Children's health

Getting back to school can mean getting back on the playing field for many kids.  A new study published in the journal Pediatrics highlights the need to take conservative approaches to head injuries and concussions.  The younger the child, the longer the recovery period should be.  New guidelines include such advice as:
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Kids who wear contact lenses rather than glasses enjoy better vision-related quality of life.  A new study published in Optometry and Vision Science reports that in the children who participated in the three year study fared better regarding their feelings about appearance and participation in athletics if they wore contacts.  In particular, children over age 10 experience the greatest improvement in quality of life.

According to Jeffrey J. Walline, O.D, Ph.D., Ohio State University College of Optometry and leader of the Adolescent and Child Health Initiative to Encourage Vision Empowerment (ACHIEVE) Study, “The growing body of research in children’s vision correction continues to demonstrate that contact lenses provide significant benefits to children beyond simply correcting their vision. This study showed considerable improvement for contact lens wearing children 10 years or older in areas of appearance, participation in activities, and satisfaction with vision correction, and it remained or improved over three years.”
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It seems like everyone from grandmothers to many family doctors has supported the belief that teething babies tend to run fevers as new teeth come in.  A new study out of Australia, however, claims to debunk this medical myth. Researchers at the Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne say that parents should never assume that their baby’s fever is related to teething.

Study authors also report that many of the other conditions commonly associated with teething, including sleep disturbances, congestion, changes to bowel movements, and infections were falsely attributed to cutting teeth.  A study based in Cleveland, Ohio did find that teething can be linked to increased biting, drooling, gum-rubbing, irritability, wakefulness, ear-rubbing, facial rash and a decreased appetite for solid foods.
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published a warning to parents and caregivers about the dangers of accidental overdose when giving infants liquid vitamin D supplement products.

Some products are sold with droppers that could allow harmful amounts of the vitamin to be given to an infant. These droppers can hold a greater amount of liquid vitamin D than an infant should receive.  Infants should not receive more than 400 international units (IUs) of vitamin D a day.
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Eye and Vision Milestones in Infants
Babies older than 3 months should be able to follow or “track” an object as it moves across their field of vision.  If your baby is unable to hold steady eye contact by this time or seems unable to see, let your pediatrician know. Eye-crossing is common in babies before 4 months of age, especially when they are eating.  Eyes that cross all the time or one eye that turns out is often indicative of a problem and should be brought to your doctor’s attention.
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The most common causes of pediatric cataracts include: intrauterine infections, metabolic disorders, and genetically transmitted syndromes. Infectious diseases such as rubella, measles, chicken pox, cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex, herpes zoster, poliomyelitis, influenza, Epstein-Barr virus, syphilis, and toxoplasmosis can also be culprits.  Pediatric cataracts affects children worldwide, but it is 10 times more common in developing countries than in developed nations.

The American Association of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus indicates that small cataracts that do not affect vision do not need to be removed, though those that cause vision loss should be removed as early in life as possible.  Early treatment is vital because the part of the brain that processes visual stimuli will not develop properly if a cataract causes the images to blur.

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