Feature Channels: Family and Parenting

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Johns Hopkins School of Nursing (JHSON) Professor and Anna D. Wolf Chair Jacquelyn Campbell, PhD, RN, FAAN, will present on violence against women at the Sigma Theta Tau International (Sigma) event—“Precursors to Violence: Identifying, De-escalating, and Reducing Women’s Risks.” The event is a parallel meeting to the 63rd session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, one of the most influential global conferences to furthering women’s rights.

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Cue-based feeding is a broad term to describe a process by which parents and medical providers can successfully attend to developmental cues to promote optimal feeding opportunities. It is also referred to as infant-led or demand feeding. This approach may be used to heighten the quality of a baby’s feed through use of a developmentally supportive model to improve the caregiver-infant relationship during the transition to full oral feeds. When the focus of a feed is led by volume expectations, negative consequences may ensue—such as disinterest, oral aversion and reduced quality of feed—that may compromise safety of swallow.

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MANHATTAN, KANSAS — Texting, FaceTime and other popular communication methods among teens may help build supportive parent-youth relationships after a divorce, according to a Kansas State University family studies researcher. Mindy Markham, associate professor and associate director for Kansas State University's School of Family Studies and Human Services; Jonathon Beckmeyer at Indiana University; and Jessica Troilo at West Virginia University recently published a study about parent-youth relationships after a divorce in the Journal of Family Issues.

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Seven in 10 parents think they should have a say in whether dispensaries are located near their child’s school or daycare and most say they should be banned within a certain distance of those facilities.

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Music therapists at UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital worked with a family with triplets to test whether a pacifier device playing a lullaby recorded by parents helps premature babies learn skills vital to feeding

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I’ve always thought of parenting as a team sport. It works better when we can support each other, learn from each other, and understand that we’re not alone. That’s what The Parent Pep Talk podcast is all about, which you can download today on iTunes or your podcast app.

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University of Washington researchers report in a paper published Jan. 23 in Animal Behaviour that, when a Magellanic penguin parent returns to its nest with fish, the parent tries to feed each of its two chicks equal portions of food, regardless of the youngsters' differences in age or size.

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Parents know they need to work with their child’s school to prevent cyberbullying, but a new study from the University of Iowa shows many wonder how.

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Do children raised by religious parents have better social and psychological development than those raised in non-religious homes? In a new study, researchers found that religion can be a mixed blessing for children as they get older.

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The legalization of marijuana in Washington state in 2012 gave parents the opportunity for a new teachable moment. Many say that as society has become more permissive, they want information and advice.

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Social media is a major source of stress for teens and parents sometimes feel like they are competing with smartphones to get their attention. But Dr. Arora says that families can benefit by installing guard rails around their kids' social media behavior.

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The simple act of switching on the TV for some downtime could be making a bigger contribution to childhood obesity than we realise, according to new research from the University of South Australia.

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Each year, some 600 million people around the world come down with strep throat. Yet, it was unclear why some kids are prone to repeated bouts of strep throat while others appear to be more or less immune. The latest study by researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) provides the first clues why some children are more susceptible than others to contracting recurrent strep throat.

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The grandchildren of adolescent mothers have lower school readiness scores than their peers, according to a study published February 6, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Elizabeth Wall-Wieler of Stanford University, USA, and colleagues at the University of Manitoba.

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Each day, two children die from burns and more than 300 are treated in emergency rooms. In recognition of National Burn Awareness Week, Feb. 3 – 9, Loyola Medicine's Burn Center is offering parents and caregivers seven tips prevent burns in children.

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The time parents spend with their children has a powerful effect on their educational achievement, according to a large study with a novel approach. Researchers analyzed data on children in Israel who lost a parent through death or divorce.

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A new study has found that a persistent low body mass index (BMI) in children, starting as young as age 2 for boys and 4 for girls, may be a risk factor for the development of anorexia nervosa in adolescence.

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Dr. Pavica Sheldon, professor and chair of the Department of Communication Arts at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), offers insight into the four generations that comprise today's workforce.

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Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, excess buildup of fat in the liver (specifically in people who don’t regularly drink or abuse alcohol), doesn’t only affect adults. It happens to be the leading cause of chronic liver disease in children.

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Does your child complain of stomachaches a lot? It may be what’s called functional abdominal pain.

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Pre-teens who use a mobile phone or watch TV in the dark an hour before bed are at risk of not getting enough sleep compared to those who use these devices in a lit room or do not use them at all before bedtime.

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A new book by experts in self-injury offers parents hope: assurance that they didn’t cause their child’s self-injuring, and guidance on how they can become key allies in helping their child heal.

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Computer-based guide aims to help families with life-and-death treatment decisions

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Children who have more conflict in relationships with their mothers during early years of elementary school may find it more difficult to find a sense of purpose in life as they reach adulthood, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

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Headlines filled with frightening news of opioid abuse, overdoses and reports that 90 percent of addictions start in the teen years could make any parent worry. Yet parents remain conflicted about opioids: while more than half express concern their child may be at risk for opioid addiction, nearly two-thirds believe opioids are more effective at managing their child’s pain after surgery or a broken bone than non-prescription medication or other alternatives, according to a nationwide survey commissioned by the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA).

