Growth Curve

The inexact science of raising kids

  1. Health & Medicine

    Evidence is lacking that ‘cocooning’ prevents whooping cough in newborns

    In general, vaccinating adults who come into close contact with newborns is a good idea, but the practice on its own may not keep whooping cough away.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Vaccinating pregnant women protects newborns from whooping cough

    Pregnant women who receive the pertussis, or whooping cough, vaccine pass on to their new-borns immunity to the potentially deadly bacterial infection.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Language heard, but never spoken, by young babies bestows a hidden benefit

    Adults who as babies heard but never spoke Korean benefited from their latent language knowledge decades later, a new study finds.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    For kids, daily juice probably won’t pack on the pounds

    An analysis of existing studies suggests that regular juice drinking isn’t linked to much weight gain in kids.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Don’t put greasy Q-tips up your kid’s nose, and other nosebleed advice

    Nosebleeds in children are common and usually nothing to fret about.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Touches early in life may make a big impact on newborn babies’ brains

    The type and amount of touches a newborn baby gets in the first days of life may shape later responses to touch perception, a study suggests.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    See how bacterial blood infections in young kids plummeted after vaccines

    Rates of pneumococcal bacteremia in children plummeted by 95 percent after the introduction of vaccines against Streptococcus bacteria.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Anesthesia for youngsters is a tricky calculation

    Scientists, doctors and parents face uncertainty when it comes to anesthesia for babies.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    A preschooler’s bubbly personality may rub off on friends

    Scientists caught personality shifts in preschoolers over a year by observing play.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Birth may not be a major microbe delivery event for babies

    A study of mother-baby duos suggests that birth itself may not be the main event for getting microbes in and on babies.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Little jet-setters get jet lag too

    Help young children fight jet lag with a few simple steps.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    A ban on screens in bedrooms may save kids’ sleep

    Screens are associated with worse sleep in kids, and not just because of their lights and noises.

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