Feature Channels: Family and Parenting

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CHICAGO - For the first time, scientists have measured the stress levels of fathers of premature babies during the tense transition between the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and home and discovered fathers are more stressed than moms, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study.Fathers and mothers of these very low birth weight babies had high levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their saliva prior to being discharged.

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Being in the hospital can happen any time of the year, but when it occurs during the holidays it can seem pretty unfair.

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The following handbooks, produced by APHON, provide an overview for patients and their families on specific hematologic and oncologic diseases.

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UAB School of Nursing faculty contributed to a field guide for health care, social service and law enforcement professionals.

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When family is gathered around the table, there are better -- and worse -- ways to deliver personal updates

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Lights and decorations are a special part of the holidays, but also bring an increased potential for injury, especially to young children, according to safety experts at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.

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The search for the best preschool or childcare option is often a challenging experience – and many parents aren’t sure if the one they pick is safe and healthy for their child.

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With the holiday shopping season upon us, Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt offers critical safety tips to those buying gifts for children.

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University of Washington psychology professor Peter Kahn describes “environmental generational amnesia” as the idea that each generation perceives the environment into which it’s born, no matter how developed, urbanized or polluted, as the norm. And so what each generation comes to think of as “nature” is relative, based on what it's exposed to. Kahn argues that more frequent and meaningful interactions with nature can enhance our connection to — and definition of — the natural world.

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Using smartphone cameras, parents can reliably take high-quality photographs of their child’s skin condition to send to a dermatologist for diagnosis. This finding suggests that direct-to-patient dermatology can accurately provide pediatric dermatology care.

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During the holidays, throwing together a dozen (or 50) assorted personalities is already stressful enough. Add to that the desire to make it picture-perfect and Pinterest-worthy and things really get tough. UTHealth Houston experts can tell you how to survive!

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A new study sheds light on connections between birth month and risk for certain diseases.

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A national survey of more than 200 pediatric primary care physicians found that while over three-quarters addressed at least one parental health issue, such as maternal depression or parental tobacco use, during child health visits and a majority recognized the impact of such issues on children’s health, fewer felt responsible for addressing them.

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The quality of the neighborhood where a child grows up has a significant impact on the number of problem behaviors they display during elementary and teenage years, a study led by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers suggests.

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Including the opioid fentanyl in the solution used to maintain an epidural during childbirth does not appear to affect the success of breastfeeding six weeks after delivery, according to a study published in Anesthesiology, the peer-reviewed medical journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA).

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Rural counties continue to rank lowest among counties across the U.S., in terms of health outcomes. A group of national organizations including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National 4-H Council are leading the way to close the rural health gap.

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Penn Medicine will conduct the Northeast’s first clinical trial of uterine transplants, to provide women with Uterine Factor Infertility (UFI) - an irreversible form of female infertility that affects as many as 5 percent of women worldwide and 50,000 women in the United States - with a new path to parenthood.

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Offering hope is the ultimate goal of two New Jersey families whose foundation has partnered with the state’s only facility solely dedicated to researching the underlying scientific causes of pediatric illness.

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Cutting back on yelling, criticism and other harsh parenting approaches, including physical punishment, has the power to calm children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to a new study.

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Mindfulness may offer an active coping mechanism for mothers faced with the stress of having a newborn diagnosed with congenital heart disease (CHD). Mindfulness, which aims to increase a person’s awareness and acceptance of daily experiences, is currently used in a variety of healthcare settings as a potentially effective skill for stress reduction, emotion, affect and attention regulation.

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Less than one-third of adults believe that kids are physically healthier today compared to kids in their own childhoods and fewer than 25 percent think children's mental health status is better.

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A new paper in the November issue of Pediatrics spells out why children and teens are particularly sensitive to the sleep-disrupting impact of electronics

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From preparing for college to tackling the tough conversations that come with parenting, Professor Chris Palmer's new book offers easy to implement parenting advice for the 21st Century.

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The Obesity Society Position Statement: Breastfeeding and Obesity Authors: Emily Oken, MD, David A. Fields, PhD, FTOS, Cheryl A. Loveday, PhD and Leanne M. Redman, PhD, FTOS

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a pathway in the brain that seems to connect exposure to adverse experiences during early childhood with depression and problems with physical health in teens and preteens.

