Pediatric Research Podcast

Senior Investigator: Conversation with Alistair Gunn

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 19:03:47 GMT

This episode features a conversation with Professor Alistair Gunn at the University of Aukland, about his pivotal role in the preclinical development of therapeutic hypothermia as a treatment for hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy and its subsequent translation into routine care.

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Special Episode on Social Media Use for Researchers

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 18:55:58 GMT

In this special episode, Geoff Marsh speaks to Pediatric Research's social media editors Damian Roland and Kikelomo Babata about how researchers can and should harness social media to increase the impact of their research.

Transforming academic medicine through social media: why isn’t it working for me?

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December 2025: Collection on Neonatal Resuscitation

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 20:35:38 GMT

In this episode, Geoff Marsh speaks to Dr. Satyan Lakshminrusimha about our Collection on Neonatal Resuscitation.

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October 2025: Collection on Epilepsy and Seizures

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 21:06:11 GMT

In this episode, Geoff Marsh speaks to Dr. Steven Miller about our Collection on Epilepsy and Seizures.

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September 2025: What's hot in pediatric AI research?

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 19:15:14 GMT

Listen to September's Pediapod episode: What's hot in pediatric AI research, with Brynne Sullivan.

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August 2025: Senior Investigator: Conversation with Bonnie Ramsey

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 14:17:42 GMT

This episode features a conversation with Professor Bonnie Ramsey, a pediatric pulmonologist from Seattle Children's, who has dedicated her research and clinical career to treating patients with cystic fibrosis.

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July 2025: ECI Katie Strobel

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 13:32:20 GMT

Listen to July's Pediapod episode with ECI Katie Strobel, discussing her recent paper looking into the effect of early antibiotic exposure on necrotizing enterocolitis and growth in extremely preterm infants.

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June 2025: What's hot in pediatric genetics?

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 19:28:04 GMT

Listen to June's Pediapod episode: What's hot in pediatric genetics research, with Stephen Kingsmore

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May 2025: Collection on Necrotizing Enterocolitis

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 15:32:48 GMT

In this episode, Geoff Marsh speaks to Dr. Misty Good about our Collection on Necrotizing Enterocolitis.

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April 2025: Senior Investigator: Conversation with Avroy Fanaroff

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 17:42:14 GMT

This episode features a conversation with Senior Investigator Avroy Fanaroff, Emeritus Professor at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, who has had a long and impactful career in neonatology.

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March 2025: What's hot in pediatric sepsis?

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 14:26:01 GMT

Listen to March's Pediapod episode: What's hot in pediatric sepsis research, with Sarah Kandil and Eleanor Molloy.

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Conversation With Senior Investigator Karin Nelson.

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 18:59:12 GMT

Listen to January's Pediapod episode: Conversation With Senior Investigator Karin Nelson

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December 2024: What's hot in pediatric microbiome research?

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 21:32:30 GMT

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November 2024: What's hot in Pediatric Oncology?

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 19:52:17 GMT

Listen to November's Pediapod episode: What's hot in Pediatric Oncology? with Jeffrey Dome

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Senior Investigator: Conversation with Michael DeBaun

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 17:56:34 GMT

This episode features a conversation with Senior Investigator Michael DeBaun, Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who has had a long career investigating the causes of and treatments for sickle cell anemia, and advocating for children and adults with this condition across the globe.

You can access his Vanderbilt page here: Michael R. DeBaun, MD, MPH | Department of Pediatrics

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Collection on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 19:06:31 GMT

In this episode, Geoff Marsh speaks to Dr. Stephanie Ford about our Collection on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.

Read the collection here: https://www.nature.com/collections/fccidiefbi

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August/Senior Investigator: Conversation with Tina Cheng

Fri, 30 Aug 2024 15:25:17 GMT

This episode features a conversation with Senior Investigator Tina Cheng, who has held several leadership positions over her career, including her current roles as Chair of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati, and Director of the Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation. Her clinical work and research work have had a long and lasting impact on child health disparities and health equity.

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What's hot in stem cells and regenerative biology?

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 18:50:51 GMT

Listen to July's Pediapod episode: What's hot in stem cells and regenerative biology? with Atul Malhotra.

