Selective eating is a common, burdensome eating pattern in young children. A significant subset remain selective eaters at least until adolescence and, for some, adulthood. The question is whether selective eating is a serious enough developmental pattern to warrant intervention.

This study examines whether selective eating, at 2 levels of severity, is associated with current and future psychological problems. Because moderate levels of selective eating were associated with impairment, selective eating falls within the diagnosis of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder. (Read the full article)

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends parent-child reading from infancy through at least kindergarten, the span of maximal brain growth. Home literacy environment, including reading behaviors and access to books, has been shown to promote oral language and print concepts.

Home reading environment is positively associated with activation of brain areas supporting narrative comprehension and mental imagery in preschool children. This offers novel insight into the neurobiological foundations of emergent literacy and potential effect of shared reading during early childhood. (Read the full article)

In adults, there is significant increased length of stay, cost, and/or resource use associated with hospital-acquired conditions. Less is known about the epidemiology and impact of many hospital-acquired conditions in pediatric populations.

We find increased pediatric length of stay and costs due to venous thromboembolism and catheter-associated urinary tract infections. This is essential information for hospital administrators and safety departments who are planning interventions to reduce harm associated with these hospital-acquired conditions. (Read the full article)

Rudeness is routinely experienced by hospital-based medical teams. Individuals exposed to mildly rude behavior perform poorly on cognitive tasks, exhibit reduced creativity and flexibility, and are less helpful and prosocial.

Rudeness had adverse consequences on diagnostic and procedural performance of members of the NICU medical teams. Information-sharing mediated the adverse effect of rudeness on diagnostic performance, and help-seeking mediated the effect of rudeness on procedural performance. (Read the full article)

Late preterm infants, compared with full-term infants, have less proficiency in reading and math at school age, with increased need for individualized educational plans and special education services. They also have lower cognitive performance on standardized IQ exams.

Late preterm infants have worse outcomes at school entry, and development is variable during the preschool years, so socioeconomic status, language spoken in the home, maternal education, maternal race, and being a late preterm infant have a large impact. (Read the full article)

Poor neurocognitive outcomes are associated with some types of congenital heart defects (CHDs). Guidelines for developmental screening for children with CHDs have been published. Population-based information on special education services needed among children with CHDs is limited.

Children in metropolitan Atlanta with congenital heart defects (CHDs) received special education services more often than children without birth defects. These findings highlight the need for special education services and the importance of developmental screening for all children with CHDs. (Read the full article)

A previous national study conducted over 2 seasons by this group of authors demonstrated the effectiveness of mandated protective eyewear in reducing eye/orbital, concussive, and head/facial injuries in high school girls' field hockey.

Data collected from regional/national high school sports injury surveillance databases by certified athletic trainers over 4 seasons has shown that nationally mandated protective eyewear results in a greater than 3-fold reduced risk of eye/orbital injuries in girls playing high school field hockey. (Read the full article)

Unmet health care need in adolescence is associated with poor contemporaneous health outcomes. Adolescence is increasingly recognized as an important stage of the life-course, when there may be a significant opportunity for health care interventions to improve later health outcomes.

The odds of adverse adult health outcomes were 13% to 52% higher among subjects who had reported unmet health care need in adolescence, compared with subjects with similar adolescent health outcomes, insurance coverage, and sociodemographic background but no unmet need. (Read the full article)

Childhood inflammatory mediators are associated with adult obesity, but the stimuli that initiate and perpetuate chronic inflammation start in early life are largely unknown.

Childhood infection-related hospitalization was independently associated with adverse adult metabolic variables, which suggests that infections and/or their treatment in childhood may contribute to causal pathways leading to adult cardiometabolic diseases. (Read the full article)

High bilirubin levels are associated with sensorineural hearing loss. Exchange transfusions are recommended when bilirubin levels reach certain thresholds. However, the relative and excess risks of hearing loss in infants with bilirubin levels at/above exchange transfusion thresholds are unknown.

In this Northern California population of term and late preterm infants, elevated bilirubin levels were not associated with an increased risk of sensorineural hearing loss unless the levels were at least 10 mg/dL above exchange transfusion thresholds. (Read the full article)

Making a diagnosis of Kawasaki disease (KD) is often a diagnostic dilemma. This dilemma is confounded when children present with symptoms consistent with known, common respiratory viruses and/or with KD symptoms that could potentially be attributed to a respiratory virus.

Patients with KD commonly have a concurrent respiratory viral infection. Clinicians should not dismiss the diagnosis of KD based on the presence of respiratory symptoms. Furthermore, a positive respiratory virus test result should not be used to exclude the diagnosis of KD. (Read the full article)

Research has shown that parent feeding practices are associated with adolescent weight status and dietary intake. It is unknown whether certain factors such as parent and child weight status concordance or discordance influence parents’ use of specific feeding practices.

