For how we live.
Among 93,406 children in Japan's national birth cohort, preterm birth was linked to higher odds of thinness at ages 4 to 6 and persistently lower BMI from 3 to 6, with no sign of catch-up.
A final order published 9 October classifies the over-the-counter infant pulse rate and oxygen saturation monitor as class II, with special controls built around the risk that it fails to detect a pulse.
A national surveillance study found 415 children under 15 among Sierra Leone's 2024–2025 clade IIb mpox cases — three died, three-quarters needed hospital care, and household contact was the top documented exposure.
A Global Burden of Disease analysis found early-neonatal mortality in Kazakhstan dropped about 33% from 2010 to 2023 — yet boys kept dying at higher rates than girls, a gap that only recently began to close.
Across 10 US children's hospitals and 697 patients, reoperation for recurrent twisting was rare either way — but laparoscopic repair carried lower odds of surgery for later bowel obstruction.
In the MONEAD cohort, six-year-olds whose mothers breastfed while taking antiseizure medicines scored no worse on language or adaptive behaviour — and longer breastfeeding tracked with slightly better scores.
A nationwide Brazilian cohort of 4.1 million children found that babies exposed to Zika in the womb but without congenital Zika syndrome had the same pneumonia-hospitalisation risk as unexposed children.
A first-of-its-kind report from Uzbekistan puts the case-fatality rate at 8.3%. The one sign that predicted death was present in just 3.1% of patients — a warning against waiting for it.
Genomic sequencing identified Haemophilus ducreyi — a bacterium known for a sexually transmitted infection — behind roughly 403 cases in children. Of 156 swabs tested, 61.5% were positive; no yaws was found.
Surveillance across seven countries detected Shigella by PCR in 20.0% of diarrhoea episodes in toddlers, and found ciprofloxacin resistance reaching 37.2% — a warning for a disease with no licensed vaccine.
A peer-reviewed national analysis puts a figure on this spring's resurgence: 8,834 laboratory-confirmed cases, more than 70% of patients hospitalised, and incidence highest in Dhaka division.
A population-linked Australian cohort followed children to school entry after antenatal metformin. The adjusted relative risk of developmental vulnerability was 0.97 — no different from unexposed children.
A phase 2b trial in 4936 Gambian children missed its primary endpoint, but ETVAX cut moderate-to-severe ETEC diarrhoea by 80.6% once parasite co-infections were excluded.
The PROPOSITIS trial put babies on high-flow oxygen face-down or on their backs. Escalation of care was 15% versus 21% — a difference that did not reach significance, and the authors call the study inconclusive.
In the TB-Speed project, trained nurses produced valid Xpert Ultra results in 99.6% to 100% of child samples and returned hospital results within three hours far more often than laboratories.
A national survey of more than 120,000 children put combined prevalence at 5.4% and heavy-intensity infection below WHO's 1% elimination threshold, after ten years of preventive chemotherapy.
A mixed-methods survey of urban households challenges the assumption that city children are the reached ones, and points to antenatal care and a mother's autonomy as the levers that decide.
Two WHO-endorsed shots are now available, but a new analysis argues the harder problem is financing them in the lowest-income, highest-burden countries. Nigerian rollout data shows demand outpacing readiness.
In deficient populations, vitamin A supplements cut child deaths by 12% — among the best-evidenced global-health interventions. In the well-nourished, added vitamin A does no good and can do harm.
Positional flat head affects nearly half of two-month-olds and is usually mild. In the one randomised trial, moulding helmets matched the natural course — and every parent reported a side effect.
England's scarlet fever rate tripled after 2014 and a more toxigenic strep A lineage emerged, culminating in the deadly 2022 wave of invasive infections in children.
Most newborn jaundice needs no treatment. The reason clinicians watch it is a rare progression to brain injury — a burden that falls overwhelmingly on poorer countries.
Croup gives young children a barking cough and noisy breathing. It is usually mild and self-limiting, and a single dose of oral steroid shortens it — with a low dose working about as well as a high one.
Regular moisturisers and short courses of topical steroids are the mainstays, with modest trial support. Most children improve with age, and popular add-ons like bleach baths are no better than plain water.
External validation of the PAANTHER decision algorithm in 277 children across four African countries recorded 93.3% negative predictive value and 97.4% sensitivity against a composite reference standard.