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June/Senior Investigator: Conversation with Richard Jackson

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 14:42:49 GMT

This month features a conversation with Senior Investigator, Professor Richard Jackson, who’s had an extensive career in Public Health. Now Professor Emeritus at the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, Richard has served in many leadership positions including nine years as Director of the CDC's National Centre for Environmental Health.

Our conversation covered a wide range of topics affecting children's health, from pesticides to urban planning to gun violence, testament to his rich and varied career.

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Collection on neonatal encephalopathy and hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 19:11:43 GMT

In this episode, listen to our editorial apprentice, Dr. Eric Peeples describe the scope and importance of our collection on neonatal encephalopathy and hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.

Visit the collection here: Neonatal Encephalopathy and Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (nature.com)

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What's hot in Endocrinology?

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 14:44:30 GMT

In this episode of Pediapod, Section Editor Jeanie Tryggestad discusses the most recent advances in the field of Pediatric Endocrinology.

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Conversation With Pediatric Researchers Cynthia Bearer and Eleanor Molloy

Fri, 22 Mar 2024 13:58:06 GMT

Pediatric researchers Cynthia Bearer and Eleanor Molloy join podcast host Geoff Marsh to give an update on plans for the podcast and to offer some sage advice for Early Career Investigators.

Find more Pediapod episodes here: https://www.nature.com/collections/fcbjjbchaa

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Conversation with Linda de Vries

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 17:12:37 GMT

This episode involves a conversation with senior investigator Linda de Vries, who has had a large and lasting effect in the world of pediatric research.

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Global climate change: the defining issue of our time for our children’s health

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 21:22:47 GMT

The United Nations recently stated that “climate change is the defining issue of our time, and we are at a defining moment” (https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/climate-change). This statement ended the political debate about the role of human activities in climate change. Global climate change is happening and it will have a profound effect on our children.

Listen and learn from Dr. Kari Nadeau the Chair of Environmental Health from Harvard School of Public Health and one of the guest editors of Pediatric Research's special issue on climate change.

Read Dr. Nadeau's editorial here: Global climate change: the defining issue of our time for our children’s health | Pediatric Research (nature.com)

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Predicting functional and quality-of-life outcomes following pediatric sepsis.

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 16:18:22 GMT

Illness severity scores are commonly used for mortality prediction and risk stratification in pediatric critical care research. However, as mortality has steadily declined in the pediatric intensive care unit there has been increasing attention given to evaluating non-mortality outcomes in survivors.

In this episode we meet Early Career Investigator Elizabeth Killien from Seattle Children's Hospital. In order to evaluate the ability of two commonly used illness severity scores to predict morbidity outcomes, she performed a secondary analysis of the Life After Pediatric Sepsis Evaluation (LAPSE) multicenter longitudinal cohort study of functional and health-related quality of life outcomes among survivors of septic shock.

Read the full article here: Predicting functional and quality-of-life outcomes following pediatric sepsis: performance of PRISM-III and PELOD-2 | Pediatric Research (nature.com)

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Conversation with Dr. Maximo Vento

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 20:24:08 GMT

This episode, along with a few more to come, involves a conversation with a senior investigator who has had a large and lasting effect in the world of pediatric research. The Early Career Investigator episodes will still be coming once a month, but hopefully this will add a bit of variety to the Pediapod feed and shine a light on some of the pioneers who have helped shape the face of modern Pediatrics. This episode features Dr. Max Vento.

Read Max Vento's biocommentary here: www.nature.com/documents/Max_Vento_Biocommentary.pdf

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The association of placental pathology and neurodevelopmental outcomes in patients with neonatal encephalopathy

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 20:39:17 GMT

Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy (HIE), a subset of neonatal encephalopathy, is the most common neurological condition in term born infants. It is known that a range of acute and chronic placental pathologies are more common in infants with HIE. However little is known about how differences in utero-placental function might contribute to varied outcomes in these infants.

In this episode of Pediapod, we speak to Early Career Investigator Dr. Jeffrey Russ from Duke University Medical Center, who retrospectively analyzed whether acute versus chronic placental pathology were differentially associated with outcomes in patients with presumed HIE.

Read the full study here: The association of placental pathology and neurodevelopmental outcomes in patients with neonatal encephalopathy | Pediatric Research (nature.com)

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Do Bayley trajectories predict school-readiness better than single assessments in formerly very preterm infants?

