Dr. Patricia Dorn, professor of biology at Loyola University New Orleans has discovered the first human case of insect-transmitted Chagas parasite in Louisiana and sixth ever in the United States.
Each year, about 40,000 children are adopted across national lines, primarily by families from North America and Western Europe. These joyful occasions mark the growth of new families and also provide the framework for a natural experiment in language development. Although most are infants and toddlers, thousands of older children are also adopted. Typically, these older children loose their birth language rapidly and become fluent speakers of their new language.
A new study concludes that low birthweight babies born with low sodium in their blood serum will likely consume large quantities of dietary sodium later in life. Researchers also found that newborns with the most severe cases of low sodium blood serum consumed ~1700 mg more sodium per day and weighed some 30 percent more than their peers.
Nearly 10 percent of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) victims have mutations or variations in genes associated with potentially lethal heart rhythms (arrhythmias), according to two newly published studies involving Vanderbilt researchers.
A new study conducted by Renaud Becquet and colleagues in Abidjan, C?te d’Ivoire, and reported in PLoS Medicine shows that if HIV-positive mothers are well supported, either of the two feeding options currently recommended (formula-only feed, or short-term breastfeeding) are likely to be equivalent in terms of the baby’s chances for survival and health.
Cough and cold medicines can be harmful, and even fatal, and should be used with caution in children under 2 years of age, said Dr. Adam Cohen, an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study appears in the Jan_12 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the CDC.
Researchers have decoded the genetic makeup of the parasite that causes trichomoniasis, one of the most common sexually transmitted infections (STIs), revealing potential clues as to why the parasite has become increasingly drug resistant and suggesting possible pathways for new treatments, diagnostics and a potential vaccine strategy. The genome sequencing project, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is detailed in the January 12 issue of Science.
Pacifier use often attracts negative attention for potentially harming children’s oral health. There are positive effects of pacifier use, however. In addition to calming the infant, pacifier use can also assist in reducing the incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS, according to a report/study that appeared in the January/February 2007 issue of General Dentistry, the Academy of General Dentistry’s clinical, peer-reviewed journal.
China’s first “mermaid baby” died of heart failure at a hospital in central China’s Hunan Province after doctors failed to save the abandoned boy, till date there has been only two known cases in the world of children who survived the affliction.
Human acoustic processing becomes attuned to the sounds of our native language within the first year of life. Minagawa-Kawai et al. used near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to track acoustic processing in Japanese infants.