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Many commercially available baby foods are targeted to infants as young as 4 months, an age at which experts say infants should still be exclusively breastfed. Furthermore, many of these foods are nutritionally inferior to breast milk, are no more energy-dense than formula, and contain sugar, which may lure children away from the breast and toward a lifelong preference for sweets.

A recent survey shows that physicians mention the importance of sunscreen least often to children. In fact, the survey indicates that physicians aren’t mentioning sunscreen that much to anyone, but when they do, it’s most often to white patients in their eighties and not to kids or teenagers.

The birth rate for teenagers in the United States continued to fall in 2012, reaching 29.4 births per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19 years, which represents a 6% decrease from 2011 and a historic low for the nation, according to the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Almost 40% of adults (and not just parents) across the United States rate obesity as their number 1 health concern for today’s children, according to the 7th annual National Poll on Children’s Health conducted by the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.

During 2011-2012, the percentage of students in grades 6 to 12 who ever used electronic or e-cigarettes doubled from 3.3% to 6.8%, meaning that as of 2012, an estimated 1.78 million middle and high school students have at least tried the largely unregulated devices, according to results from the National Youth Tobacco Survey.

A girl who consumes 1 alcoholic drink per day between her first menstrual cycle and her first full-term pregnancy increases her risk of proliferative benign breast disease (BBD) and breast cancer, says a new study.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has released its guidance for influenza vaccination during the 2013-2014 influenza season. As always, AAP recommends that all children and adolescents aged 6 months and older receive either the trivalent or quadrivalent influenza vaccine, and children should be immunized as soon as the vaccine becomes available.

A new clinical report from the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Drugs says that many medicines are safe to use for breastfeeding mothers, but it cautions that the risk for babies of exposure to any drug through breast milk must be evaluated for both the importance of the medication to the mother and the benefits of breastfeeding for the infant.

The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has updated its recommendations for curbing tobacco use among school-aged children and adolescents.

Obamacare is here. Although the staggered implementation schedule has many health care providers unsure of how best to serve the influx of new patients, community hospitals and primary care clinics that serve our urban poor need to be ready to implement a “disruptive innovation.”

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in children is increasing, with studies showing it to be the most common liver abnormality in children aged 2 to 19 years.

Bath salts (a synthetic form of cathinone) and synthetic marijuana (synthetic tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC) are popular new designer drugs of abuse, and exposures have been reported throughout the United States.

The 2-year bump up in rates for Medicaid primary care providers under the health care reform law has run into numerous problems.

To examine trends in homicides among those aged 10 to 24 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed National Vital Statistics System data on such deaths for the period 1981 to 2010 and described trends by sex, age, race/ethnicity, and mechanism of injury.

Do sick-visit immunizations dampen parental incentive to return for missed well-baby examinations?

Most pediatric burns are small and can be managed by primary care physicians. However, knowing when to contact a local burn center for assessment and treatment of burn injuries can minimize adverse outcomes and optimize care for the burn-injured child.

A panicked mother of an 11-year-old girl brings her daughter to your office for evaluation of changing moles that she noted when they returned from the family beach vacation last weekend. What's the diagnosis?

Because childhood obesity is a chronic issue, Contemporary Pediatrics would like to serve as a clearinghouse and forum for sharing your ideas, success stories, and anecdotal wins.

In this month’s article, we take a look at the many online and mobile resources that help us provide our patients with the best care.

Childhood obesity comes at a high cost. Not only does it threaten the health and lives of future generations, but it also puts a heavy burden on future health care spending.

Barely one-fourth (29%) of primary care physicians offer Spanish screening for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and only 1 in every 10 offers both Spanish general development and Spanish ASD screening as recommended by AAP.

Children and young adults who take antipsychotics are at 3 times greater risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus than young people who don’t, according to a recent study.

Although about half of preschoolers who stutter will outgrow it, a wait-and-see approach can do harm to the approximately 25% who will not, say researchers from the Purdue Stuttering Project.

Fewer newborn boys are being circumcised at birth. In fact, the national rate of newborn circumcision declined 10% over the 32-year period from 1979 to 2010.

A new study indicates that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5), was on the right track when it changed its autism symptom structure.

Body mass index (BMI) or degree of change in BMI is insufficient when it comes to evaluating the success or failure of obesity interventions in children, finds a new study.

Using the Low Risk Ankle Rule in an emergency setting effectively reduces the number of unnecessary radiographs performed on children presenting with ankle injuries, according to a recent study.

Parents with established relationships with pediatricians say they have used retail health clinics for their children because the clinics offer more convenient hours than their pediatricians’ offices. Yet according to a new cross-sectional survey, half of all clinic visits for children took place during normal business hours when one would expect pediatricians’ offices to be open.