Mon, 23 Oct 2023 14:35:13 GMT

The development of children born very preterm is most often evaluated using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. These single assessments are routinely used as outcome measures for neonatal interventions or as a means of prognosis. However, early Bayley scores may not accurately predict later outcomes.

In this episode of Pediapod, we speak to Dr. Mary Lauren Neel from Emory University who, along with her team, set up a study to determine whether Bayley-III score trajectories measured at multiple timepoints in children born very preterm, predicted school readiness at age 5, better than a single assessment.

Read the full study here: Bayley trajectories predict school readiness better than single assessments in formerly very preterm preschoolers | Pediatric Research (nature.com)

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Novel metrics to characterise the temporal lobe of very preterm infants.

Mon, 11 Sep 2023 14:26:47 GMT

The temporal facilitates many complex neurological processes. Alterations to these processes are known to correlate with specific functional deficits commonly found in preterm-born children at and beyond school age. However, as yet there is not an objective, validated method to assess the temporal lobe structure or size in very preterm infants.

In this episode of Pediapod, I speak to neonatologist and this month's highlighted Early Career Investigator, Katherine Bell, from the Brigham and Women's hospital, Boston who developed a new method for quantifying temporal lobe size in very preterm infants at term equivalent age using simple metrics performed on brain MRI.

Read the full study here: Novel metrics to characterize temporal lobe of very preterm infants on term-equivalent brain MRI | Pediatric Research (nature.com)

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Trends in fetal and neonatal outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 14:05:18 GMT

The COVID-19 pandemic severely affected health and healthcare systems worldwide and could have resulted in changes in fetal and neonatal outcomes.

In this episode, we speak to Early Career Investigator, Vivek Shukla from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Using machine learning techniques, he performed a population-based study to identify changes in fetal and neonatal outcomes during the initial and delta COVID-19 pandemic period as compared to the baseline period.

Listen to the full study here: Trends in fetal and neonatal outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic in Alabama | Pediatric Research (nature.com)

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The transition to telemedicine in pediatric primary care during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 15:17:30 GMT

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of telemedicine was limited in pediatric primary care. Then, in 2020 it increased exponentially. However, early COVID-19 reports described inequities in telemedicine use across multiple specialties.

In this episode, we meet Early Career Investigator, Kelsey Schweiberger from the University of Pittsburgh. In a recent paper, she describes the factors associated with scheduling and attendance of telemedicine appointments for pediatric primary care throughout the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic to identify priorities for enhanced equity in access.

Read the full paper here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-023-02481-w

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Cardiorespiratory signature of neonatal sepsis

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 15:39:44 GMT

Heart rate characteristics and demographic factors have long been used to aid early detection of late-onset sepsis, however respiratory data may contain additional signatures of infection.

In this episode we meet Early Career Investigator Brynne Sullivan from the University of Virginia. She and her team developed machine learning models to predict late-onset sepsis that were trained on heart rate and respiratory data to provide a cardiorespiratory early warning system which outperformed models using heart rate or demographics alone.

Read the full article here: Cardiorespiratory signature of neonatal sepsis: development and validation of prediction models in 3 NICUs | Pediatric Research

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BMI trajectories and BPD among very preterm infants

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 14:49:18 GMT

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is the most common morbidity among very preterm infants.

Commonly, nutritional interventions are focused on achieving optimal body weight gain. However, very preterm infants with evolving lung disease often experience disproportionate growth in the neonatal period, which may contribute to the odds of developing BPD.

In this episode of Pediapod, we speak to Early Career Investigator Marc Beltempo from McGill University, Montréal, Canada who has investigated the link between change in body mass index and evolving BPD in very preterm infants.

Read the full study here: The association between BMI trajectories and bronchopulmonary dysplasia among very preterm infants | Pediatric Research (nature.com)

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March: Cardiovascular outcomes in children with Kawasaki disease

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 16:18:13 GMT

Kawasaki disease is a common childhood vasculitis and its global incidence appears to be increasing. Although this disease is self-limiting, the associated vasculopathy can cause cardiovascular complications.

In this episode of Pediapod, we meet Early Career Investigator Cal Robinson at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada who performed a population-based cohort study using Ontario health administrative databases to determine the risk of cardiovascular events and mortality after Kawasaki disease.