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An earthquake and subsequent tsunami led to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster in Japan in 2011. This observational study examined associations between the earthquake and power plant disaster with birth rates in Fukushima City, the capital of the prefecture.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center is helping the Duff family organize a gene therapy clinical trial to treat Talia’s condition, called Charcot Marie Tooth disease, type 4J (CMT4J).

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A new study has revealed first-time mothers who give birth via unplanned caesarean section are 15% more likely to experience postnatal depression. The author of the study is calling for more mental health support for women whose babies are delivered via emergency caesarean section, or C-section - a surgical procedure usually carried out because of complications during labour.

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Heart disease is the greatest killer in the world today, and it is widely accepted that our genes interact with traditional lifestyle risk factors, such as smoking, obesity and/or a sedentary life to promote an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. However, a new study in sheep, publishing January 22 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, by a team from Cambridge University, finds that offspring whose mothers had a complicated pregnancy may be at greater risk of heart disease in later life, suggesting that our cards may be marked even before we are born.

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Neonatal abstinence syndrome describes symptoms (including jitteriness, high-pitched crying, sweating and diarrhea) that primarily occur in newborns exposed to opioids during pregnancy. Finding an optimal drug therapy to treat newborns for neonatal abstinence syndrome may reduce the length of treatment and hospital stay.

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Despite little or no evidence suggesting certain methods actually help people avoid catching or preventing a cold, more than half of parents have tried them with their kids, a new national poll shows.

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A new paper published in Pediatrics links successful implementation of Baby-Friendly™ practices in the southern U.S. with increases in breastfeeding rates and improved, evidence-based care. The changes were especially positive for African-American women.

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The growing number of families in which adults aged 20 to 30 live with their parents are having to negotiate new ways of pooling their resources, according to pioneering research investigating how these families live and the costs that they face.

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Loyola Medicine was recently awarded a $10,000 grant from Huggies® as part of the company's No Baby Unhugged initiative.

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Most parents say a child-centered, time-intensive approach to parenting is the best way to raise their kids, regardless of education, income or race.

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A study published in the February 2019 “Pediatrics” journal suggests the majority of gay fathers and their children continue to experience stigma with potentially harmful physical and psychological effects, despite legal, media and social advances. Study participants specifically cited structural stigma, such as state laws and beliefs of religious communities, as affecting their experiences in multiple social contexts.

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Catherine Carr Worley was 41 years old with a 2-month-old when she was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer.

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Scientists from Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have identified an epigenetic marker and two genes that caused heart failure in the children and grandchildren of fruit flies with high-fat-diet-induced heart dysfunction. Reversing the epigenetic modification or over-expressing the two genes protected subsequent generations from the negative heart effects of their parents’ diet. These findings help explain how obesity-related heart failure is inherited and uncover potential targets for treatment. The study was published in Nature Communications on January 14, 2019.

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Researchers at the University of Oxford have performed the most definitive study to date on the relationship between technology use and adolescent mental health, examining data from over 300,000 teenagers and parents in the UK and USA. At most, only 0.4% of adolescent wellbeing is related to screen use - which only slightly surpasses the negative effect of regularly eating potatoes. The findings were published today in Nature Human Behaviour.

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A new long-acting contraceptive designed to be self-administered by women may provide a new family planning option, particularly in developing nations where access to healthcare can be limited, a recent study suggests. The contraceptive would be delivered using microneedle skin patch technology originally developed for the painless administration of vaccines.

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City lifestyle has been criticised for being an important reason for children being disconnected from nature. This has led to an unhealthy lifestyle in regards to active play and eating habits. Even worse, many young children do not feel well psychologically - they are often stressed and depressed. 16 per cent of pre-schoolers in Hong Kong and up to 22% in China show signs of mental health problems (Kwok SY, Gu M, Cheung AP, 2017; Zhu J, et al. 2017).

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The factors that put children at risk of becoming obese within the first 12 months of their life may differ for Hispanic and non-Hispanic babies. This is a conclusion of a new study in the journal Pediatric Research, which is published by Springer Nature. Lead authors, Sahel Hazrati and Farah Khan of the Inova Translational Medicine Institute in the US, investigated factors associated with excess weight in the first year of life in Hispanic versus non-Hispanic white children.

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Death by firearm is a major crisis in the United States. In 2016, firearms were among the top five leading causes of death for individuals between the ages of 1 and 44 years, and accounted for the loss of 38,658 lives in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, 2016). Of particular concern is the number of homicides committed via gun violence among minorities.

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Giving your child extra time on the iPad for good behaviour may not be the best idea according to a new University of Guelph study.

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Pregnant women with influenza are more likely to experience complications, but how this affects infants is unclear. A newBirth Defects Researchstudy uncovers the potential risks to infants.

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In a new study using a mouse model, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine suggest that long-term postpartum weight gain may be due not so much to retained fat as to reprogramming of maternal energy metabolism.