MedicineWorld.Org brings daily pediatric news from various sources to keep you updated on the latest events in the world on this topic. Medicineworld pediatric news service is the most comprehensive pediatric news service on the internet. We keep an archive of previous few days of news on this site. Please go down through the list to find the older news items. Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT en-us http://medicineworld.org/images/Pediatric-news.jpg 90 90 http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/to-reduce-marijuana-use.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/to-reduce-marijuana-use.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT Marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug by adolescents, with almost 42% of high school seniors admitting to having experimented with it. Continued marijuana use may result in many serious consequences including depression, cognitive impairment, cardiovascular disease, and certain forms of cancer. As such, it is critical to prevent marijuana use by adolescents and numerous behavioral and medical researchers have been trying to establish the best means of prevention........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/premature-birth-report-card.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/premature-birth-report-card.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT For the second consecutive year, the United States earned only a "D" on the March of Dimes Premature Birth Report Card, demonstrating that more than half a million of our nation's newborns didn't get the healthy start they deserved. In the 2009 Premature Birth Report card, seven states improved their performance by one letter grade and two fared worse. Criteria that affect preterm birth improved in a number of states:....... ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/how-long-they-stay-in-school.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/how-long-they-stay-in-school.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT Queen's University researcher Steven Lehrer has won a prestigious international award in recognition of his contributions to health economics. A professor in Queen's School of Policy Studies and Department of Economics, Dr. Lehrer shares the RAND Corporation's Victor R. Fuchs Research Award with Jason Fletcher of Yale University. Their prize-winning paper, recently reported in the journal Forum for Health Economics and Policy, examines the effects of adolescent health on educational outcomes........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/how-youths-view-parental-control.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/how-youths-view-parental-control.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT A newly released study has observed that young people feel differently about two types of parental control, generally viewing a type of control that's believed to be better for their development more positively. However, when parents are very controlling, young people no longer make this distinction and view both types of parental control negatively........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/handwriting-for-children-with-autism.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/handwriting-for-children-with-autism.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT Handwriting skills are crucial for success in school, communication, and building children's self-esteem. The first study to examine handwriting quality in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has uncovered a relationship between fine motor control and poor quality of handwriting in children with ASD, as per research reported in the November 10, 2009, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study, conducted by scientists at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, compared handwriting samples, motor skills, and visuospatial abilities of children with ASD to typically developing children. The scientists observed that overall, the handwriting of children with ASD was worse than typically developing children. Specifically, children with ASD had trouble with forming letters, however in other categories, such as size, alignment, and spacing, their handwriting was comparable to typically developing children. These findings build on prior studies examining motor skills and ASD conducted in 2009 by Kennedy Krieger researchers........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/air-pollution-and-infants-bronchiolitis.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/air-pollution-and-infants-bronchiolitis.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT Infants who are exposed to higher levels of air pollution are at increased risk for bronchiolitis, as per a newly released study. The study appears in the November 15 issue of the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. "There has been very little study of the consequences of early life exposure to air pollution," said Catherine Karr, M.D. PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and the paper's main author. "This study is unique in that we were able to look at multiple sources including wood smoke in a region with relatively low concentrations of ambient air pollution overall"........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/religion-and-medicine.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/religion-and-medicine.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT Do pediatric oncologists feel that religion is a bridge or a barrier to their work? Or do they feel it can be either, depending on whether their patients are recovering or deteriorating? A novel Brandeis University study examines these questions in the current issue of Social Problems Through in-depth interviews with 30 pediatricians and pediatric oncologists at elite medical centers, the authors discovered that physicians tend to view religion and spirituality pragmatically, considering them resources in family decision-making and in end of life situations, and barriers when they conflict with medical decisions, said main author Brandeis sociologist Wendy Cadge........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/suboptimal-vitamin-d-levels-in-millions-of-us-children.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/suboptimal-vitamin-d-levels-in-millions-of-us-children.