Read the full study here: Cardiovascular outcomes in children with Kawasaki disease: a population-based cohort study | Pediatric Research (nature.com)

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February: Pharamcogenetic profiling in children with medical complexity

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 16:23:27 GMT

Children with medical complexity typically require multiple medications throughout the course of their treatment. These individuals also increasingly undergo genome-wide testing early in life as a diagnostic test.

Since many medications prescribed to children have established gene-drug interactions, could this genetic data be repurposed to aid precision prescribing in this priority pediatric population?

In today's Pediapod, we meet Early Career Investigator, Gregory Costain, a physician scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada who recently published a retrospective study which looked at this question.

Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-022-02313-3

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Sex-specific effects of prenatal opioid exposure

Fri, 27 Jan 2023 16:48:26 GMT

Neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NOWS) represents a major public health problem in the US with a high socioeconomic burden. The pathophysiology of this condition is not yet fully understood. Data from animal models have shown that opioids modulate brain reward signalling via an inflammatory cascade, however no such data exist for opioid-exposed neonates.

In this episode of Pediapod we meet Early Career Investigator Elizabeth Yen, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine. She recently published a pilot study which looked at the effects of prenatal opioid exposure on gene expression and white matter injury.

Read the full study here: Sex-specific inflammatory and white matter effects of prenatal opioid exposure: a pilot study | Pediatric Research (nature.com)

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Barriers to finding a genetic diagnosis for children with rare disease.

Tue, 27 Dec 2022 15:31:10 GMT

Rare diseases affect millions of people in the USA. However, access to subspecialty care is not distributed equitably and there may be other barriers to clinic attendance. Furthermore, once established within the genetics clinic, families may still face barriers along the path to getting a molecular diagnosis.

In this episode, we meet Early Career Investigator, Monica Wojcik, a neonatologist and geneticist at Boston Children's Hospital who ran a study to determine the influence of social determinants of health on the care-cascade following referral to a high-volume pediatric outpatient genetics clinic.

Read the full study here: Rare diseases, common barriers: disparities in pediatric clinical genetics outcomes | Pediatric Research (nature.com)

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Neutrophil function in pediatric lupus.

Mon, 28 Nov 2022 15:22:16 GMT

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) causes significant long-term morbidity and mortality, particularly in children. There is some evidence that the innate immune system, in particular neutrophil activity, can be compromised in adult-onset lupus. Yet there is a paucity of data on neutrophil activity in pediatric SLE.

This month on Pediapod, we join Early Career Investigator, Rakesh Kumar Pilania, an assistant professor at the postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, India to discuss his study of neutrophil activity in patients with pediatric SLE and what it reveals about the etiology of this condition.

Read the full study here. Pediatric systemic lupus erythematosus: phagocytic defect and oxidase activity of neutrophils | Pediatric Research (nature.com)

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The social epidemiology of adolescent problematic screen use.

Mon, 24 Oct 2022 20:22:54 GMT

95% of adolescents in the US have access to a smartphone and 45% report being online "almost constantly". Beyond the general time spent on screens, the control over usage and the interference into other activities are also important considerations and could reflect problematic screen use.

This week on Pediapod, we meet Early Career Investigator, Professor Jason Nagata from the University of California, San Francisco to discuss his recent study of the sociodemographic correlates of problematic screen use.

Read the full article here: Social epidemiology of early adolescent problematic screen use in the United States | Pediatric Research (nature.com)

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How neonatologists' views on the Baby Doe regulations have changed over time.

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 15:49:54 GMT

The Baby Doe Regulations, which regulate the provision of life-sustaining treatment to seriously ill neonates, caused a stir amongst neonatologists when they were first enacted in the 1980s. The fear at the time was that they would restrict their ability to provide optimal care to seriously ill patients by mandating the use of aggressive treatments in all but futile cases, irrespective of a patient's quality of life.

In this episode, we meet Early Career Investigator Katherine Guttman from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai, New York. She tells us about her study which aimed to assess contemporary neonatologists' perceptions of the Baby Doe Regulations and to compare them to the views of neonatologists when they were first enacted.

Read the full study here.