Findings from the current study suggest that parents use the highest levels of pressure-to-eat feeding practices when parents and adolescents are both nonoverweight and the highest levels of food restriction when parents and adolescents are both overweight/obese. (Read the full article)

Embryonal tumors occur almost exclusively in children. The group is heterogeneous and includes relatively common pediatric tumors as well as rare tumors. The incidence rate for hepatoblastoma has been increasing in some countries.

This population-based study is the first comprehensive study on embryonal tumors in German children. Incidence rates, trends, and survival for 1991 through 2012 are presented. A statistically significant increasing trend for hepatoblastoma was detected for the first time in Europe. (Read the full article)

Concern of the risk of malignancy from ionizing radiation has prompted many to advocate for judicious use of computed tomography (CT) and as low as necessary radiation doses administered per scan. Recent analysis has shown a decline in CT utilization.

We identified decreases in CT utilization between 2004 and 2012 for the 10 most common diagnostic groups receiving CT. Decreases were typically associated with increases in alternate imaging modalities. We provide a possible reason for the decrease in CT utilization. (Read the full article)

Infants born very prematurely or with a very low birth weight are known to have an increased risk of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Results concerning late preterm children are controversial and studies examining fetal growth represented by weight for gestational age are scarce.

We demonstrate that each declining week of gestation increases the risk of ADHD. Also, late preterm infants have an increased risk. Furthermore, as weight for gestational age becomes smaller than 1 SD below the mean, the risk of ADHD increases. (Read the full article)

Increasing percentages of youth are living with chronic medical conditions. Although adolescents face peak risks for onset and intensification of alcohol and marijuana use, we know little about these behaviors and their associations with treatment adherence among chronically ill youth.

This study quantifies alcohol and marijuana use behaviors among a heterogeneous sample of chronically ill youth in aggregate and by condition, and measures associations between alcohol use/binge drinking and knowledge about alcohol interactions with medications/laboratory tests and also treatment nonadherence. (Read the full article)

Intervention strategies are needed to reduce underage drinking. Meta-analyses of youth alcohol brief interventions (BIs) conclude that therapist-delivered BIs are efficacious; however, to maximize public health impact, recommendations include using technology to streamline intervention delivery, for which evidence is lacking.

A single-session BI, delivered by a computer or therapist in the emergency department, shows promise for underage drinkers. Findings for the stand-alone computer BI are particularly appealing given the ease of future implementation. (Read the full article)

Many studies have suggested that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are commonly co-occuring neurodevelopmental conditions.

In children with co-occurring ASD and ADHD, an initial ADHD diagnosis may be associated with delayed ASD diagnosis and a higher likelihood of ASD diagnosis older than 6 years of age. Clinicians should consider ASD when evaluating young children presenting with ADHD symptoms. (Read the full article)

Sleep disturbances in infants associate with individual differences in temperament. However, little is known about interindividual differences and potential moderating factors, such as genotype.

The results suggest that the cumulative effect of total sleep duration during the first 3 years of life on temperament is moderated by child 5-HTTLPR genotype following a differential susceptibility model. (Read the full article)

Both short and long interpregnancy intervals are associated with increased risk of autism in second-born children. However, it is not known if the association is explained by unfavorable birth outcomes of the previous siblings.

Both short and long interpregnancy intervals increase risk of autism in second-born children independently of previous siblings being born premature, having low birth weight, or being born by cesarean delivery and independently of maternal antidepressant use 3 months before pregnancy. (Read the full article)

Executive functioning and excess weight have been associated in both cross-sectional and prospective studies, but mechanisms explaining this relationship are unclear.

Impulsivity and planning at age 10 predicted age 10 to 16 BMI changes, and age 12 binge-eating tendencies mediated the relation between impulsivity at age 10 and changes in BMI change through age 16. (Read the full article)

Minimal parent supervision and early pubertal maturation independently forecast alcohol misuse among adolescent girls. It is not known if pubertal timing amplifies risks associated with inadequate supervision during the formative years when youth are first exposed to alcohol.

Early maturing girls who enter secondary school with high levels of behavioral autonomy report a dramatic increase in alcohol abuse. The etiology of their problems with alcohol can be traced, in part, to heightened risks arising from low parent supervision. (Read the full article)

The vitamin D concentration in breast milk of women taking 400 IU vitamin D per day is relatively low, leading to vitamin D deficiency in breastfeeding infants. As a result, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding infant vitamin D supplementation within days after birth.

Maternal vitamin D supplementation alone with 6400 IU/day safely supplies breast milk with adequate vitamin D to satisfy the requirement of her nursing infant and offers an alternate strategy to direct infant supplementation. (Read the full article)

Urethral catheterization is a painful, yet common procedure to obtain a sterile urine sample in young children. There are conflicting results regarding the effectiveness of lidocaine to reduce pain, and it is unclear if it should be routinely used.

