https://medicalxpress.com/pediatrics-news/ en-us Latest medical news and research in Pediatrics Adenotonsillectomy (ATE) is associated with increased odds of hospital visits due to upper and lower respiratory tract infections (RTIs) in children, according to a study published online July 31 in the Journal of Rhinology. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-adenotonsillectomy-respiratory-tract-infections-children.html Mon, 31 Aug 2026 17:10:01 EDT news707399964 When red blood cells break down, they release heme, a component of hemoglobin that can contribute to inflammation and damage tissues and blood vessels. Researchers at Lund University have identified a mechanism by which heme activates an inflammatory reaction in the blood. They also were able to block this pathway in experimental models. The findings could have implications for diseases and conditions involving extensive breakdown of red blood cells, including hemolytic uremic syndrome and malaria. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-red-blood-cells-trigger-inflammation.html Mon, 31 Aug 2026 15:30:03 EDT news707400045 The age at which adolescents first start using social media may be more important to their mental health than whether they have a social media account at all, new UNSW Sydney research suggests. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-social-media-younger-linked-anxiety.html Mon, 31 Aug 2026 13:40:01 EDT news707395741 Children with chest tightness variant asthma (CTVA) have higher fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) levels and lower measures of small airway function, according to a study published online Aug. 10 in Frontiers in Pediatrics. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-fractional-exhaled-nitric-oxide-elevated.html Sun, 30 Aug 2026 15:00:01 EDT news707137624 When a child has symptoms that could be pneumonia, doctors often listen to the child's lungs with a stethoscope to help make a diagnosis. But a new national study led by physician-scientists at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and PECARN finds that doctors may not always hear or interpret the same things when examining the same child, illustrating limitations of the physical examination. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-physical-exams-reliably-pneumonia-children.html Sat, 29 Aug 2026 17:00:03 EDT news706979284 A baby's brain is always listening, watching and learning—even when the world around it is chaotic and makes no sense. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-reveal-instability-infant-attention-brain.html Sat, 29 Aug 2026 12:31:53 EDT news707225484 A healthy lifestyle in early childhood is associated with a reduced risk of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), according to a study published online Aug. 24 in Journal of Crohn's and Colitis. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-healthy-lifestyle-early-childhood-linked.html Fri, 28 Aug 2026 14:40:01 EDT news707137631 Adolescence is a critical time for nutritional health, given the rapid physical growth, hormonal changes and neurodevelopmental shifts taking place. Yet diet quality is at its lowest during this pivotal life stage, compounded by unique physiological, social and behavioral factors facing adolescents. In fact, public health guidance has noted that nutrient gaps among adolescents set the stage for a "constellation of potential nutritional risk factors." This public health challenge is exacerbated by the lack of scientific research and specific, evidence-based dietary guidance tailored to adolescents. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-evidence-based-specific-dietary-guidance.html Fri, 28 Aug 2026 13:00:06 EDT news707133561 Thousands of infants contract respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) every year. While most experience mild symptoms, the virus can cause severe breathing difficulties in newborns and young infants and may require hospital treatment. Since fall 2025, pregnant women in Denmark have been offered an RSV vaccine to help protect their babies during the first months of life. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-rsv-admissions-infants-fall-sharply.html Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:20:04 EDT news707126908 South Africa's infant vaccination rate has fallen to its lowest level in years, with more than a third of babies receiving no vaccines at the start of 2026, the health department said Thursday. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-south-africa-alarm-infant-vaccinations.html Thu, 27 Aug 2026 16:40:01 EDT news707059628 A new study reveals that unintentional ingestions of recreational drugs by young children have increased dramatically in the past 25 years. Researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital and the Central Ohio Poison Center analyzed calls to U.S. poison centers and found that the recreational drug ingestion rate per 100,000 U.S. children younger than 6 increased 3,307% from 2000 to 2024, with a rapid increase beginning in 2013. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-sharp-unintentional-ingestions-recreational-drugs.html Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:40:06 EDT news707049242 New research from Trinity College Dublin has documented the significant impact of severe eczema on a child's height and shown, for the first time in a controlled study, that the right treatment can help improve growth. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-children-severe-eczema-treatment-boosts.html Thu, 27 Aug 2026 11:00:09 EDT news707041741 The number of people who need prescription glasses to correct their vision is increasing each year as nearsightedness, or myopia, becomes more common worldwide. Current projections suggest cases could reach 50% by 2050, affecting nearly 5 billion people. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-special-aspherical-glasses-childhood-myopia.html Thu, 27 Aug 2026 09:01:04 EDT news707040031 Kentucky has one of the highest childhood obesity rates in the country, and the health consequences carry forward throughout life. That's one of the reasons researchers at the University of Kentucky are leading a groundbreaking clinical trial to determine whether medical intervention can reverse the early signs of heart disease in children struggling with severe obesity. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-childhood-obesity-semaglutide-adolescents.html Thu, 27 Aug 2026 08:00:04 EDT news707029502 Children with severe hearing loss may benefit from cochlear implants at younger ages and under broader eligibility criteria than previously recognized, according to a multicenter study led by researchers at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. The findings were published online in August in The Laryngoscope. The study is published in The Laryngoscope journal. