Reports link 5 deaths and 16 near strangulations to Roman shades and three deaths to roll-up blinds
26 states make it easier for low-income children, parents or pregnant women to get coverage.
“This week alone, 183 more babies will be born prematurely.”
Hydrocephalus is the number one reason for brain surgery in children and has no cure.
Pediatric dental care is poised to get a major boost from Democratic health reform proposals.
For each child without medical insurance, there are at least 2.6 children without dental insurance.
In its “Parent’s Guide to Kids’ Vaccines” the U.S. Food and Drug Administration addresses many questions parents have about the vaccines that are recommended for their children and provides a list of these vaccines, their purpose and common side effects.
U.S. Government’s flu information site www.flu.gov assembled a team of experts to answer questions that pregnant women and new moms might have about the flu.
Bed bug summit in Seattle. New York Times reporters discuss possible impact of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death on the health-care debate.
By Mary Agnes Carey
As Democratic leaders pursue their quest to provide millions of Americans with health care insurance, some advocates see an unlikely casualty of reform: youngsters now covered by the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) whom they fear could end up with reduced benefits.
About 7 million children are insured under CHIP, which provides coverage [...]
No connection has been found between diet and acne. No food–not chocolate, fries, pizza, or any other food–has been shown to cause acne. FDA Consumer Update.
By Carol Ann Campbell
August 13, 2009
NEWARK, N.J. – Fourteen-year-old Prince Jackson made a fist and banged his hand on his head, again and again. “It was like this,” he said, trying to describe the blinding pain from the tumor growing inside his head. “It hurt so much. It wouldn’t stop.”
Jackson could not read or sleep [...]
Teachers more likely to spank disabled children
More than 200,000 U.S. schoolchildren are spanked, paddled or subjected to some other form of corporal punishment each year with disabled children receiving a disproportionate share of such punishments, according to a report prepared by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
“At least 41,972 students with [...]
New rules to protect your prescription information
Information collected with your prescriptions, including your name, the drug and its dosage but your address and social security number, can be sold without your knowledge or permission, New York Times reporter Milt Freudenheim writes in today’s paper.
Freudenheim writes:
That may change if some little-noted protections from the Obama administration [...]
Seattle Children’s has produced a video on how to safely buckle your baby into an infant car seat.
To learn more:
Visit Seattle Children’s Child Health & Safety information page for more information
Visit American Academy of Pediatrics Car Seat Safety page.
Visit SeatCheck.Org, a Web site that lists places where you can have your car seats inspected.
Head lice is a common problem among children. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are an estimated 6 to 12 million cases of head lice infestation each year in the U.S.
There are a number of treatments available for head lice, including a new drug recently approved by the U.S. Food [...]
Consumers should stop using any body building products that are sold with claims they contain steroids or steroid-like substances, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said today.
Many of these products are marketed as dietary supplements but, in fact, contain synthetic substances that can cause serious liver injury, kidney failure, blood clots in the lung [...]
Continuous chemotherapy for some cancers?
New York Times reporter Andrew Pollack writes that some doctors and pharmaceutical companies are advocating treating patients with cancer continuously.
“That would be a departure from the common practice of stopping treatment when the cancer is under control and resuming it only if the cancer worsens,” Pollack writes.
Some doctors say such ”maintenance [...]
Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center has opened a new center to evaluate young athletes who have had head injuries and provide training to teachers, coaches, parents and others involved in school sports on how to prevent, assess and treat concussions.
The new center, called the UW Medicine/Seattle Children’s Sports Concussion Program, was launched to help schools and [...]
Kolcraft Enterprises is recalling 1 million of its “Play Yards” products because they pose a fall hazard to children, according to an U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission alert.
“The play yard’s side rail can fail to latch properly and when a child pushes against the rail it can unlatch unexpectedly, posing a fall hazard to children,” [...]
Acqua-Leisure Industries of Avon, Massachusetts is voluntarily recalling certain models of its inflatable baby floats due to concerns about a possible drowning hazard.
(Not all models have been recalled. Information about which models are involved can be found through the links at the end of this posting.)
Leg straps in the recalled models seats can tear, “causing [...]
How can you find out if a medication has been tested for safety in children?
What’s the right dose? Are over-the-counter medicines safe?
In this Q & A, Dr. Dianne Murphy, director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Pediatric Therapeutics, answers those and other questions you might have about giving a medication to a child.
Q [...]
King County’s Emergency Medical Services has created one-minute training videos that can be downloaded to your Apple iPod Touch phone or Google phone on how to provide cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and what to do if someone is choking .
“If people know CPR and choke aid procedures, they use them in an emergency. We developed a phone application [...]