In young children, combined topical and intraurethral lidocaine does not reduce pain during urethral catheterization and is associated with more pain than nonanesthetic lubricant during instillation. Clinicians should use noninvasive methods of analgesia during this painful procedure. (Read the full article)

Adolescent vaccination rates lag behind other childhood vaccines. Text messaging to improve uptake of adolescent vaccines has been shown to be effective in academic centers but has not been studied in other settings.

This study, done in 5 private and 2 safety-net practices, used a bidirectional text message as a behavioral prompt and showed text messaging was effective at increasing uptake of all adolescent vaccines. Costs were similar to other reminder/recall methods. (Read the full article)

Deferral of consent avoids delaying emergency interventions while ensuring consent to ongoing participation and use of data. Deferred consent is particularly important for enabling trials in pediatric settings, where many medicines and devices are unlicensed and untested for use.

Approaches for seeking deferred consent should balance the potential burden of obtaining consent against risk of bias due to outcome-related attrition. Ethics committees could consider approving data use when best efforts to obtain deferred consent are met with no response. (Read the full article)

Research demonstrates that substance use, beliefs about use, and influence from family and friends can put young adults at risk for DUI and RWDD. Much of this research is cross-sectional and focuses on risk factors identified in young adults.

This longitudinal study emphasizes the importance of prevention efforts in early adolescence at multiple levels to reduce high school DUI/RWDD, because marijuana beliefs and marijuana use by peers and family members during middle school were associated with high school DUI/RWDD. (Read the full article)

Maternal–child relationships among women raising children from sexual violence-related pregnancies (SVRPs) are not well understood. Limited case reports suggest widely varied and complex relationships. The determinants of these relationships are unknown.

With its large sample size, this article quantifies and analyzes maternal–child relationships among women raising children from SVRPs, and assesses the impact of stigma, acceptance, and maternal mental health on these relationships. (Read the full article)

A number of studies have reported an association between birth by cesarean delivery and adverse childhood health outcomes such as obesity, asthma, atopy, and a number of neurodevelopmental abnormalities. However, these studies have had limited capacity to control for confounders.

Using a prospective cohort while controlling for birth factors, social vulnerability, maternal BMI, and breastfeeding, we found few differences between children delivered by cesarean delivery and those born vaginally. Higher child BMI was explained by maternal BMI. (Read the full article)

Seven percent of children in the United States receive mental health services each year. There are more pediatric outpatient mental health care visits to primary care physicians (PCPs) than to psychiatrists. Mental health utilization patterns regarding different conditions and medication prescribing are unknown.

One-third of children with mental health conditions see PCPs only. A greater proportion of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder see PCPs for this than do those with anxiety/mood disorders. Children seeing PCPs are prescribed psychotropic medications more often than those seeing psychiatrists. (Read the full article)

Previous studies have shown racial differences in invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) rates. Recent studies demonstrated a national decline in IPD rates after 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) introduction. The impact of PCV13 on racial and regional differences in IPD rates among Tennessee children is unknown.

After introduction of PCV13, pediatric IPD rates, including disease due to antibiotic-resistant strains, declined substantially. Racial and regional differences in IPD rates were no longer significant. Our study illustrates the impact of PCV13 and the importance of continued IPD surveillance. (Read the full article)

Central apnea sometimes complicates bronchiolitis. Because apnea tends to occur early in the course of bronchiolitis, there is a danger that infants may be discharged from the emergency department only to subsequently develop apnea at home.

This study prospectively derived clinical decision rules to help emergency physicians admit infants at risk for apnea while discharging those not at risk. (Read the full article)

Endotracheal intubation is a mandatory skill for neonatal trainees. It is a difficult skill to acquire, and success rates of junior doctors are low and falling.

Videolaryngoscopy allows the supervisor to share the intubator’s view of the airway and provide more informed guidance. Teaching intubation using a videolaryngoscope with the screen visible to the instructor results in significantly higher success rates for inexperienced doctors. (Read the full article)

Previous studies have evaluated separately the effects of brief education and reminder/recall intervention strategies to increase human papillomavirus vaccine coverage. None have examined if intervention effects varied by race/ethnicity.

When compared with a general adolescent vaccine brochure, human papillomavirus vaccine-specific educational materials increased 1-dose coverage among Hispanic but not black individuals. Recalls for doses 2 and 3 were effective in increasing 3-dose coverage for both racial/ethnic groups. (Read the full article)

Maternal gestational weight gain is associated with childhood overweight. It is unknown whether gestational weight gain programs the child’s health or whether gestational weight gain is an indicator of postnatal behavioral factors.