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-earlier-access-cochlear-implants-children.html Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:00:01 EDT news706968364 Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have shown that specific brain cells respond differently to H3.3 K27M, a mutation in the histone H3.3 protein that drives many cases of diffuse midline glioma (DMG), depending on the cells' location in the developing brain. These findings help explain why DMG, a pediatric brain cancer commonly associated with this mutation, typically arises in the brainstem and other midline regions. The study was published today in Nature Communications. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-mutation-disrupts-cell-region-specific.html Wed, 26 Aug 2026 13:00:09 EDT news706963021 Two unvaccinated Pennsylvania residents have died of measles, the first deaths linked to the virus in the state in 35 years, the Department of Health (DOH) said Tuesday. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-measles-deaths-year-american-academy.html Wed, 26 Aug 2026 12:05:25 EDT news706964684 A combination of training, quality improvement and leadership support in hospitals across four countries in sub-Saharan Africa is linked to fewer stillbirths and deaths among newborns during the first 24 hours of life, according to a study led by Karolinska Institutet and published in Nature Medicine. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-maternity-linked-stillbirths-newborn-deaths.html Wed, 26 Aug 2026 05:00:06 EDT news706883333 Mamadou Tahirou is 18 but looks more like a 12-year-old. His frame is frail from the ravages of sickle cell disease, which one Senegalese laboratory hopes to attenuate with affordable drug production. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-senegal-sickle-cell-treatment.html Wed, 26 Aug 2026 04:02:08 EDT news706935697 Among children and adolescents, a higher body roundness index (BRI) is associated with increased odds of current asthma, according to a study published online Aug. 6 in the Annals of Human Biology. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-body-roundness-index-linked-odds.html Tue, 25 Aug 2026 22:00:01 EDT news706859652 Commercial baby foods in spouted pouches—intended to boost nutritional intake from the age of 6 months onward—are often more like sugary drinks and smoothies than nutritious food, finds an analysis of U.K. products, published online in Archives of Disease in Childhood. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-spouted-baby-food-pouches-sugary.html Tue, 25 Aug 2026 18:30:02 EDT news706794347 Rhabdomyosarcomas are a rare form of cancer; however, the disease is responsible for about 60% of all soft-tissue sarcomas in children. Rhabdomyosarcomas are aberrant, malignant forms of muscle tissue. Early detection of bone marrow infiltration by tumor cells is crucial when planning treatment. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-alternative-bone-marrow-sampling-children.html Tue, 25 Aug 2026 17:00:02 EDT news706894681 Patients with sickle cell disease are often hesitant to undergo transformative gene therapy—the current lengthy process requires multiple hospital visits to collect enough stem cells. Researchers from Boston Children's Hospital have helped smooth the road to gene therapy with a new approach that collects enough of the patient's stem cells in a single hospital admission for most patients, improving the turnaround time for genetically altering and infusing the cells back into the patient. The long-term follow-up results of the first-in-human phase I pilot clinical trial were recently published in Blood. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-human-trial-stem-cell-delivery.html Tue, 25 Aug 2026 16:00:06 EDT news706891861 Clinicians may not agree on physical exam findings for youth with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), according to a study published online Aug. 20 in JAMA Network Open. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-physical-exams-reliably-pediatric-pneumonia.html Tue, 25 Aug 2026 15:20:03 EDT news706888801 Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have discovered that removing the gene for Regnase-1 from engineered immune cells makes them more effective at treating relapsed osteosarcoma. There is a great clinical need for new therapies for childhood osteosarcoma, for which there are very few effective treatments for relapsed disease. The approach improved the cells' ability to control osteosarcoma growth and prevent metastasis to the lungs in preclinical models. The findings support the development of an early-phase clinical trial and were published today in Cell Reports Medicine. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-immune-car-cell-therapy-pediatric.html Tue, 25 Aug 2026 14:20:01 EDT news706882441 After a summer of vacations and late nights, it's time to set those back-to-school alarms. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-reset-child-school-season.html Tue, 25 Aug 2026 13:00:10 EDT news706880588 Climate change is making droughts more frequent, prolonged and intense in many regions of the world, increasing the need to understand their effects on health. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-drought-pregnancy-preterm-birth-impaired.html Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:40:06 EDT news706876741 A nationwide quality improvement initiative led by researchers and clinicians from UC Davis Health, the American Academy of Pediatrics and partner organizations resulted in significant increases in screening and follow-up care for adolescent substance use and mental health concerns across pediatric primary care clinics. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-adolescent-behavioral-health-screening.html Tue, 25 Aug 2026 07:20:03 EDT news706851601 Prenatal organophosphate pesticide (OP) exposure is not associated with autism-related traits in childhood, according to a study published online Aug. 24 in JAMA Pediatrics. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-prenatal-organophosphate-pesticide-exposure-linked.html Tue, 25 Aug 2026 05:25:44 EDT news706854321 Obesity doesn't look the same at age 15 as it does at age 45, and Duke University School of Medicine researchers are learning why. A study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation showed teenagers retain a degree of metabolic flexibility that's largely lost in adulthood. The study suggests that the way teenage bodies respond to excess weight is fundamentally different and potentially more reversible. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-obesity-adolescence-reversible-previously-thought.html Mon, 24 Aug 2026 13:20:09 EDT news706792201