The Official Blog of Cincinnati Children's Hospital

This is a recap of recent health news featuring Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. We hope you enjoy this week’s edition of collected news, and please feel free to offer comments below – we really do listen!

FDA: Kids’ Medical Tests Need Child-Size Radiation
CBS News, WLS, Chicago via AP, San Francisco Chronicle

The Food and Drug Administration is taking steps to help protect children from unnecessary radiation from common medical tests.

The increased use in recent years of imaging tests, like CT scans, is a growing concern because the test entails a high dose of radiation. While pediatric hospitals routinely adjust scanner doses for youngsters’ smaller sizes, 90 percent of child imaging is performed in general hospitals. Now, the FDA is pushing manufacturers to design new scanners to minimize radiation exposure for young patients.

A voluntary campaign called Image Gently, run by the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging, has helped teach health providers how to program existing scanners to give child-size radiation doses, plus other steps such as shielding vulnerable organs from the beam. Dr. Marilyn Goske of Cincinnati Children’s, who chairs the alliance, praises the FDA’s move, saying it helps “put the spotlight on children.”

Food Is Forbidden For Kids With Rare Disease
ABC-Good Morning America, Yahoo News

While most kids would just as soon skip vegetables at the dinner table, 15-year-old Samantha Pecoraro would gladly take their share – or any solid food, for that matter.

Samantha has eosinophils of the esophagus (EoE), a rare autoimmune disease that causes white blood cells to attack food as it passes down the digestive tract. Nearly all foods – except plain potatoes – are off limits to Sam, so she gets nutrients through a gastrointestinal tube. Eating anything else would cause extreme vomiting, nausea and diarrhea.

As part of National Eosinophil Awareness Week, patients and their families hope to shed light on the chronic condition – caused by severe sensitization to multiple food allergens – which has no known cure. The Cincinnati Center for Eosinophilic Disorders at Cincinnati Children’s treated 598 patients last year.

“Dietary restrictions can be quite disabling,” said Dr. Marc E. Rothenberg, Director of the Division of Allergy and Immunology at Cincinnati Children’s “In fact, our research has shown that these disorders have the lowest quality of life compared with a variety of other chronic diseases of childhood.”

Rothenberg said scientists are making great strides in finding genetic causes and best treatments.

Home Visits Put At-Risk Mothers On Path To Success
American Public Media/Marketplace, KABC, Los Angeles, Cincinnati Enquirer

For more than a dozen years, a unique program at Cincinnati Children’s has been reaching out to at-risk families and changing the trajectory of their lives. Every Child Succeeds targets pregnant and new mothers in southwest Ohio and northern Kentucky who are poor, single and often from troubled backgrounds.

Through home visits, social workers, child development specialists and nurses visit mothers and their babies on a regular basis from pregnancy through the child’s third birthday, helping them to create a nurturing, healthy environment.

Since its founding in 1999, Every Child Succeeds has served more than 17,600 children through 360,000 home visits.

Parents’ Depression Linked To Problems In Children
New York Times

One in five people experience depression at some point in their lives, but how do parents’ depression impact the lives of their children?

Research shows that untreated, unrecognized parental depression can lead to negative consequences for kids, ranging from poor school performance to increased visits to the emergency room to poorer peer relationships and adolescent depression.

Dr. Jacqueline M. Grupp-Phelan, Director of Research for the Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s, sees the problems first-hand. “It influences their own perception of how well they can deal with their kids’ problems,” she says, underscoring the need for physicians to ask parents about depression.

“Moms appreciate being asked,” adds Dr. Grupp-Phelan, who has done research on the acceptability of mental health screening. “It may be the only time they’ve been asked about their depression.”

“Put a Lid On It” To Prevent Cycling Injuries
Public News Service

Bicycles are linked to more childhood injuries than any other consumer product – including trampolines, ladders and swimming pools. Just ask Dr. Mike Gittelman, co-coordinator of the Comprehensive Children’s Injury Center at Cincinnati Children’s.

Dr. Gittelman sees bike helmet injuries ranging from abrasions to skull fractures, to internal bleeding and even death. Wearing a helmet can reduce head-injury chances by 85 percent, he says.

As part of Bike Helmet Safety Awareness week, Gittelman and The Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics are urging vigilance when it comes to wearing helmets while riding bikes. Proper fit for a helmet is also essential. A bike shop or a website like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration can provide tips for a good fit.

Magazine’s Breastfeeding Cover Brings Strong Reaction
WLWT

This week’s provocative Time magazine cover showing a woman breastfeeding her 3-year-old son has sparked wide-ranging debate on breastfeeding beyond babyhood.

It’s really not an accurate picture of what a breastfeeding child typically is,” says Teri Rutz, clinical manager for the Center for Breastfeeding Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s. “They’re usually infants, and, in our culture, mothers are rarely breastfeeding 3-years-olds.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breast-feeding for six months, then supplementing that through a year. After that, doctors say there’s nothing wrong with continuing as long as both mother and baby are comfortable.

“In our society, unfortunately, we have sexual connotations for breasts, and you know the true purpose of breasts is to feed a baby, and we really try to teach that to moms,” adds Rutz.

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