We disentangled these influences by studying the effect of gestational weight gain simultaneously with postdelivery maternal weight change as an indicator for shared family lifestyle on child’s weight development and found that both had an independent effect. (Read the full article)

Pediatric autoimmune hepatitis is an uncommon condition; children and youth can present with a diverse and insidious clinical course and biochemical features. Response to treatment is generally good, and transplantation is rarely needed.

This population-based study adds knowledge regarding the incidence of pediatric autoimmune hepatitis in Canada, as well as a description of diagnostic and therapeutic approaches among centers. Long-term outcomes are also described. (Read the full article)

Continuous conventional EEG video is currently gold standard for identifying neonatal seizures and a substantial proportion of neonatal seizures are electrographic. Currently there is no direct evidence that EEG monitoring, seizure identification, or treatment impacts long-term outcomes.

In neonates with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, EEG monitoring and treatment of electrographic seizures results in significant reduction in seizure burden. Increasing seizure burden is associated with more severe brain injury and significantly lower performance scores on Bayley Scales of Infant Development III. (Read the full article)

Legitimate opioid is a risk factor for subsequent misuse of opioids among adults. This study provides the first population-based estimate of the risk of future opioid misuse associated with legitimate opioid use among adolescents.

Use of prescribed opioids before the 12th grade is independently associated with future opioid misuse among patients with little drug experience and who disapprove of illegal drug use. (Read the full article)

Communication between parents and providers is an important driver of parent experience of care. The impact of nighttime communication, which has become increasingly relevant after changes in resident physician duty hours, on parent experience is unknown.

Parent communication with nighttime doctors and nurses, and parent perceptions of communication and teamwork between these providers, may be important drivers of parent experience. Efforts to improve nighttime communication, both with parents and between team members, may improve parent experience. (Read the full article)

The impact of neonatal abstinence syndrome is of concern because the number of newborns showing symptoms of withdrawal after intrauterine drug exposure is increasing worldwide. Newborns developing neonatal abstinence syndrome require prolonged medical treatment and longer hospital admission after birth.

This first randomized controlled trial presents data on newborns with neonatal abstinence syndrome treated with laser acupuncture. The findings suggest that adjuvant laser acupuncture has the potential to reduce duration of morphine therapy and length of hospital stay. (Read the full article)

National guidelines recommend testing and prophylaxis for chlamydia, gonorrhea, and pregnancy for adolescent sexual assault victims. Little is known about rates of testing and prophylaxis in adolescent victims of sexual assault evaluated in pediatric emergency departments.

There is significant variation in testing and prophylaxis practices in the pediatric emergency department evaluation of adolescent victims of sexual assault. Adolescents cared for in emergency departments with clinical pathways are more likely to receive recommended prophylaxis. (Read the full article)

Receiving primary care in a high-quality medical home may lead to reductions in hospital or emergency department (ED) utilization; however, the relationship between the medical home and postdischarge hospitalizations and ED visits is poorly understood.

Readmission rates vary markedly based on data source and definition. Unplanned readmissions were associated with absence of a usual source of well and sick care but not other medical home components. Lack of parent confidence at discharge identified patients at high risk for readmissions and ED visits shortly after discharge. (Read the full article)

Interactive mobile media devices have revolutionized children’s access to and experience of media, but research is lagging behind its adoption. A critical first step is to understand when and how young children adopt mobile media devices.

Our study found almost universal exposure, early adoption, and use of mobile media devices among young children in an urban, low-income, minority community. Studies are needed to update guidelines on the use of mobile media by young children. (Read the full article)

Children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) may be at elevated risk for unhealthy weight. Samples of children with verified clinical diagnoses of ASD have been lacking, and associations with child behavior and functioning are not well understood.

Young children (2–5 years old) and adolescents (12–17 years old) with ASDs were at an elevated risk for unhealthy weight status compared with a general population sample. The presence of sleep or affective problems may confer increased risk among those with ASD. (Read the full article)

A richer chat experience was rolled out by Valve last year on PC, but now it's being joined by a 'modernized chat experience' for iOS and Android devices.

John Boland accepted an offer as an audit associate at the highly competitive firm after just a few months in the Master of Professional Accounting program offered by Penn State Great Valley.

With Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s March 25 “Stay at Home” order, Penn State is updating the status of its Abington, Brandywine and Great Valley campuses.

Former Scotland captain Shelley Kerr will replace Anna Signeul as coach after UEFA Women's EURO 2017, the ex-defender saying she is "extremely proud and honoured".

It had been 19 years since Germany lost a qualifier but Iceland ended that run in stunning style with a 3-2 away win that finished some incredible runs by the twice world champions.

The Netherlands took Europe's last finals berth after seeing off Denmark and Switzerland in the play-offs.