For how we live.
Paediatrics, pregnancy, development, and raising healthy kids.
A child with a suspected concussion should be removed from play and not return the same day. But prolonged strict rest is no longer advised, and light activity within days can speed recovery.
An injection at birth prevents a rare but often catastrophic bleeding disorder. Pooled surveillance data put late-onset bleeding at a median of 35 per 100,000 unprotected infants — and near zero after the shot.
Back sleeping, a firm flat surface, and room-sharing without bed-sharing are the core of the American Academy of Pediatrics' safe-sleep guidance. Roughly 3,500 US infants still die in sleep each year.
The blood test known as NIPT is a strong screen for Down syndrome but not a diagnosis. In a general-risk population a positive result was correct about 81% of the time — and much less often for rarer conditions.
The largest study, comparing siblings to strip out family confounding, found no link between paracetamol in pregnancy and autism or ADHD. Guidelines still call it the preferred painkiller when one is needed.
A large Cochrane review found fish-oil supplements cut early preterm birth substantially. The biggest single trial since found no effect at all — a genuine split the marketing skips over.
A few drops of blood taken in the first days of life are checked for dozens of rare but treatable disorders. The US panel has grown from 29 conditions to 35, and states adopt each one at very different speeds.
Guidelines now ask for an objective test before an asthma label is fixed to a child, and inhaled steroids remain the mainstay of control. Their benefit is real; so is a small, mostly temporary effect on growth.
The main randomised trial found babies who fed themselves were no slimmer, no more iron-deficient and no more likely to choke than spoon-fed babies — provided parents were coached to offer safe, iron-rich foods.
Paediatric bodies advise formal autism screening at 18 and 24 months; a US task force found the evidence for universal screening merely insufficient, not against it. Large studies find no link to vaccines.
In the largest trial, combining fluoxetine with talking therapy helped most, and both worked better than placebo. A later network analysis found only fluoxetine, alone or with therapy, clearly beat placebo.
Enuresis alarms have the best evidence for a lasting cure, working in about two-thirds of children who use them. Desmopressin acts faster but the wetting tends to return when it stops.
E-cigarettes are the tobacco product US teenagers use most, and youth use has fallen from its peak. The clearest documented harm is that teens who vape are several times more likely to start smoking cigarettes.
Most acute ear infections settle on their own, and antibiotics barely change symptoms in the first day. Their benefit is real but modest, which is why guidelines allow a short period of watchful waiting.
Intensive family-based behavioural programmes produce small, real cuts in children's BMI; the newer weight-loss drugs produce much larger ones, but the weight returns when they stop.