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A 4-year-old boy who is new to your practice presents for a well-child visit. His parents report that he has had brownish patches on his torso and back since early infancy. The lesions have decreased in size and number as he has aged. The rash is intermittently pruritic, especially when anyone touches the individual lesions.

Warning: this is a column about political correctness. If you find it impossible to be judgmental in any situation, or are incapable of offering decisive opinions about anything, you are advised to go no further-your feelings will be hurt.

A 3-year-old boy with chest pain and trouble breathing that had developed over the past 24 hours was brought to the emergency department. The parents reported that his most prominent symptom was a cough. The chest pain appeared to worsen with coughing. He had undergone open atrial septal defect repair about 3 weeks before presentation.

Even more information has emerged about the 1998 Andrew Wakefield measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) study that is important for you to communicate to parents, especially those who are concerned about their perceived risk of autism. Here are highlights of the latest reports in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) discrediting Wakefield,s work (originally published in the Lancet), which make the case that Wakefield purposely set out to skew data and present fraudulent information to support an association between vaccination and the onset of developmental and behavioral problems in British children.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced a potential risk of death for persons treated with recombinant human growth hormone. The FDA is reviewing information and will publish new recommendations when its investigation is complete.

Childhood obesity : Challenging pediatricians with averting this epidemic even in their littlest patients Catalyst for change : Motivational interviewing can help parents to help their kids Dermcase : Navel battles! Puzzler : An odd case of pallor and splenomegaly Updates : Varicella vaccine, AEs with CAM use, Food allergies, Meningococcal vaccination

The mother of a 7-month old boy was worried about a nontender, firm, irreducible lump that appeared on his navel 2 months ago.

Five national groups came together in December to call attention to their assertion that little media attention is given to child abuse deaths, despite the numbers being far higher than many other issues that do make the national news.

Clinicians can foster a working partnership with patients through the use of motivational interviewing.

You are completing rounds as an intern one morning on the general pediatric ward when your colleague from the emergency department signs out a patient to you. She describes an 11-month-old black male who presented with a 4-day history of low-grade fever, nasal congestion, and decreased appetite, without vomiting or diarrhea.

During my medical school pediatric clerkship, I was assigned to spend one half-day per week at the office of a private pediatrician. Over time, it became clear that pediatricians must be active partners with parents in decisions regarding infant feeding and other activities if the disturbing trends of obesity are to be reversed.

Succimer, a drug used to treat lead poisoning in children, has limited efficacy in removing mercury from the body, according ot new research.

Complementary and alternative medicine - either medicinal CAM or the substitution of an unproven therapy for a conventional therapy - can lead to serious and fatal adverse events, especially when used in children, according to surveillance of one database.

An action plan to manage food allergy in schools should emphasize allergen avoidance, recognition of allergic reactions, and identification of situations that require injections of epinephrine.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for the CDC recommended a booster dose of vaccine for bacterial meningitis after reviewing recent evidence showing that a single dose of vaccine provides immunity for fewer than 5 years, a much shorter duration than previously believed.

Prominent posting of calorie information on fast-food menu boards greatly increases customers' awareness of calorie information and makes it more likely that they will make calorie-informed choices, a survey showed.

A second dose of varicella vaccine is much more effective than 1 dose in preventing varicella (chicken pox) in children.

Findings of a study conducted in Denmark have added to accumulating evidence that exposure to neonatal jaundice is associated with autistic disorders and other disorders of psychological development.

Investigators in a new study prospectively examined 48 patients with infantile hemangiomas in the midline lumbosacral region that were at least 2.5 cm in diameter, finding that more than half the infants who underwent magnetic resonance imaging had spinal anomalies.

Who could have predicted the changes many of us have already seen during our careers as pediatricians?

A study published online in the Journal of Pediatrics reveals that 5- to 12-year-old children who consume caffeine?almost exclusively in beverages such as soda?are not more likely than their peers who do not ingest caffeine to wet the bed. But caffeine consumption and hours of sleep are correlated, with higher levels of caffeine associated with fewer hours of sleep.

Alcohol use appears to be associated with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), according to a new study published online in Addiction.

Daily marijuana use increased significantly among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, according to the 2010 Monitoring the Future Survey, putting marijuana ahead of cigarette smoking by some measures.

Pediatric patients with renal disease secondary to systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have nearly twice the risk of death compared with pediatric patients with renal disease secondary to other causes.

Physicians who care for children, including pediatricians and family care physicians, often locate their practices in areas where the number of child practitioners already is high and not where they are needed most.

One of the more common conditions pediatricians diagnose is deformity of the skull. Deformational plagiocephaly may be caused by compressive forces in utero (eg, multiple births) or by constant pressure on one portion of the newborn’s malleable skull when the infant is kept in the same supine position for prolonged periods.

Premature Adrenarche: A 7-year-old girl had growth of pubic hair for the past 6months. The hair was initially limited to the labia majoraand then extended gradually into the pubic area. Isolated Scrotal Hair of Infancy: Infant was born at term to a 32-year-old gravida 2 para 3 after a normal vaginal delivery. Scrotal hair developedat age 1 month.

This benign but impressive neonatal eruption progresses through several stages, beginning with pustules that quickly rupture and leave flat macules with collarettes of scale. The pustules may rupture in utero, and the neonate may present at birth with the macules, as was the case in this baby boy.