The researchers studied 5159 boys and girls  with an average age of 9 years. They monitored the children's sleep durations and BMI (Body Mass Index) scores. Many children slept less than 8 hours a night. This is called sleep deprivation. The research found that sleep deprived children had higher BMI (overweight) than the children who had a good night's rest. But interestingly they also found that when children who slept less than 8 hours a night on weekdays and then caught up with their sleep on weekends and holidays, can reduce this risk of obesity.

Often on weekdays, children sleep late due to various factors - late night television, homework etc., However, since most schools in India start early, children get up early and thus do not get enough hours of sleep. Parents can help children stay healthy by ensuring they get a good night's rest.

The study appeared in the November 2009 issue if Pediatrics magazine.

The researchers studied 50 parent-child pairs. The children were 1, 2 and 3 year olds. In the first half of the test, the parents and children were in a playroom without a TV being on. In the second half of the test, the TV was turned on and the parents chose a TV program that they could watch (not a children's TV show). The researchers observed the interaction between parents and children, what comments the parents made, how involved they were with the child's play and how responsive they were etc.,  When the TV was on, the interaction between parents and children dropped by over 20% and the quality of the parent-child interactions also declined. Parents were less involved with the child, less attentive and less responsive.

The importance of parent-child interaction in child development cannot be emphasized enough. Any factor that reduces it can have a negative effect on child development. In this case, even though the child was not watching television, the reduced parent-child interaction caused by the parent watching TV can have a negative effect on the child's development.

"Although previous research found that background television disrupts young children's solitary play, this is the first study to demonstrate its impact on the quantity and quality of parent-child interactions," according to the researchers. "Given that high-quality parent-child interaction plays an important role in children's development, the study challenges the common assumption that background TV doesn't affect very young children if they don't look at the screen," the researchers added. "We need to pay greater attention to children's early, chronic exposure to TV."

The study appeared in the September/October 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.

The researchers studies 1397 mothers, and analyzed various factors including family support, prior family history of psychiatric problems, emotional changes during birth etc., to develop the model.

The model is now being checked through clinical trials to see if its results can be corraborated.

The researchers found two factors in particular that help a mother avoid post partum depression - Age and Work. The older the mother, the lesser was the risk of depression. If the mother worked during pregnancy, the risk of depression was also reduced.

The research appears in Methods of Information in Medicine.

When watching these videos, children hear both nouns (names of objects etc.,) and also verbs (action words). The children under 3 were able to learn the nouns, which are usually easier to learn. But when it came to action words (verbs), children who watched alone could not learn the words directly from the program, nor could they understand them when they appeared in a different context within the video. When they watched with an adult who reinforced what they were viewing, they could learn the action words.

Children over age 3 were able to learn the verbs from the video program and understand them later, even without an adult interacting with them.

"Learning verbs is difficult," suggests Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Lefkowitz Professor of Psychology at Temple University and one of the study's authors. "Young children need social support from adults to help them learn verbs from television. Watching on their own is not as 'educational' as watching with an engaged adult."

The study appeared in the September/October 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.

In each standard, they were given 3 tasks - writing out the alphabet in small letters, writing out a sentence and writing an essay in 10 minutes on a given topic. Each task was performed on the computer and with a pen. The study found that the only task where children were faster on a computer, was the first one - writing out the alphabet in small letters. When writing sentences, children in the 4th and 6th grades wrote more complete sentences with a pen. When writing essays (a set of sentences about a topic) also, children were faster and wrote more with a pen.

The study was done to understand what is called the "transcription process". This is how the ideas, images and thoughts in the brain get converted to words in writing.  With a keyboard, the child has to pick the letters to type. With a pen, the child has to form the letters with their hand movements. The latter method using a pen, is believed to be better as a transcription process.

Lead researcher Virginia Berninger said "A keyboard doesn't allow a child to have the same opportunity to engage the hand while forming letters – on a keyboard a letter is selected by pressing a key and is not formed. Brain imaging studies with adults have shown an advantage for forming letters over selecting or viewing letters. A brain imaging study at the University of Washington with children showed that sequencing fingers may engage thinking."

The study is published in the Learning Disability Quarterly.

Children who were more active at age 5, had lesser fat at age 8 and at age 11, even for those whose activity had reduced. The positive effects of physical activity were very high. For example, the average child in the study had 30 minutes of moderate to vigorus physical activity every day, at the age of 5. Even a 10 minute increase in this activity, resulted in up to a pound of lesser fat tissue when reached the age of 8 and 11.

