For how we live.
A Markov model of one U.S. birth cohort projects 255 chronic hepatitis B infections under universal birth-dose vaccination, rising 19% if the dose is deferred and 83% under shared decision-making (modelled).
A 210-youth randomised trial of a telehealth aerobic-exercise program found faster symptom recovery at three months than stretching — an edge that disappeared by six months and held only for recent injuries.
In 425 US adolescents followed with phone sensors and Fitbits across 7,591 nights, heavier-than-usual late-evening phone use tracked with later, shorter sleep — the association growing hour by hour toward midnight.
In 947 Chinese children followed for ten years, those with insulin resistance despite normal blood sugar had a 4.3-fold higher risk of later dysglycaemia, and six amino acids helped predict who would develop it.
A case-control study of young children during a statewide whooping-cough outbreak found three or more DTaP doses cut the odds of pertussis by more than 25-fold against unvaccinated peers.
A Quezon City hospital reviewed 20 children admitted with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis over 16 years. A quarter arrived in 2022, and the timing points back to the 2018–2019 measles outbreak.
A four-branch surveillance study in children found 2024 Mycoplasma pneumoniae incidence of 546 per 100,000, and genome sequencing showed four new subclades had replaced older lineages by mid-2024.
In a cluster trial across 11 Massachusetts youth clubs, 437 children aged 8–13 got a six-week behaviour programme. The between-group BMI z-score difference was −0.19 and significant; within-group changes were not.
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.
Thirteen years on, the independent DiAPREV-IT trial still shows no overall effect from GAD-alum. A 27-child genetic subgroup saw onset delayed — but the other subgroup got worse.
An FDA advisory committee will meet on 30 October to review Sydnexis's atropine sulfate 0.01% eye drops, proposed to slow myopia progression in children aged 3 and older. The public docket closes 29 October.
The first dedicated Global Burden of Disease analysis of passive smoking finds exposure falling in relative terms but stuck in absolute numbers, and still causing 1.66 million deaths a year — most from heart disease.
National surveillance recorded 60,826 cases in Japan by July 2025 — about 15 times the previous year's 4054 — concentrated in school-age children, while four other countries had already peaked and declined.
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.
In a 366-child phase 2b trial, the live attenuated nasal vaccine BPZE1 raised the mucosal antibody current shots miss, and did not blunt a co-given Tdap. The maker funded the study.
Rezzayo's once-weekly echinocandin can now be used in adolescents with candidaemia who have few other options. The expansion rests on adult data and modelling, not on studies in children.
In GASTRIC-PICU, 4,700 ventilated children were randomised to routine gastric residual checks or none. Dropping the checks was non-inferior for survival and ventilator-free days, and improved nutrition.
In a single-arm trial, children with vanishing white matter given guanabenz kept walking longer than matched historical controls. The design was uncontrolled and hallucinations were common early on.
The Essilor-designed HAL lenses cut two-year myopia progression by 71% versus ordinary glasses in 159 American children. The company employs the study's authors, and the result backs the device's US clearance.
A Cochrane review of six trials finds honey modestly eases cough in children over one, and does as well as common syrup ingredients — while regulators say those syrups do not shorten a cold. Never give honey under one.
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.
Topical antibiotics beat placebo in pooled trials, but UK guidance now recommends hydrogen peroxide cream first for mild cases — a deliberate move to spare antibiotics.
There is no single number. A US expert panel sets wide bands — 12 to 16 hours for infants down to 8 to 10 for teenagers — and warns that regularly falling short is linked to attention, behaviour and learning problems.
Up to a third of children get the label, but a review of 145 studies shows doctors do not agree what growing pains are — not even that they involve the legs. Here is what the evidence supports, and the warning signs.
Childhood sleepwalking is usually harmless and outgrown. In adults it is rarer but a different proposition — one clinic series found most had done something violent during an episode and one in six had been injured.
It does not. In a Danish cohort of 657,461 children, vaccinated children had a fully adjusted autism hazard ratio of 0.93; a meta-analysis of 1,256,407 children found no link with MMR, thimerosal or mercury.
Regulators say benzocaine and lidocaine gels, homeopathic tablets and amber necklaces carry real risks — a rare blood disorder, seizures, choking deaths — for little proven benefit in teething.
