Paediatrics

Exclusion criteria used by crèches and childcare facilities when children are ill are likely to result in unnecessary GP visits and antibiotic prescribing that has little clinical benefit, a new UK study has revealed.

Maternal immunisation against influenza during pregnancy may confer protection against infection in infants for only a limited period during early life, perhaps just the first eight weeks after a baby is born.

Paid parental leave has been found to be linked to a lower rate of admission of children to hospital for head injury, according to research published in the journal Injury Prevention.

If Ireland had compliance with folic acid supplementation — if every woman took it for three months before she became pregnant — it is estimated that two-thirds of cases of neural tube defects would be prevented, Gary Culliton reports in his latest Clinical Update.

To tie in with National Breastfeeding Week, Dr Neville Wilson of the Leinster Clinic in Maynooth examines the low-risk procedure of frenotomy, and how it may improve breastfeeding.

Babies born very premature or severely underweight are at heightened risk of becoming introverted, neurotic, and risk averse as adults, indicates research published online in the Archives of Disease in Childhood (Fetal & Neonatal Edition).

An analysis of a major integrated primary healthcare programme in Mexico has shown that significant reductions in mortality rates may be explained by both changes in incidence rates and changes in case fatality rates associated with early detection and treatment.

Pilot studies in UK and Australian primary schools has suggested that the introduction of so-called ‘sit-to-stand desks’ appears to be an effective way of reducing classroom sitting and tackling children’s sedentary behaviour.

Following implementation of rotavirus vaccination in 2006, all-cause acute gastroenteritis hospitalisation rates among US children younger than five years of age declined by 31 per cent – 55 per cent in each of the post-vaccine years from 2008 through 2012, according to a study in the June 9 issue of JAMA.

The survival of premature newborns in England is 30 per cent higher in specialist units treating large numbers of neonates, reveals an analysis of national data published in the online journal BMJ Open.