"We call this effect 'banking' because the kids benefit later on, similar to having a savings account at a bank. The protective effect is independent of what happens in between," said lead author Kathleen Janz, professor of health and sport studies in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. "The implication is that even 5-year-olds should be encouraged to be as active as possible because it pays off as they grow older."

Janz said "It may be possible that the active 5-year-olds didn't develop as many fat cells, improved their insulin response, or that something happened metabolically that provided some protection even as they became less active".

The study found that boys had a bigger benefit due to this because they are physically more active at 5 than girls. This highlights the need to get preschool girls to get more physically active also.

27% of children in the study showed difficulties with these skills around the time of the first seizure. And in children who had more risk factors like multiple seizures, epilepsy medicines etc., had a 40% chance of showing difficulty with cognitive skills.  The study also found that when children took epilepsy medicines, they had trouble in cognitive processing speed, language, verbal memory and learning compared to children who did not take any epilepsy medicines.

The study author Dr. Philp Fastenau said ""Children who take these medications should be closely monitored for cognitive problems resulting from the epilepsy drug. Surprisingly, our study also found academic achievement in these children was unaffected around the time of the first visit about three months after the first seizure in this study, suggesting there is a window early in epilepsy for intervention to avoid hurting a child's performance at school."

The study monitored 111 children (57 boys and 57 girls) between the ages of 3 and 8. The children wore accelerometers - these are devices that can sense movement. The parents filled out reports about the time spent by the children on various activities. TV time was defined as watching TV, videotapes or DVDs. Computer use was defined as time spent using a home computer or computer game. The children physical characteristics like height, weight, fat mass and blood pressure were also measured.

On average the study found that the children were sedentary for 5 hours a day and had screen time (TV + computer) of 1.5 hours. And interestingly, boys spent more time using computers than girls.

The TV viewing time and total screen time (TV viewing + computer time) were found to be positively associated with higher blood pressure even after adjusting for other factors like age, sex, height and body fat. Interestingly total sedentary time (low physical activity) was not associated with increased pressure thus suggesting that there are other factors that occur during TV viewing and computer time, causing the higher blood pressure in children.

This study analyzed over 60000 mothers and studies the incidence of pre-menipausal breast cancer among them. In the study, 608 women were diagnosed with the cancer with an average age of 46.2 years. What the study found was that the incidence of breast cancer, was lower in mothers who had breastfed a baby than in those who had not. The duration of the breastfeeding did not seem to have an impact on the results. Interestingly, the lower risk also presented itself in women who had taken medication to suppress lactation.

The researchers do say that more study is required to understand this fully. They also said ""Moreover, breastfeeding is associated with multiple other health benefits for both mother and child. These data suggest that women with a family history of breast cancer should be strongly encouraged to breastfeed."

So when their study measured the impact of a father's involvement, it was found that the children had lesser academic success. This was not because the father was a bad influence,  but because of the late involvement of the father in the child's education. By the time the father got involved, the situation was bad and the child was on the verge of failing academically.

When a father gets involved early in the child's education, Dr. McBride the lead researcher says "when the child sees that, they grow to expect it. They know that Daddy wants to be involved, and respond to it.".

It is possible that because of the way society has evolved, fathers may find it a little awkward to get involved in parenting, because they may not be used to being around younger children. While mothers may have been involved from a young age in taking care of other children and in parenting activities. Dr. McBride says that men may need help to overcome this awkwardness.

The study appears in the in the May 2009 issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology.

At 5 years, the 249 children were given tests that measured their IQ on various parameters. Our of 249 children, 140 had been born to mothers with above average exposure to PAHs. The study did account for other factors that may influence IQ including second-hand smoke exposure, mother's education and quality of the home caretaking environment.

Children with above average exposure to PAHs had full-scale IQ scores which were 4.31 points less than children with below average exposure and verbal IQ scores which were 4.67 points less. "These findings are of concern because these decreases in IQ could be educationally meaningful in terms of school performance," says Frederica Perera, the study's lead author.

The study appears in the August 2009 issue of Pediatrics magazine.

The study analyzed the birth records of children and matched them to their academic achievement and IQ tests given as part of their schooling. They found that the prevalence of learning disabilities did not increase in children who had been delivered with a Caesarian-section under general anaesthesia. Interestingly, the study also found that children delivered using an epidural anaesthetic (which is like a local anaesthetic for the lower part of the body and in which the delivering mother does not go to sleep)  had a 40% lesser risk of learning disabilities later in life.

This study may allay the fears of many mothers who wonder if getting general anaesthesia may impact the learning capabilities of their baby.

Juraj Sprung, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic anesthesiologist who led the study said "It's reassuring that the anesthetics required for Cesarean delivery do not appear to cause long-term brain problems."

