In early 1996, I sat down at my computer looking for help.
My third child, 2 months old, had just been diagnosed with a severe brain malformation called lissencephaly. He won’t be normal, the doctors said grimly. His life will be shorter, we were told. He will have seizures and other problems, they said, but it’s hard for us to say what or how bad those problems will be. We were …
We need a doctor-family partnership on the Internet
If we want to fight childhood obesity, we need to get kids moving.
Sounds incredibly obvious. And that was my reaction when I first read the study just released in the journal Pediatrics—in it, the authors said that high school students were less likely to be overweight or obese if they played at least two sports during the school year, or if they walked or biked to school. Really? Next we …
When it comes to exercise, stating the obvious is really important
For years, I have been telling families in my practice, especially those with teens, to eat dinner together. Family dinners make a difference, I tell them. Studies show that they not only help prevent obesity, they help kids do better in school and help keep them out of trouble.
Now a study says that’s a bunch of hogwash.
Well, not exactly hogwash. The researchers from Cornell who wrote “Assessing Causality and …
Don’t give up on the family dinner
A child with autism is more likely to do well if his mother is white and educated.
This is the message of a study just released in the journal Pediatrics, and it’s something we need to pay attention to—now.
Researchers from Columbia University wanted to find out what happens to children with autism over time. So they looked at the records of more than 6,000 children with autism who were enrolled …
Autism is a social justice problem
My 6-year-old son is really farsighted, and I had no idea. I completely missed it.
To be fair to me and my husband, the ophthalmologist (the esteemed and wonderful Dr. Hunter of Children’s Hospital Boston) said that Liam was compensating really well. And until his yearly checkup last month, he had been passing vision tests (which mostly test for nearsightedness). But in retrospect, there were signs we didn’t pay attention to. …
It’s only through humility that we can achieve great things
My friend Nancy went for physical therapy for her back pain the other day, and was really surprised by what she saw there: the place was full of kids.
“Yeah, it’s like this now,” said the therapist when Nancy asked about it. “It’s the sports.”
It’s not that kids are getting clumsier or having more accidents. The injuries that are sending kids to physical therapy are overuse injuries. Kids these days are …
The achievement culture problem in our country
Recently I wrote a blog about how the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) thinks that otherwise healthy children with ear infections should wait a couple of days before starting antibiotics, because many will get better without them.
Now there are two articles in the New England Journal of Medicine (here and here) saying that children with ear infections who are given antibiotics are more likely …
Pediatrics is full of uncertainty, not unlike the practice of parenthood
I really don’t want my children to be overweight. I know this because I see the consequences every day in my practice, consequences like high blood pressure, impending diabetes, or poor self-esteem.
At the same time, I really, really don’t want my children to have an eating disorder. I know this because I had one.
In college, I suffered from anorexia nervosa. I’m a little more than 5 feet 9 inches tall, …
Is the media responsible for childhood eating disorders?
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