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Placental transfusion during neonatal resuscitation in a preterm model

Tue, 23 Aug 2022 13:55:20 GMT

For depressed preterm neonates, initiating positive pressure ventilation is the most important factor in facilitating transition. Therefore the recommendation for depressed neonates is to immediately cut the umbilical cord and begin resuscitation. However, many studies have shown that delaying the clamping of the umbilical cord also benefits preterm infants by increasing a neonate's blood volume, oxygenation and circulatory stabilisation, thus aiding transition.

In this episode, we meet Early Career Investigator, Praveen Chandrasekharan from the State University of New York. He has used an asphyxiated preterm ovine model to ascertain the best practice of placental transfusion in a depressed neonate requiring resuscitation.

Read the full article here. Placental transfusion during neonatal resuscitation in an asphyxiated preterm model | Pediatric Research (nature.com)

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Severe intraventricular hemorrhage in a rabbit model of prematurity

Tue, 02 Aug 2022 14:25:07 GMT

Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) occurs in around 45% of infants born below 26 weeks gestational age, causing significant lifelong morbidity and mortality. However, there is currently no effective treatment. In part, this is due to the lack of well-characterised representative preterm animal models with long-term follow up.

In this episode, we meet our highlighted Early Career Investigator Olga Romantsik, from Lund University in Sweden. She and her team used an established preterm rabbit pup model of IVH to analyse neurobehavioral and neuropathological outcomes, to one month of age.

Read the full article here.

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Maternal early exposure to violence, psychopathology, and child adaptive functioning

Tue, 05 Jul 2022 19:39:11 GMT

A recent study reported that 53% of mothers reported exposure to violence when they were children. And there is evidence that these experiences negatively impact the health and development of their offspring later on. Associations between maternal exposure to violence, psychopathology and children's mental health outcomes is well documented. However, the pre- and postnatal programming pathways between early exposure to violence, maternal psychopathology and children's cognitive and developmental milestones remain understudied.

In this episode, we meet Dr Dillon Browne, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor in psychology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He wanted to know if and how maternal early exposure to violence influences the developmental trajectories of children across the first four years of life.

Read the full article here.

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April: miRNA expression in the pediatric dilated cardiomyopathy heart

Wed, 25 May 2022 20:28:15 GMT

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a rare but serious condition of children and often progresses to heart failure. The outcomes for children with DCM are poor, with 50% of pediatric patients dying or needing a heart transplant within 5 years of diagnosis.

In this episode, Geoff Marsh meets professor Carmen Sucharov from the University of Colorado Anschutz campus and the director of the Pediatric Cardiology Research Laboratories. She and her team have been studying the regulation of micro-RNAs and their putative target genes in the pediatric DCM heart that may contribute to the distinctive phenotype of this disease in children.

Read the article here.

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The fetal immune response to maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection

Tue, 19 Apr 2022 20:57:53 GMT

Thousands of women have been infected with SARS-CoV2 during the COVID-19 pandemic. While very few of these infections have been shown to transmit vertically from mother to offspring, it remains unclear what effect, if any, a mother's SARS-CoV2 infection has on fetal development.

In this episode, we interview Dr Brian Kalish from the University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children, to discuss a study he set up looking into this question by characterizing the composition and cell-type specific translational landscape of umbilical cord blood mononuclear cells.

Read the study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-021-01793-z

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Whole-exome sequencing of epilepsy after acute symptomatic neonatal seizures

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 15:06:41 GMT

Twenty-five percent of children who survive acute symptomatic seizures as neonates go on to develop epilepsy. Whilst there are several known risk factors, currently not enough is known about the mechanisms behind the development of epilepsy following neonatal brain injury, and thus it is not yet possible to reliably predict the individual risk of developing this disease in this group of patients.

In this episode, we speak to Adam Numis from UC San Francisco. He and his team used whole exome sequencing with targeted gene analysis to look for genetic risk factors for developing epilepsy following acute neonatal seizures, and to identify potential biological processes behind this epileptogenesis. Read the study here.