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.
Insecticide shampoos increasingly meet resistant lice. Trials favour physical treatments — a silicone lotion and methodical wet combing — that lice cannot evolve around.
The system sorts feverish under-5s into red, amber and green. Validation studies find it misses serious illness and over-refers the well — a prompt, not a reliable test.
Fever is often the only clue in a young child, a properly collected urine sample confirms it, and most cases clear on a short antibiotic course. Preventive antibiotics cut recurrences but breed resistant bugs.
From January 2026 children in England are offered varicella vaccine as MMRV at 12 and 18 months. Pooled trial data put one dose near 81% effective against any chickenpox and 98% against severe disease.
Fluoride toothpaste is the home foundation, with a Cochrane prevented fraction of 24%. At the dentist, fluoride varnish and resin sealants have the strongest trial record — but the evidence is only moderate.
EndeavorRx is a prescription game the FDA cleared in 2020 for children with ADHD. Its pivotal trial moved a computer attention score, but the FDA says it may not help the behaviour parents notice.
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.
Children reach words at different ages, and many late talkers catch up. But a wait-and-see approach can miss those who need help, so certain milestones and warning signs are worth acting on early.
Occasional snoring is common in young children and often harmless. Loud, habitual snoring with pauses in breathing can mean obstructive sleep apnoea — a treatable problem that surgery can improve.
Bringing up milk is normal in healthy babies: it peaks around four months and usually fades by the first birthday. Most infants need no medicine, and the evidence for acid-suppressing drugs in simple reflux is weak.
Milk is a useful source of calcium, protein and vitamin D for young children, but too much crowds out iron-rich food and can cause deficiency. Around two cups a day suits most toddlers.
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.
A multivitamin is not the fix for fussy eating, and picky eating rarely dents growth. But UK guidance recommends a specific supplement for nearly all under-fives — and iron and zinc are the nutrients that matter.
In 709 children with high-risk B-cell ALL, swapping two chemotherapy cycles for the T-cell-engaging antibody lifted four-year event-free survival to 83% from 70% and sharply cut serious infections.
For most children with gastroenteritis, the treatment is oral rehydration fluid at home — not a drip, and not stopping fluids. Here is what the evidence shows works, and the warning signs that mean a doctor now.
The US banned Red No. 3 in 2025 on a rat-specific cancer finding, not human data. The separate question — whether dyes affect children's behaviour — has better, and more unsettling, evidence.
The WHO sets clear screen-time limits by age: none under two, an hour or less from two. The evidence behind them is real but modest — and the direction of cause and effect is not as simple as it sounds.
Iron does leach from a cast-iron pan into food, and randomised trials in iron-deficient populations found it raised haemoglobin. The effect depends on what you cook, and means little for people who are iron-replete.
Tantrums are normal development, not a failure of discipline. The evidence favours calm, consistent responses and structured parenting programmes, and advises against smacking and shouting.
Iron shortfall is the leading cause of anaemia in young children and is linked to poorer development. Yet the evidence that screening symptom-free toddlers or routinely supplementing them helps their brains is thin.
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.
There is no established safe amount, and UK and US authorities advise not drinking at all. Heavy drinking clearly causes fetal alcohol harm; the data on light drinking are genuinely sparse, not reassuring.
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.
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.
AIROPLANE enrolled 1,818 newborns at 32 to 35 weeks across 26 Australian hospitals. Starting with 30% oxygen instead of room air left the same share still on respiratory support leaving the delivery room.
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.
The ORBEX trial gave OM-85 or placebo to 822 young children at high risk of asthma. Wheezing lower-respiratory illnesses were, if anything, slightly more common on the drug.
A postpartum smoking programme and a safe-sleep video series each failed the question they were designed to answer. What they reported next is where the interpretation gets difficult.
A six-month regimen for drug-resistant tuberculosis matched the standard of care in South Africa. Four days of antibiotics matched eight in African children hospitalised with severe pneumonia.
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.
In 415,000 New Jersey births, infants of mothers who screened positive for depression died before age one at more than three times the rate, an association steady across race, income and preterm birth.