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The etiology (i.e., underlying causes) of a behavior, such as alcohol drinking, can change during adolescence and young adulthood. Prior alcohol research has shown that, in general: shared/common environment influences are strongest in early adolescence, declining in strength until young adulthood; unique environmental influences are moderate, but stable, during adolescence and young adulthood; and genetic influences are weakest during early adolescence, steadily increasing in strength until young adulthood. This study examined the relations between genetic and environmental etiologies of alcohol use and the influence of peer use, parental autonomy granting, and maternal closeness on this behavior.

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Women who breastfeed their children longer exhibit more maternal sensitivity well past the infant and toddler years, according to a 10-year longitudinal study published by the American Psychological Association.

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Guidelines to help parents introduce peanut-containing products to infants to prevent peanut allergies aren’t being discussed. New research presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting shows pediatricians are not only not having the discussion, they’re not referring high-risk babiesfor testing prior to peanut introduction.

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International research involving the University of Adelaide has uncovered a developmental abnormality in babies – especially in premature babies and in boys – that for the first time has been directly linked to cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

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Women who live with their own mother or their mother in law in the same household have, on average, fewer children than women who only live with their spouse. Martin Fieder and colleagues, evolutionary anthropologists from the University of Vienna, report this on the basis of intercultural data of 2.5 million women worldwide. Until now, evolutionary biologists have assumed the opposite. The study appears in the renowned scientific journal "Royal Society Open Science".

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Any amount of alcohol exposure during pregnancy can cause extreme lasting effects on a child, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

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Hope may be on the horizon for children and teens who suffer from migraine headaches that don’t respond to traditional treatment. Injections of botulinum toxin (BOTOX®) may provide significant relief, suggests a small preliminary study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2017 annual meeting.

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Having a parent with an alcohol use disorder increases the risk for dating violence among teenagers, according to a study from the University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions.

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In this month’s release, find new embargoed research showing TBI laws effective at reducing recurrent concussions in high school athletes, shall-issue gun permits and increased homicide, measuring loaded handgun carrying and decreasing abortion rate

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Adopting a lying down position rather than being upright in the later stages of labour for first-time mothers who have had a low dose epidural leads to a higher chance of them delivering their baby without any medical intervention, a study has found.

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Following a few simple guidelines can help make Halloween fun, not scary, for teens and kids.

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West Virginia University’s new Inhalation Facility will be the home for research and collaborations that measure, identify and discover how the particles we breathe affect our health.

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Women born by Caesarean section due to a fetopelvic disproportion (FDP) are more than twice as likely to develop FDP when giving birth than women born naturally. This is the conclusion of a study by a team of evolutionary biologists at the University of Vienna headed by Philipp Mitteroecker. Using a mathematical model, the team was able to explain the paradoxical phenomenon that natural selection did not lead to the reduction in the rates of obstructed labour. Empirical data also support that the regular use of C-sections has already triggered an evolutionary increase of FPD rates.

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Pregnant women who had low socioeconomic status during childhood and who have poor family social support appear to prematurely age on a cellular level, potentially raising the risk for complications, a new study has found.

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Researchers from Ohio State and UNC Charlotte found that three months after the birth of their first child, on days when couples were not working, men were most often relaxing while women did housework or child care.

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The goals of this article are to illuminate the historical context and shifting trends surrounding multiracial individuals in America, and to share research findings on factors that influence racial identity development. Recommendations to support multiracial youth and their families will also be described

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A new study of national survey information gathered on more than 12,000 Hispanic children from immigrant and U.S.-native families found that although they experience more poverty, those from immigrant families reported fewer exposures to such adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) as parental divorce and scenes of violence.

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Research led by scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) demonstrated that epidural medication had no effect on the duration of the second stage of labor, normal vaginal delivery rate, incidence of episiotomy, the position of the fetus at birth or any other measure of fetal well-being the researchers investigated. The study compared the effects of catheter-infused, low-concentration epidural anesthetic to a catheter-infused saline placebo in this double-blinded, randomized trial of 400 women.

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Researchers have known for decades that fevers in the first trimester of pregnancy increase risk for some heart defects and facial deformities such as cleft lip or palate. Exactly how this happens is unclear. Duke researchers now have evidence indicating that the fever itself, not its root source, is what interferes with the development of the heart and jaw during the first three to eight weeks of pregnancy.

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The book, written by Eric Rasmussen, gives parents the training necessary to help kids process the negative and absorb the positive effects from all forms of media.

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For the first time, researchers have evidence of exactly what dads are doing while moms are taking care of housework or tending to their child. The results will be disappointing for those who expected more gender equity in modern society.