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New technique for estimating respiratory rates in preterm infants

Mon, 31 Jan 2022 16:51:05 GMT

Most very preterm infants experience apneas of prematurity. It is a common comorbidity of prematurity, and therefore reliable real-time monitoring of respiratory rates is key in these infants. The conventionalmethod is to use chest impedance measured with electrodes on the surface of the thorax. However, this method is known to be unreliable, as it is prone to motion artifacts. For this reason, indirect measurements such as oxygen desaturation or bradycardia are often necessary to identify apneas. In this episode, we meet this month's featured Early Career Investigator, Dr. Kerstin Jost at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. She describes a recent study of a novel technique using a commercially available nasogastric feeding tube that measures esophageal signals and uses customized software to identify the respiratory rate of non-ventilated preterm infants. Listen in!

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Associations of media use and early childhood development: cross-sectional findings from the LIFE Child study

Fri, 10 Dec 2021 05:00:00 GMT

There is a growing body of evidence showing that excessive early media use is detrimental to children's physical and mental health. As such, the World Health Organization guidelines suggest that screen time for infants should be limited to a maximum of one hour per day. However, with the growing ubiquity of digital media, it is thought that preschoolers are exposed to more than two hours of screen time. With the rapidly changing nature of digital media use, it is not yet clear how this is affecting different aspects of early childhood development. The evidence to date has been increasingly mixed.

In this episode, we speak to medical student Clarissa Schwarzer who is doing her doctoral thesis on early childhood development and media use by children and mothers at the Leipzig Research Center for Civilization Diseases.

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Early Career Investigator Spotlight: Matthew W. Harer

Thu, 18 Nov 2021 19:26:24 GMT

Caffeine administration has been associated with reduced rates of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) in preterm neonates but the effect of caffeine on renal oxygenation is unknown.

In this episode, we meet this month's highlighted Early Career Investigator, Dr. Matthew Harer from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He has been investigating the potential use of Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS), a non-invasive means of continuously measuring tissue oxygenation to assess the effects of caffeine on renal oxygenation, in the hope that caffeine might one day be used to prevent and even treat AKI.

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SARS-CoV-2 vaccine testing and trials in the pediatric population: biologic, ethical, research, and implementation challenges

Fri, 29 Oct 2021 21:31:20 GMT

Early on in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the majority of infected children were either asymptomatic or had mild COVID-19 disease, prompting many to demand a higher acceptable risk threshold for pediatric vaccines. More recently, as children begin to make up a larger proportion of the infected population and following evidence of the mental and physical toll exacted by the pandemic on children, a pediatric vaccine is now more pressing. But challenges to widespread vaccine uptake remain. In this episode meet Dr. Chulie Ulloa from the University of California Irvine about a recent commentary she wrote with fellow pediatric providers, physician scientists and advocates for children about these challenges and how they might be overcome.

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Juvenile idiopathic arthritis: lymphocyte activation gene-3 is a central immune receptor in children with oligoarticular subtypes

Mon, 13 Sep 2021 20:05:17 GMT

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is one of the most common inflammatory joint diseases in children. Previous studies have shown that in the oligoarticular subtype of this disease, T cells play a central role in pathogenesis. T cell inhibitory receptors (IRs) seem to play an important role in the development of tolerance and recognition of self and non-self antigens. Ligands binding to these IRs inhibit T cell function and modulate the course of the immune response. In this episode, we meet this month's highlighted Early Career Investigator Erdal Sag, a paediatric rheumatologist at Ankara Training and Research Hospital in Turkey. He and his team designed an ex vivo disease model to examine the effects of different co-inhibitory receptors on the pathogenesis of oligoarticular JIA.

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Chorioamnionitis induces changes in ovine pulmonary endogenous epithelial stem/progenitor cells in utero

Tue, 31 Aug 2021 04:00:00 GMT

Chorioamnionitis is an intrauterine infection of the placenta and fetal membranes. It is the leading cause of preterm delivery and is a common risk factor for adverse pulmonary outcomes such as bronchopulmonary dysplasia. There is evidence to suggest that the first negative impacts on pulmonary development occur in utero in the presence of chorioamnionitis. In this episode, we meet assistant professors Niki Reynaert and Tim Wolfs from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Together they studied an ovine model of chorioamnionitis in order to study the effects of chronic and acute inflammation on the developing lungs.

