News

Pediatricians know that coordination and advocacy work. What happens, however, when we are faced with complex cases in conditions that are nontraditional and prohibitively difficult?

The mother of a healthy 10-year-old girl brings her child to the office for evaluation of new onset “eczema.” The rash is asymptomatic and began on the patient's upper eyelids, later spreading to her chest and extremities over several weeks. The child complains of difficulty riding her bicycle.

Practice websites are a valuable tool to attract new parents to your practice, and they can offer a wide variety of indispensable information that can reduce your staff’s workload.

A 3-year-old boy presents to the emergency department (ED) with a 1-day history of irritability and listlessness. According to his parents, he was well until the night before when he began to behave abnormally, becoming excessively tired approximately 2 hours after eating dinner. During the night, the boy slept poorly, sporadically awakening with crying followed by brief periods of calmness. The morning of presentation, he was difficult to arouse with intermittent fussiness and reluctance to ambulate.

The protective effects of breastfeeding against infections and overweight are reduced or eliminated by antibiotic use early in life, according to a retrospective study in 226 5-year-old Finnish children, almost all of whom had been breastfed for at least 1 month.

The so-called “Step-by-Step” algorithm, a sequential approach to identifying young febrile infants at low risk for invasive bacterial infection (IBI) on the basis of clinical and laboratory parameters, is more accurate than the classic Rochester criteria or the more recently developed “Lab-score,” a new study shows.

Patch testing is a standard part of the diagnostic regimen for ACD. However, patch testing in patients with AD represents a conundrum for clinicians.

One candidate favors reducing the government’s role in healthcare, the other increasing it. One candidate offers broad-brush proposals, the other detailed policy briefs. One candidate has spent years working on children’s welfare, the other has no public track record on it.

Among the stressors that can have a significant negative impact on the quality of life of children are skin diseases, particularly those that affect physical appearance such as psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and acne.

Domestic water hardness and chlorine have been suggested as important risk factors for atopic dermatitis (AD). One recent study by researchers from Kings College London, United Kingdom, explored the potential associations between domestic water calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and chlorine concentrations in home water systems, damage to the skin's natural barrier, and incidences of AD in infancy.

Although pediatric atopic dermatitis and acne have some similarities among children with skin of color and lighter-skinned children, there are important differences when these common skin conditions affect darker skin types.

Ongoing lab tests and assessments are important in the management of pediatric celiac patients, according to newly released guidelines.

The opioid oxymoron

Opioids are known for their powerful pharmacokinetics for pain relief, but are now well recognized for their overuse and abuse through prescriptions provided by healthcare providers. This has created a medical oxymoron: well-meaning pain management as a valued, caring practice for successful recovery from both medical problems and surgical procedures, juxtaposed by the alarming growth of opioids' prescriptive footprint.

Recent data has revealed the live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV), also known as the “nasal spray” vaccine, to be grossly ineffective, leading to the ACIP’s decision not to recommend its usage. As such, healthcare providers must be judicious in their choice of influenza vaccine with their patients.

For Contemporary Pediatrics, Dr Bobby Lazzara explains key findings from a study published in Pediatrics. The study examined footage of parents putting their child down to sleep to discover if they are following safe sleep messages.

A new study claims that about a third of pediatric readmissions could be prevented, and not many of them are tied to underlying chronic conditions.

Special Opioid Coverage

Pediatricians may not recognize the growing problem of opioid abuse in their communities. As a result, physicians need to carefully examine their prescribing practices.

From 2006 to 2012, patients aged younger than 18 years made more than 21,928 visits to emergency departments (EDs) for poisoning by prescription opioids, such as methadone, codeine, meperidine, or morphine.

Investigators identified 4 distinct fecal microbiota profiles in infants hospitalized with bronchiolitis and found that 1 of those profiles-dominated by Bacteroides-was associated with a higher likelihood of bronchiolitis than the others.