis scientists devised a novel method to investigate metacognition in early childhood. They taught their preschool subjects to point to a photo of a confident-looking face when they felt confident they had the right answer to a question, and to a photo of a doubtful-looking child when they were not confident they had the right answer......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

August 7, 2007, 10:26 PM CT

Maturity brings richer memories

MIT neuroresearchers exploring how memory formation differs between children and adults have observed that eventhough the two groups have much in common, maturity brings richer memories.

In the August 5 advance online edition of Nature Neuroscience, the MIT team reports that children rival adults in forming basic memories, but adults do better at remembering the rich, contextual details of that information. The MIT study provides new insights into how children learn that are not only theoretically important, but could also inform practical learning in everyday settings.

The ability to remember factual information - who, what, where, when - emerges gradually during childhood, and plays a critical role in education. The brain systems underlying it have been extensively studied in adults, but until now little was known about how they mature during child development.

The MIT study indicates that a more developed prefrontal cortex (PFC) - an area of the brain long linked to higher-order thinking, planning, and reasoning -- may be responsible for creating richer memories in adults.

"Activation in the PFC follows an upward slope with age in contextual memories. The older the subjects, the more powerful the activation in that area," explains senior author John Gabrieli of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology......... Posted by: Daniel      Read more         Source

August 6, 2007, 5:06 PM CT

Inhaled nitric oxide safe for tiny preemie lungs

A nationwide study led by scientists at UCSF provides evidence that inhaled nitric oxide is safe and effective for the prevention of the most common type of long-term lung disease of very premature infants.

Chronic lung disease is a major source of morbidity in these infants. Neonatologists have been trying to figure out how to prevent it for years, said Philip Ballard, MD, PhD, lead study author and professor of pediatrics at UCSF.

The benefit of inhaled nitric oxide for infants born close to term who suffer from the lung disease known as pulmonary high blood pressure has been known for some time, but the effect in preemies had not been clearly determined, as per Ballard.

Nitric oxide is a gaseous compound normally produced by the body, however, premature infants produce insufficient amounts. Recent clinical studies done elsewhere have found positive effects of inhaled nitric oxide in very premature infants, while some animal research has suggested that inhaled nitric oxide in preemies might interfere with the production of pulmonary surfactant, a substance critical to normal lung development and functioning.

The new study findings, published in the August 2007 issue of Pediatrics, found no adverse affects of inhaled nitric oxide on surfactant production or function, said Ballard, a neonatologist at UCSF Childrens Hospital......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

August 6, 2007, 4:58 PM CT

Early-childhood Intervention Improves Well-being

Minority preschoolers from low-income families who participated in a comprehensive school-based intervention fared better educationally, socially and economically as they moved into young adulthood, as per a report by University of Minnesota professors Arthur Reynolds and Judy Temple. The study is published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Associations (JAMA) Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Reynolds is a child development professor in the College of Education and Human Development and Judy Temple is a professor in the department of applied economics and in the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

This study is the first to show that large-scale established programs run by schools can have enduring effects into adulthood on general health and well-being, Reynolds says. Early childhood programs can promote not only educational success but health status and behavior.

Reynolds research group discovered that by age 24, children who were involved in preschool programs were more likely to finish high school, attend four-year colleges and have health insurance coverage, and less likely to be arrested for a felony, be incarcerated or develop depressive symptoms. For example, the preschool group had higher rates of high school completion with 71.4 percent finishing high school compared with a 63.7 percent finish rate among those in the non preschool group. Those who attended preschool also were more likely to have health insurance with 70.2 percent having insurance compared with 61.5 percent of those not in preschool. Those children in the program also had lower rates of felony arrests with 16.5 percent compared with 21.1 percent and lower depressive symptoms with 12.8 percent compared with 17.4 percent......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

August 3, 2007, 10:18 PM CT

Infants Have 'Mind-reading' Capability

One of the unique characteristics of humans that distinguish us from the animal kingdom is the ability to represent others beliefs in our own minds. This sort of intuitive mind-reading, as per experts, lays the cognitive foundations of interpersonal understanding and communication.

Despite its importance, researchers have yet to reach a consensus on how this psychological function develops. Some argue that this complex and flexible ability is acquired at the age of 3-4 years and only after prerequisites such as language grammar are fulfilled. Others suggest specialized developmental mechanisms are in place at birth, allowing infants to refine this ability very early in life.