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Marc Beltempo – Early Career Investigator Highlight

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 04:00:00 GMT

Previous studies have shown an association between fluid retention during the early postnatal period and increased BPD. However, these studies were performed nearly two decades ago meaning their results may not apply to the contemporary NICU setting, with its widespread use of surfactants and modern incubators. In this episode we meet this month's featured Early Career Investigator Marc Beltempo from McGill University and the Montreal Children's Hospital in Canada, who has revisited this important question.

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Calcium-sensing receptor and CPAP-induced neonatal airway hyper reactivity in mice

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 04:00:00 GMT

Respiratory support plays a crucial role in the care of preterm infants in the NICU, ensuring that they get enough oxygen during this critical period of development. But it is becoming increasingly clear that former preterm infants who have been exposed to ventilatory support are at an increased risk of developing asthma and other respiratory disorders. In this episode, we speak to Peter Macfarlane, an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Rainbow Babies and Children's hospital. He and his team have developed a mouse model to study the effects of CPAP in combination with supplemental oxygen on lung function.

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The utility of the fronto-temporal horn ratio on cranial ultrasound in premature newborns: a ventriculomegaly marker

Fri, 21 May 2021 04:00:00 GMT

Extremely preterm infants are at a high risk for brain injury, and this risk is most severe in children with intraventricular hemorrhage followed by post-hemorrhagic ventricular dilation. Bedside cranial ultrasound allows clinicians to identify the progressive dilation of the lateral ventricles, however, there is currently no consensus on how to quantitatively estimate this dilation and at what point to intervene. In this episode, we meet this month's highlighted Early Career Investigator, Dr. Rawad Obeid, a pediatric neurologist at the Oakland University School of Medicine. He and his team investigated a new parameter for estimating lateral ventricular dilation called the frontal-temporal horn ratio, in an effort to define normative values and to correlate this parameter with white matter injury at term-age equivalent.

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Impact of integrated clinical decision support systems in the management of pediatric acute kidney injury: a pilot study

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 05:00:00 GMT

Acute kidney injury (AKI) causes significant morbidity and mortality in children, including prolonged hospital stays, increased risk of in-hospital death and future risk of hypertension and progression to chronic kidney disease. Whilst it is quite common, it often goes unrecognized, especially outside of the critical care setting. In this episode, Geoff Marsh speaks to Dr. Shina Menon, a pediatric nephrologist at Seattle Children's Hospital, who performed a pilot study which evaluated the utility of an e-alert system to alert care providers that a patient had AKI, in conjunction with a care bundle which offered simple guidelines to help with their management.

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Autonomic development in preterm infants is associated with morbidity of prematurity

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 10:16:00 GMT

The latter half of gestation and early neonatal life are critical periods for the maturation of the autonomic nervous system. Premature infants are born with underdeveloped autonomic maturation and must undergo their developmental changes in a vastly different setting to the natural, in utero environment. A number of studies have shown autonomic dysmaturation in premature infants, although these have mainly looked at cohorts of children from high-morbidity NICUs. In this episode, Geoff Marsh talks to Dr. Sarah Mulkey, a fetal neonatal neurologist at Children's National Hospital in Washington DC, who tracked the sympathetic and parasympathetic maturation of a cohort of preterm infants with low medical morbidity in a large community NICU, to assess how birth gestational age affected their autonomic maturation.

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Early pediatric chronic kidney disease is associated with brain volumetric gray matter abnormalities

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 05:00:00 GMT

Pediatric chronic kidney disease (pCKD) results in a life-long burden that requires routine care. Neurocognitive dysfunction, specifically impairment on tasks of executive function, is a well-established comorbidity but there is a paucity of data exploring the neurobiology of these cognitive deficits. In this episode, we meet early career investigator, Dr Lyndsay Harshman, a pediatric nephrologist at the University of Iowa's Stead Family Children's hospital, who compared the brain morphometry between early stage pCKD children and their typically developing peers, and linked this brain morphometry with disease status and performance on neurocognitive assessments.

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Perspectives from the Society for Pediatric Research. Neonatal encephalopathy clinical trials: developing the future

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 05:00:00 GMT

Therapeutic Hypothermia has long been the standard of care for infants with moderate to severe neonatal encephalopathy. However, the future of treatment for neonatal encephalopathy (NE) will focus on hypothermia adjuvant therapies. There needs to be a rethink in how future NE clinical trials are designed and analyzed, according to a multi-disciplinary expert panel who met at the 'Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy Symposium: Developing the Future'. In this episode we meet Dr. Kristen Benninger, a neonatologist at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus Ohio who wrote up the panel's summary.