Currently, about 1 in 435 children under the age of 15 in the United States gets cancer. Types of cancers most often affecting children include leukemia, lymphoma, central nervous system tumor, neuroblastoma, Wilms' tumor, bone cancer, and soft tissue sarcoma.

In the study, the team analyzed records for over 17000 children diagnosed with cancer between the ages of 0 - 14 and over 57000 children who did not have cancer. On comparing the data, the researchers found that 7 of the most common childhood cancers occurred more in children who had older mothers. The risk of these cancers occurring in children increased about 7 - 10 percent, for every 5 year increase in maternal age.

The researchers noted the father's age did not seem to matter once the mother's age was taken into account.

The results are published in the July 2009 issue of the journal Epidemiology.

Phthalates are commonly used compounds in plastics, personal care products, home furnishings (vinyl flooring, carpeting, paints, etc.) and many other consumer and industrial products. The toxicity varies by specific phthalates or their breakdown products, but past studies show that several phthalates cause reproductive and developmental toxicity in animals.

Professor Nayernia, the team leader says: "This is an important development as it will allow researchers to study in detail how sperm forms and lead to a better understanding of infertility in men – why it happens and what is causing it. This understanding could help us develop new ways to help couples suffering infertility so they can have a child which is genetically their own."

Men everywhere - beware :-)

Endometriosis is a condition where the inner lining of the uterus called the endometrium grows outside the uterus and causes a lot of pain and excessive bleeding during the monthly cycle. Women with endometriosis have more difficulty becoming pregnant and often need assisted reproduction techniques (ART) to become pregnant.

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute (Sweden) found a higher risk of preterm or premature birth among pregnant women who suffered endometriosis. They found the risk to be as much as 133% greater when the mother suffered from endometriosis.  They also found that it was the rate of C-section (Caesarian) was twice as much in mothers with endometriosis. Other common complications which occurred at a higher rate included pre-eclampsia (characterized by high blood pressure during pregnancy) and antepartal bleeding.

The researchers recommend that doctors and pregnant mothers should take extra care and attention when the mother has endmetriosis. While a lot of the focus on endometriosis is on infertility and on achieving a successful pregnancy, the focus should also continue on carrying the pregnancy through to a normal full term without complications.

To help enhance student relations, the authors offer research-based tips for teachers and schools:

Teachers

• Increase warm, positive interactions with students
• Be well prepared for class and hold high expectations
• Be responsive to students' agendas by providing choices
• Use reasoning rather than coercive discipline that damages relationships
• Help students be kind, helpful and accepting of one another
• Implement interventions for difficult relations with specific students

Schools

• Provide a variety of extracurricular activities for students to join
• Keep schools small
• Keep students with the same teachers and/or peers across years
• Decrease transitions in and out of the classroom
• Facilitate transitions to new schools or teachers

She says  "In our race for a cure for breast cancer, we have ignored the overwhelming body of evidence that demonstrates a link between products from cosmetics to pesticides and breast cancer," McCormick says. "We must focus on prevention by demanding safer products, reducing our exposure to chemicals and urging our policymakers to ban cancer-causing chemicals in everyday products."

She also says "Women and girls should not have to check the ingredients in every stick of lipstick and each bottle of moisturizer. Better regulation to ensure that these products are safe would go a long way to reducing the incidence of breast cancer," McCormick says.

Breast cancer is also a common problem in India but awareness about it is very low. Awareness about chemicals in various substances is even lower. No government agency in India monitors the ingredients used in such products and there is also no law that requires manufacturers to state exactly what they put in these products. Only we as consumers, need to take care about what we use.

The book's website is at No Family History - a book and film about breast cancer

In the study, researchers worked with 50+ children between the ages of 14 and 18.  The study measured the time they spent sleeping and the quality of their sleep. The study also tracked the academic performance of these students. Those students who got high-quality sleep were found to have better grades at mathematics in particular and also in english and history.

Higher math scores were related to less night awakenings, less time spent in bed, and great sleep quality. Higher scores in English were associated with less nighttime awakenings. Increased delay in sleepinng during the weekends was related to worse academic performance.

The researchers at the Seattle Children's Research Institute tracked all the voices and conversations around the children in the study.  The researchers found that when the television was on, the child heard virtualy no words from the adult around them. Conversation is very important to speech and language development as that is how children learn to vocalize sounds and words and also understand how conversation leads to social interaction.  When this conversation does not exist, children do not learn these and it reflects itself in delayed development of speech and language.

In the study, the researchers found that every hour of additional TV exposure, resulted in a further delay in speech and language development.

The evidence about the dangers of television exposure to children keep mounting.