Early monitoring for infant skin tumors needed

The rapid growth of reddish skin tumors called infantile hemangiomas requires close observation in the first months of life, according to a report in the journal Pediatrics. Treatment should be undertaken promptly.

Infantile hemangiomas are non-cancerous tumors that can grow rapidly during infancy, but usually resolve by 9 years of age. Hemangiomas are the most common tumors in infants and, aside from cosmetic concerns, most have no medical significance.

"Not all hemangiomas need treatment -- actually the majority does not -- but a significant minority does," Dr. Ilona J. Frieden told Reuters Health. "So the real message of our study is that patients with hemangiomas that are at high-risk for complication or need...treatment should be identified early and referred as soon as possible."

Frieden from the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues determined the specific growth characteristics of hemangiomas in 433 infants with a total of 526 hemangiomas.

"Eighty percent of hemangioma size was reached" by 5 months of age in most cases, the researchers report, and overall growth was nearly always completed by 9 months of age.

During the first 18 months of life, hemangiomas affecting only the upper layers of skin were more likely to start resolving, whereas deeper hemangiomas were more likely to continue growing.

Though parents noticed most hemangiomas within 1 month of age, the investigators say, the infants were 5 months of age, on average, when they were first taken to a dermatologist.

Most hemangiomas reached 80 percent of their maximum size by the tine the infants were 5 months old, suggesting that physicians need to start referring affected infants to specialists earlier in life, the authors conclude.

"One major reason for this is that current treatments work best when instituted early," Frieden said. "By 5 months of age the majority of growth is actually over and the opportunity to prevent complications in many cases has already passed."

SOURCE: Pediatrics, August 2008.

Poor Coordination in Childhood Tied to Adult Obesity

A lack of physical control and coordination in childhood may be tied to an increased risk of obesity in later life, a new study says.he research, published online at BMJ.com Wednesday, adds to previous studies that found poorer cognitive function in childhood may be linked to obesity and type 2 diabetes in adults.

The findings, based on 11,041 individuals in the ongoing National Child Development Study in Great Britain, showed that children who showed poor hand control, poor coordination, and clumsiness at age 7 in testing were more likely to be obese adults. Those with poorer functioning motor skills at age 11 also tended to be obese at age 33.

Adjusting for factors that may influence the results, such as childhood body mass and family social class, did not change the results. However, the study did not delve into specific biological processes that may explain poorer physical control and coordination in childhood with adult obesity.

"Some early life exposures (such as maternal smoking during pregnancy) or personal characteristics may impair the development of physical control and coordination, as well as increasing the risk of obesity in later life," the authors, from Imperial College London and Orebro University Hospital & Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, wrote.

"Rather than being explained by a single factor, an accumulation throughout life of many associated cultural, personal, and economic exposures is likely to underlie the risks for obesity and some elements of associated neurological function," they concluded.

Your Child Is Fat

School children across England will soon have their Body Mass Index (BMI) tested as part of a new effort to tackle the growing problem of childhood obesity. Parents will be sent a letter telling them whether their child is underweight, a healthy weight, overweight or very overweight. The letter will also include leaflets giving advice on eating healthily, physical activities their child might do and the risks of being overweight.So, are parents really failing to notice their little angels piling on the pounds? Yes, says the U.K.'s Department of Health. "Today, when more children are overweight compared with previous generations, it can be harder for parents to objectively identify if their child is overweight," says a spokeswoman from the Department of Health. "Research shows that most parents of overweight or obese children think that their child is a healthy weight. Some research showed that only 10% of parents with overweight or obese children described their child as overweight."

Still, it pays to break the news of a child's problem gently. Following the advice of numerous obesity experts, the Department of Health has decided that the name of the final, portliest category - very overweight - was a more sensible choice than obese. "Preliminary findings of the survey suggest that many people who would be defined clinically as obese find the use of the term obese highly offensive and would stop listening to further advice."

The softly-softly approach doesn't please everyone. "To shrink from using the word obesity is really ducking an issue," insists Dr Colin Waine, Chairman of the National Obesity Forum. "It does not have to be used in a judgmental or insulting way: if a child is obese then the parents should know that its obese. We must make parents know that the lifestyle of the family needs to be modified."

Statistics on childhood obesity in Britain make grim reading. Figures from 2006, the most recent numbers, show that nearly a third of all children aged between two and 15 are overweight or obese, an overall increase of 11% from 1995.

The U.K. childhood obesity rate is comparable to that in the U.S., where obesity in children aged between six and 11 has tripled over the past three decades, which may be why a few U.S. states already send reports on heavy kids home to parents. The College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley, published a paper in November 2006 describing the "risks and benefits of BMI reporting in the school setting", and in May 2007, Wyoming started a program in which students' report cards came complete with their BMI.

Some worry that such information should be given more discreetly: "Our feeling is that the information should be given to parents if there is a serious health concern much like any other health concern a child might have," said Meghan Cavanaugh, a spokeswoman at the Childhood Weight Control Program, the University of Buffalo. "This information should not be included on a report card or such. Medical information should be kept separate."

