Hospital Medical Center
CHICAGO, IL (June 1, 2009) -- Researchers are making great strides in understanding the development and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, a chronic inflammatory condition of the digestive tract that affects more than a half million Americans, according to several studies being presented at Digestive Disease Week® 2009 (DDW®).
More than 45,000 infants and children in the United States are hospitalized each year for urinary tract infections, but a new study reveals significant variability across hospitals in treatment and
A congenital heart disease that often leads to death in newborns is significantly more common during the summer, leading researchers to believe that the environment, and not just genes that affect the heart, may play a role in causing "mini-epidemics" of this disease.
Pediatric surgeons are able to repair complex heart defects with a survival rate of greater than 90 percent, but that doesn't necessarily mean a happy ending for these children and teens. Some may have a great quality of life and others, with the same condition, may not.
A new Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study shows that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, even at extremely low levels, is associated with decreases in certain cognitive skills, including reading, math, and logic and reasoning, in children and adolescents. The study is the largest ever to look at the effects of environmental tobacco smoke on children's health. It is published in the January issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. "This study provides further incentive for states to set public health standards to protect children from exposure to environmental tobacco smoke," says Kimberly Yolton, PhD, a researcher at the Children's Environmental Health Center at Cincinnati Children's and the study's main author.
A new study by a nurse researcher shows that imagery -- a simple method of distraction -- can be used with pain medications to significantly reduce post-operative pain in children. In the study, which was led by a nurse researcher at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, children who had their tonsils or adenoids removed were given an audio tape that enabled them to imagine they were going to ''a favorite place.'' The children who used the tape reported significantly lower pain in the 24 hours after surgery than those who didn't use the tape.
A new study points to the important role fathers play in their children's emotional and behavioral health. The study shows that a father in good mental health can substantially reduce the negative influence of a mother's poor mental health on a child's behavioral and emotional well-being. ''If a mother and father are depressed, the odds that a child will have behavioral or emotional problems go up eight-fold,'' according to Robert S. Kahn, M.D., M.P.H., a physician/researcher in the Division of General and Community Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's and the study's lead author. ''The risk is less elevated if only the mother reported poorer mental health and not elevated at all if only the father reported poorer mental health.''
The quality of life of children with headaches is comparable to that of children with such serious conditions as cancer and rheumatic diseases, according to a new study by researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. In fact, the study shows that children with headaches appear to be more affected in emotional functioning and school performance than children with other serious, chronic medical conditions, according to lead author Scott W Powers, PhD, co-director of the Cincinnati Children's Headache Center --one of the largest pediatric headache centers in the world.
For nine months before birth, infants soak in a watery, urine-filled environment. Just hours after birth, however, they have near-perfect skin. How is it that nature enables infants to develop ideal skin in such seemingly unsuitable surroundings? A new study by researchers at the Skin Sciences Institute of Cincinnati Children?s Hospital Medical Center shows that the answer may be vernix -- the white, cheesy substance that coats infants for weeks before they are born, then is wiped off and discarded immediately after birth. If they?re right, the healthcare implications for newborns and adults could be remarkable.
A new study suggests that lead may be harmful even at very low blood concentrations. The study, funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, will appear in the April 17 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine. The five-year study found that children who have blood lead concentration lower than 10 micrograms per deciliter suffer intellectual impairment from the exposure.
Women with low milk intake during childhood and adolescence have lower bone mass in adulthood and greater risk of fracture ? independent of their current milk or calcium intake, according to a new Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study of milk intake during childhood and its effect on osteoporosis.
A discovery published in the current issue of The Lancet may lead to new treatments for a deadly liver disease of infancy -- dramatically reducing the number of liver transplants in children. A team of researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital have revealed a genetic underpinning to biliary atresia, the most common reason for liver transplant in children. Biliary atresia occurs in infants and usually becomes evident two to eight weeks after birth. Its cause has been unknown. Symptoms include unexplained jaundice, dark urine, clay-colored stools and weight loss. The disease destroys bile ducts in the liver, trapping bile, rapidly causing damage to liver cells and severe scarring.