Washington must cut 36,000 from its basic health plan
Seattle Times health reporter Kyung Song writes in today’s paper about options state officials are considering on how to cut 36,000 enrollees from the state’s Basic Health Plan.
Currently, the plan provides health coverage to 100,000 low-income state residents, but because of the state’s revenue shortfall, the number [...]
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning consumers not to use a water-based face paint product after the paints were linked to skin reactions in children.
“The FDA has learned of a cluster of adverse events in children exposed to various colors of the face paint. All exposures occurred on the same day at [...]
Because the new H1N1 swine flu is behaving like the typical seasonal flu virus that comes every fall and winter and is generally causing only mild to moderate illnesses, local health officials no longer think it is necessary to close schools when a student comes down with a flu-like illness.
Instead, health officials say parents should [...]
Many parents, concerned about influenza A/H1N1 (swine flu), are bring children with mild or even no symptoms to the emergency room at Seattle Children’s, more than doubling the number of patients the staff usually sees at this time of year.
Most of these visits are unnecessary, hospital officials say, and are overburdening the emergency room’s resources.
“Most [...]
Adolescents with type 1 diabetes who use insulin pumps achieve better blood-sugar levels than do adolescents who use other methods, according to a new study.
Those using insulin pumps also required fewer hospitalizations and emergency room visits, the study found.
But even with the pump many children and teens still fail to achieve good blood-sugar control, the [...]
Seattle Children’s has produced a video and a tip sheet for parents about swine flu. The video features Dr. Danielle Zerr, medical director, Infection Control, Seattle Children’s Hospital. Additional information is available on Seattle Children’s swine flu information page.
Message from Seattle Children’s:
There are suspected cases of swine flu in the state of Washington. As a result, [...]
The University of Washington School of Medicine has been ranked 6th in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.
In the speciality categories, UW ranked:
1st in primary care, family medicine, and rural medicine
5th in women’s health
6th in pediatric and geriatric medicine
8th in internal medicine.
To learn more:
Go to the U.S. News and World Report medical school rankings.
Fisher-Price 3-in-1 High Chair
Fisher-Price is recalling its “3-in-1 High Chairs” after learning the seat can fall backwards from the chair frame if the seat release is unlatched while a child is in the chair.
Fisher-Price has received a report of a child falling out of a chair and suffering a skull fracture after the seat back [...]
Seattle Children’s is on track to become on of the nation’s leading pediatric research center, but first it must meet formidable challenges caused by the current economic downturn, the hospital’s CEO Dr. Thomas Hansen said Thursday.
Dr. Hansen, a neonatologist who specializes in chronic lung diseases in newborns, made the comments today at an address to [...]
Washington state health officials are investigating an outbreak of whooping cough, also known as pertussis, among people who attended the state high school wrestling championships held last month in the Tacoma Dome.
So far, at least 15 people, including wrestlers, coaches and spectators, who attended the match—The 2009 Mat Classic—have come down with the infection.
“Anyone who [...]
Study found that formal swimming lessons can reduce a young child’s risk of drowning by 88 percent.
[ March 14, 2009; 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. ]
Seattle Children’s Hospital will host a free “hands-on” community health fair event for families and children ages 3 to 8, on Saturday, March 14th.
At the fair, children can learn about health, safety and the hospital through many fun activities including the Teddy Bear Clinic, finger casting, a visit from the Tooth Fairy, ambulance and operating [...]
Seattle Children’s Hospital will host a free “hands-on” community health fair event for families and children ages 3 to 8, on Saturday, March 14th.
At the fair, children can learn about health, safety and the hospital through many fun activities including the Teddy Bear Clinic, finger casting, a visit from the Tooth Fairy, ambulance and operating [...]
Seattle Children’s Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics has posted a webcast of its forum on the ethics of growth attenuation in children with profound disabilities that was held last Friday, Jan. 23rd.
This issue came to the public’s attention in 2006, when doctors from Seattle Children’s reported in the journal Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine the case of [...]
The “Ashley” case will be discussed in an open forum sponsored by Seattle Children’s Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics on Friday, Jan. 23.
In 2006, doctors from Seattle Children’s reported in the journal Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine the case of a six-year old girl with profound disabilities whose parents asked doctors to prescribe [...]
Budget cuts threaten plan to provide health coverage to all Washington state children
In today’s Seattle Times health reporter Kyung M. Song writes about how the “state’s budget problems threaten to halt Washington’s advance towards universal health care for children by 2010.”
That goal was set out in the 2007 Cover All Kids law. Since then 40,000 [...]
Click here to find the Web sites of Washington's Senators and Representatives.
Health News from the Seattle Times