A Norwegian study of 204,663 children found no raised risk of autism or most neurodevelopmental disorders after maternal COVID in pregnancy — with one exception in the early pandemic.
In 2.5 million Swedish births followed to adulthood, mothers' early-pregnancy obesity was linked to a stepwise rise in offspring cardiovascular disease, though sibling analyses temper the size.
In nearly 12,000 US children, tree and park cover was linked to sharper directed attention and higher crystallized intelligence — and cleaner air seemed to explain part of it.
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.
A cohort of 4,018 children found nearly half were picky at some point, but two-thirds remitted within three years and prevalence fell to 13.2% by age 6. About 4% stayed persistently picky.
Dust sampled inside 38 schools in Calama carried copper, arsenic, lead and molybdenum at levels that tracked the outdoor air — with almost no attenuation for arsenic and lead.
A prospective study found that beginning intensive training before 27 months did not bring completion any sooner — and lengthened the process. Normal completion ages span well over a year.
Two papers landed the same day. An attribution analysis puts children aged 0–9 at roughly three times the added humid-heat exposure of people in their sixties; a German cohort counts the emergency visits.
The MTA trial randomised 579 children and found medication management clearly superior short-term. Its own long-term follow-up found the treatment groups no longer differed by 6 to 8 years.
Twenty-three studies, mostly from the US and China, found mental health risk rising with temperature. Nowhere in the Pacific or Africa was represented.
WHO data put the normal window for walking alone at 8.2 to 17.6 months. The 2022 CDC checklists moved to the age by which 75% of children reach a milestone — to flag real delay, not redefine normal.
Eight primary schools in Porto and 40 homes in the Faroe Islands were sampled by different teams asking the same question: how much of a person's PFAS exposure never touches food or water.
Chronic granulomatous disease is usually X-linked in Western cohorts. A multicentre Middle East and North Africa registry found the opposite pattern, alongside late diagnosis and a median survival of 8.5 years.
A randomised trial tracked infants' cortisol and attachment; a five-year follow-up tracked mental health. Graduated extinction improved sleep with no sign of long-term damage — or lasting benefit.
The AAP advises room-sharing without bed-sharing. Pooled case-control data show bed-sharing raises SIDS risk — sharply when parents smoke or drink, and more modestly even when they do not.
A meta-analysis of 23 blinded studies found no effect on any of 14 behavioural and cognitive measures. A separate trial fed children extreme doses and found nothing. The belief survives anyway.
Cochrane reviews find honey modestly eases a child's cough and does about as well as dextromethorphan, while OTC cough medicines have not beaten placebo in children. The honey trials excluded infants under one.
Children in low-vegetation districts exposed to heat stress had sharply higher odds of severe wasting and underweight; in greener areas the link vanished. The pathway runs through food systems, not heat alone.
US and UK guidelines converge: a brief seizure during a fever in a young child rarely needs scans or blood tests, and paracetamol and ibuprofen do not stop them recurring.
A meta-analysis of 16 studies and a daily-temperature cohort agree: tooth eruption brings gum irritation, drooling and fussiness, and at most a slight temperature rise — not a true fever.
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.
Cochrane's living review of 104 trials rates high-dose atropine and orthokeratology moderate certainty. The low-dose atropine most widely used sits at very low certainty, and two Western trials disagree.
A global modelling study puts four million new paediatric asthma cases a year on ambient nitrogen dioxide — and finds that 92% of them occur below the WHO guideline concentration.
The LEAP trial cut peanut allergy in high-risk infants from 13.7% to 1.9%. A second trial found the benefit real but harder to achieve — and only in children who actually ate the food.
Longitudinal data and a meta-analysis of 159,425 children find consistent associations between screen time and development — but the effects are small, observational, and thinner than the guidelines imply.
A cluster-randomised trial in Guangzhou cut three-year myopia incidence by 9.1 percentage points with 40 extra minutes outdoors a day. The eye's underlying growth barely changed.
A November systematic review screened 120 publications and found five eligible papers, all from the US and Canada. All pointed the same way; none could be pooled with the others.
Thirty-seven had the necrotising form, of whom 41% died. Just 16% of vaccine-eligible children with encephalopathy had received that season's flu vaccine. There is no national surveillance for the condition.