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT Boston, Mass. -- Millions of children in the United States between the ages of 1 and 11 may suffer from suboptimal levels of vitamin D, as per a large nationally representative study reported in the recent issue of Pediatrics, accompanied by an editorial. The study, led by Jonathan Mansbach, MD, at Children's Hospital Boston, is the most up-to-date analysis of vitamin D levels in U.S. children. It builds on the growing evidence that levels have fallen below what's considered healthy, and that black and Hispanic children are at especially high risk........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/blood-lead-levels-and-test-scores.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/blood-lead-levels-and-test-scores.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT Exposure to lead in early childhood significantly contributes to lower performances on end-of-grade (EOG) reading tests among minority and low-income children, as per scientists at Duke University and North Carolina Central University. "We found a clear dose-response pattern between lead exposure and test performance, with the effects becoming more pronounced as you move from children at the high end to the low end of the test-score curve," said lead investigator Marie Lynn Miranda, director of the Children's Environmental Health Initiative (CEHI) at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/pre-term-births-and-higher-rates-of-eye-problems.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/pre-term-births-and-higher-rates-of-eye-problems.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT As more extremely pre-term infants survive in Sweden, an increasing number of babies are experiencing vision problems caused by abnormalities involving the retina, as per a report in the recent issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Retinopathy of prematurity [abnormal development of blood vessels in the retina] remains an important cause of childhood blindness and visual impairment throughout the world," the authors write as background information in the article. "During the last decade, neonatal care has changed with an increase in centralization, implementation of new therapies and provision of intensive care for infants of extremely low gestational age. These changes have contributed to an increasing population of survivors in neonatal intensive care units today. The occurence rate of retinopathy of prematurity in these extremely preterm infants is, therefore, unknown"........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/how-do-people-choose-a-name-for-their-child.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/how-do-people-choose-a-name-for-their-child.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT How do people choose a name for their child? Scientists have long noted that the overall popularity of a name exerts a strong influence on people's preferencesmore popular names, such as Robert or Susan, are more frequent and, by their sheer ubiquity, drive more parents to adopt a similar choice. However, new research by psychology experts at New York University and Indiana University, Bloomington suggests that the change in popularity of a name over time increasingly influences naming decisions in the United States. Like momentum traders in the stock market, parents today appear to favor names that have recently risen in popularity relative to names that are on the decline........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/using-imagination-to-reduce-abdominal-pain.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/using-imagination-to-reduce-abdominal-pain.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT Children with functional abdominal pain who used audio recordings of guided imagery at home in addition to standard medical therapy were almost three times as likely to improve their pain problem, in comparison to children who received standard therapy alone. And those benefits were maintained six months after therapy ended, a newly released study by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University Medical Center scientists has found........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/autism-speaks-genetic-resource-exchange.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/autism-speaks-genetic-resource-exchange.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT Autism Speaks' Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE) and the Autism Tissue Program (ATP) continue to play an integral role in continuing genetic research and new findings in the complex autism inheritance and causation puzzle. As per a research findings reported in the October 7, edition of the journal Nature, an extensive research team of more than 75 research institutions identified semaphoring 5A, a gene implicated in the growth of neurons to form proper contacts and connections with other neurons. Prior studies have reported lower levels of this protein in blood samples from individuals with autism as in comparison to controls. In this study, the scientists were also able to extend that observation to the brain tissue of individuals with autism vs. control brains........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/many-children-are-exposed-to-violence-and-abuse.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/many-children-are-exposed-to-violence-and-abuse.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT A newly released study from the University of New Hampshire finds that U.S. children are routinely exposed to even more violence and abuse than has been previously recognized, with nearly half experiencing a physical assault in the study year. "Children experience far more violence, abuse and crime than do adults," said David Finkelhor, director of the UNH Crimes against Children Research Center and the study director. "If life were this dangerous for ordinary grown-ups, we'd never tolerate it"........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/dont-let-him-eat-sweet-everyday.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/dont-let-him-eat-sweet-everyday.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:32 GMT Children who eat sweets and chocolate every day are more likely to be violent as adults, as per new research. A study of almost 17,500 participants in the 1970 British Cohort Study observed that 10-year-olds who ate confectionary daily were significantly more likely to have been convicted for violence at age 34 years........ ]]>