Luca Surian, a psychology expert at the University of Trento in Italy, and colleagues believe they have made some progress in the debate. As per a research findings reported in the recent issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Surian observed that 13-month-old infants were able to exhibit the ability to attribute mental content.

In two experiments, the scientists had the infants watch a series of animations in which a caterpillar went in search of food (either a red apple or a piece of cheese) that was hidden behind a screen. In some scenes, the caterpillar could see a human hand situating the food, but in others there was no hand to drop a hint. The caterpillar was either successful finding the preferred food behind the correct screen, or went behind an alternative screen with the other type of food behind it......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

August 3, 2007, 9:46 PM CT

The matrix of autism

Autistic children are doubly stigmatized. On the one hand, they are often dismissed as low functioning or mentally retarded, particularly if they have poor speaking skills as a number of do. Yet when autistics do show exceptional abilitiesuncanny visual discrimination and memory for detail, for exampletheir flashes of brilliance are marginalized as aberrations, mere symptoms of their higher order cognitive deficit. They often earn a dubious promotion to idiot savant.

The theoretical justification for this view is that prototypical autistic skills are not true intelligence at all, but really just low-level perceptual abilities. Indeed, in this view autistics are missing the big picture because they are obsessed with the detail.

But is this true" Are autistics really incapable of abstraction and integration and other high-level thinking" Surprisingly, given how pervasive this view of autism is, it has never been rigorously tested. But a team of researchers in Canada suspected that the tests themselves might be baised and decided to explore the idea in the lab.

Led by psychology expert Laurent Mottron of the University of Montreal, the team gave both autistic kids and normal kids two of the most popular IQ tests used in schools. The two tests are both highly regarded, but they are very different. The so-called WISC relies heavily on language, which is why the psychology experts were suspicious of it. The other, known as the Ravens Progressive Matrices, is considered the preeminent test of whats called fluid intelligence, that is, the ability to infer rules, to set and manage goals, to do high-level abstractions. Basically the test presents arrays of complicated patterns with one missing, and test takers are mandatory to choose the one that would logically complete the series. The test demands a good memory, focused attention and other executive skills, butunlike the WISCit doesnt require much language......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 30, 2007, 8:21 PM CT

Increased White Matter And Poor Motor Skills In Children With Autism

A study reported in the recent issue of the journal Brain demonstrates, for the first time, an association between increased white matter volume and functional impairment in children with autism. Findings from scientists at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Md. reveal that in children with autism, increased white matter volume in the motor region of the brain predicts poorer motor skills. On the other hand, in typically developing children, increased white matter volume predicts improved motor skills, with a similar association observed in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The relationship between increased white matter volume and functional impairment, which appears to be specific to autism, may be representative of global patterns of brain abnormality in autism that not only contribute to motor dysfunction, but also to deficits in socialization and communication that define the disorder.

Children with autism are typically motorically clumsy and awkward, similar to how they are socially clumsy and awkward. They often experience difficulties with basic motor control and with learning more complex motor skills, such as riding a tricycle, pumping their legs on a swing or buttoning, zipping and tying shoe laces. Additionally, high-functioning children with autism often excel in academic areas, such as math, as opposed to athletic activities, such as baseball. Because measures of motor function are highly quantifiable and reproducible, they are much easier to study than measures of social and communication behavior. Motor signs can serve as markers for deficits in parallel brain systems important for control of socialization and communication......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 26, 2007, 9:31 PM CT

Nutritional Supplement Cuts Anemia In Poor Children

A nutritional supplement known as Sprinkles, which can be added to children's food, reduces anemia by more than half, as per a recent study reported in the Journal of Nutrition.

The study was led by Purnima Menon, Cornell Ph.D. '02, a research associate in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. It is the first to show, using a rigorous study design, that Sprinkles can reduce the occurence rate of anemia among poor children enrolled in an ongoing fortified food aid program implemented under challenging, real-life conditions in developing countries.

This research, which was conducted by Cornell's Division of Nutritional Sciences with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), offers promising insights on how to reduce iron and other micronutrient deficiencies among poor people in developing countries. These deficiencies are a devastating problem worldwide, causing poor health, premature death and impaired development, says Menon. Children age 6 to 24 months are most vulnerable to suffering from iron-deficiency anemia.

"When combined with other food aid initiatives, the potential impact [of Sprinkles] is huge," said Marie Ruel, Cornell Ph.D. '90, director of IFPRI's Food Consumption and Nutrition Division and a co-author of the study......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source