A modelling study of 93 household surveys corrects for the chronic underreporting that hides stillbirths, and finds steady but socially unequal declines in perinatal mortality since 1990.
A meta-analysis of 56 trials and 134,424 children finds RTS,S and R21 cut clinical malaria by about a third overall, with efficacy strongest alongside seasonal chemoprevention and waning after 36 months.
Colic is intense crying in a healthy, well-fed baby that peaks in the first six weeks and eases by three months. Most remedies do little; the best evidence is modest and mainly for breastfed infants.
The childhood infection clears on its own in most children and has no specific antiviral. The evidence that matters is about the rare severe case — and where it happens.
Most constipation in children has no underlying disease. Guidelines say the treatment that works is a laxative — clearing the backlog, then a maintenance dose for weeks — not simply adding fibre or fluid.
A cohort at Kilifi County Hospital found RSV pneumonia killed 2.4% of admitted infants across 25 seasons, with no decline; severe undernutrition and congenital heart disease marked the highest risk.
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.
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.
In PROPEL 3, children on once-daily infigratinib grew 1.74 cm/year faster than those on placebo over 52 weeks. It is a pill, not an injection — but the endpoint is growth speed, not long-term health.
In an 81-child trial, vosoritide raised annualised growth velocity by 2.33 cm a year against placebo in hypochondroplasia, which has no targeted treatment. The endpoint is growth speed, not final height.
A Danish study of 71,000 cases found the risk factors tied to a diagnosis weakened over a decade, pointing to changing diagnostic practice rather than falling thresholds of impairment.
The prequalification is about delivery, not efficacy: a cheaper, multi-dose presentation of RSVpreF meant to make large-scale rollout feasible where almost all RSV deaths occur.
A Global Burden of Disease 2021 analysis of 5-to-9-year-olds finds falling disability rates worldwide, yet projects that South and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa will still carry the heaviest load.
A meta-analysis of more than 155,000 children finds mortality is elevated even at oxygen saturations of 90–94%, above the threshold at which WHO advises hospital oxygen.
A facility-based study of 5,053 infants finds undernutrition begins earlier than the age group nutrition programmes usually screen — and that weight-for-age caught far more of it than arm-circumference tape.
National surveillance shows no decline from 2020 to 2024, with one in five patients already disabled at diagnosis — a marker of late detection even as the global burden falls.
A registry analysis of Abyan Governorate from 2020 to 2024 puts numbers on a vaccine-preventable disease that returned as immunisation coverage fell — with the heaviest toll among children aged 5 to 9.
ACT-South Asia randomised 1,847 patients in Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Treatment failed in 5.1% of each group — no benefit from the second antibiotic, and a point in favour of stewardship.
In 2,414 children, the MODAM-MAM trial found one daily sachet of therapeutic food non-inferior to standard supplementary food; two sachets did marginally better but used far more product.
A large randomised promotion trial and sibling studies find some real benefits in infancy — fewer gut infections, less eczema — but the sweeping long-term advantages shrink once confounding is accounted for.
A cluster-randomised trial in Saponé found seasonal chemoprevention given to children up to age 10 nearly halved parasite carriage in 5-to-9-year-olds, though supervised delivery brought no clear gain under age five.
Across 84,348 hospital admissions, 19.8% of children had severe anaemia; as malaria receded the burden moved to older children, and severe anaemia doubled the odds of dying.
A Bulletin of the WHO study recorded 168 maternal deaths between October 2023 and June 2024, alongside higher stillbirth, neonatal-death and preterm-birth rates than before the war.
A national database of ~90% of public facilities found all-cause diarrhoea incidence in under-fives dropped 50% and hospitalisations 58% after 2020, with no rise in intussusception.
Two doses of the long-acting antibody L9LS protected under-fives in a high-transmission area, but researchers say a higher dose is likely needed for stronger cover.
A test-negative study found the TYPHIBEV conjugate vaccine 89% effective against confirmed typhoid in Nepali children over 30 months, with weaker and far less certain protection under age five.
A UNRWA surveillance dataset of 265,974 arm-circumference measurements shows wasting rising during blockade, falling during ceasefire, then rising again — an unusually direct record of cause and effect.
In a 400-pair trial in Uganda where every family already had a bed net, insecticide-treated wraps reduced clinical malaria in infants from 2.14 to 0.73 cases per 100 person-weeks.