Based on current growth rates, obesity is predicted to cost the wider community of the U.K. around $100 billion a year by 2050, according to the Department of Health. "The Government must lead on action across society to tackle obesity. Engaging parents in this issue is essential to achieving success in instigating behavioral change."

Death From Febrile Seizure Rare in Children

Even in high-risk children, death from febrile (fever-linked) seizures is rare, say Danish researchers who analyzed data on 1.6 million children.Febrile seizure, a generalized convulsion caused by increased body temperature, affects 2 percent to 5 percent of children under age 5. About one-third of affected children have more than one seizure episode. Many parents fear their child is dying during a febrile seizure and are worried death may occur during subsequent seizures, according to background information in a news release about the study.

This study included almost 1,676,000 children born in Denmark between 1977 and 2004, who were followed from three months of age until death, emigration or Aug. 31, 2005. Among the children, there were a total of 8,172 deaths, including 232 deaths among the 55,215 children with a history of febrile seizure.

Overall, 132 per 100,000 children died within two years of a febrile seizure compared with 67 per 100,000 children without a history of the condition.

The duration of the fever episode seemed to matter, however. The death rate for children with simple febrile seizures (lasting less than 15 minutes and none recurring within 24 hours) was similar to that of children in the general population. In contrast, the death rate for children with complex febrile seizures (lasting longer than 15 minutes or recurring within 24 hours) was twice as high in the two years following the seizure than in the general population.

But the researchers emphasized that the overall risk of death among children with febrile seizures is small -- 2 deaths per 1,500 children, compared with 1 death per 1,500 children in the general population.

"Children with simple febrile seizures had a risk of death similar to the background population, whereas those with complex febrile seizures, febrile seizures triggered by a temperature below 39 degrees C, and febrile seizures occurring before 12 months of age had a twofold higher mortality lasting for about two years. The excess mortality was at least partly due to pre-existing neurological abnormalities and subsequent epilepsy ... Parents should be reassured that death after febrile seizures is very rare, even in high-risk children," the researchers concluded.

The study was published in this week's issue of The Lancet.

Robot Playmates Help Autistic Kids With Social Skills

Many children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) interact more easily with mechanical devices than with humans, according to new reports. Researchers at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, who have presented their finding at various conferences in the United States and in Europe this summer, found that Socially Assisted Robotics (SAR) that blow bubbles, toot horns and even make facial expressions appear to increase the child's speech and interaction levels.

"I am gratified by these preliminary results," Maja Mataric, a professor at the USC Interaction Laboratory, said in a news releases issued by the university. "I believe that Socially Assistive Robotics has a part to play in helping families, both the affected children and their parents and siblings."

The initial study, reported in a June Conference on Interaction Design for Children with Special Needs in Chicago, paired an ASD child with a colorful bubble-blowing wheeled robot that either operated on its own or blew bubbles when the child pushed a button.

"We found that the behavior of the robot affects the social behavior of a child (both human-human interaction and human-robot interaction): social behavior with a contingent robot was greater than with a random robot," the report stated.

"Generally, when the robot was acting contingently, the child was more sociable," the authors wrote.

Two other presentations -- made at the International Symposium on Experimental Robotics in Athens, Greece, in July, and at the IEEE Proceedings of the International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication -- discuss these results and efforts to make the robots flexible and useful tools in ASD therapy.

Men More Likely Than Women to Adopt Children

American men ages 18 to 44 are more than twice as likely as women in the same age group to have adopted a child, a new federal report says.The report uses data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, which showed that more than 1.2 million men and 613,000 women had adopted children. The exact reasons why more men adopt than women aren't outlined in the report, but it may be partly due to men getting married and adopting their spouse's children from a previous relationship, the report said.

The report found that:

* Among people who've ever been married, men were more than 2.5 times as likely as women to have adopted -- 3.8 percent vs. 1.4 percent. Overall, 2.3 percent of all men had adopted a child.
* More than one in four women ages 40 to 44 who had ever used infertility services had adopted a child.
* Never-married adults ages 18 to 44 were significantly less likely to have adopted a child compared to those who were currently married. About 100,000 never-married women and 73,000 never-married men had adopted a child.
* Compared with non-Hispanic white women, Hispanic and non-Hispanic black women were more likely to be currently seeking to adopt a child.

The report was released Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center on Health Statistics.

Detecting False Labor

You should speak with your doctor if you're concerned about the possibility that you've gone into labor, or whether you're experiencing a false alarm called "false labor," the American Pregnancy Association says.

The association offers this information that can help you decide whether a trip to the hospital is in order:

* False labor contractions occur at irregular, unpredictable intervals.
* False labor contractions are variable in duration and intensity, while true contractions last at least 30 seconds and become progressively longer.
* False labor contractions often stop no matter what you are doing, while true contractions continue during any activity.
* True labor pains start high in the abdomen, extend to the lower abdomen and around to the lower back. False labor pains, on the other hand, are usually concentrated in the lower abdomen and groin.