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Pediatric pulmonary hypertension: insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 2 is a novel marker associated with disease severity and survival

Tue, 24 Nov 2020 05:00:00 GMT

Pediatric Pulmonary hypertension (PAH) is a heterogeneous disease, characterized by sustained elevation of pulmonary arterial pressures and death from right ventricular failure. Given the extremely high burden of morbidity and mortality associated with this disease, and the risk of the invasive procedures required for diagnostics, novel biomarkers for this disease would be beneficial. In this episode, we meet Early Career Investigator, Dr. Megan Griffiths from Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, who examined two candidate IGF axis proteins as potential predictors of PAH severity.

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Rapid exome sequencing in PICU patients with new-onset metabolic or neurological disorders.

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 18:31:04 GMT

Effective decision making in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit relies on quickly ascertaining diagnostic information in order to deliver a tailored clinical response. The utility of rapid genetic testing of critically ill patients has been demonstrated several times, owing to their relatively high diagnostic yield. However the cost and slow turnaround of results have been major barriers in the past to the widespread uptake of this technology in the clinical setting. In this episode, we meet Professor Steve Kernie from Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Morgan Stanley Children's hospital, who conducted a pilot study to assess what impact the use of rapid exome sequencing would have on the length of stay of a subset of children admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Have a listen!

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Child tobacco smoke exposure and healthcare resource utilization patterns.

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 14:30:44 GMT

Smoking in adults and adolescents is at an all-time low today, yet around 1 in 2 children who visit the Emergency Department have been exposed to tobacco smoke. We know that there numerous health consequences associated with tobacco smoke exposure (TSE), and that this also comes at a substantial monetary cost- in 2010, child tobacco smoke exposure resulted in more than 101,570 annual ED visits, costing nearly $63 million. In this episode, we meet Early Career Investigator, Ashley Merianos from the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, who performed a cross-sectional analysis of children visiting the ED in order to assess the contribution of child TSE on healthcare resource utilization patterns.

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A pilot study exploring interventions for physician distress in pediatric subspecialists.

Thu, 27 Aug 2020 16:00:50 GMT

Institutions and healthcare systems had started to introduce wellness initiatives following the growing realization of the widespread problem of physician distress and burnout. Whilst these programs might be effective, there is currently a lack of evidence about who uses them and whether they are best suited to their target audience. In this episode, we meet Dr. Andrea Weintraub from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who conducted a cross-sectional national survey amongst different pediatric subspecialties to find out which initiatives were available, whether people knew about them or used them, and to better understand what initiatives pediatricians would like to see made available.

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Continuous glucose monitoring profile during therapeutic hypothermia in encephalopathic infants with unfavorable outcome

Thu, 23 Jul 2020 15:20:06 GMT

40% of infants with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) go on to develop long-term disability, despite receiving therapeutic hypothermia. Mounting evidence suggests that children with HIE are at a higher risk of both hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, which may explain the variable outcomes to therapeutic hypothermia. In this episode, we meet this month's featured Early Career Investigator Dr. Paolo Montaldo, from Imperial College London, UK and the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Italy who used continuous glucose monitoring to assess the association between neonatal glucose control and neurological outcomes at 18-24 months. Related Article.

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Prevalence and stability of insufficient sleep measured by actigraphy: a prospective community study

Tue, 16 Jun 2020 05:46:52 GMT

There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that insufficient sleep can have detrimental effects on school-age children's cognitive, emotional and behavioral regulation. But there remains a lack of objectively measured data on the stability and prevalence of insufficient sleep. In this episode, we meet Bror Ranum who is currently doing his PhD at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He was involved in a large prospective study of almost 800 children between the ages of 6-12 years to objectively measure the prevalence and stability of insufficient sleep using actigraphy. The results suggest the importance of measuring the number of nights of insufficient sleep as opposed to only taking an average measure over a week.

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A novel, composite measure of screen-based media use in young children (ScreenQ) and associations with parenting practices and cognitive abilities

Tue, 19 May 2020 13:01:57 GMT

Young children face unprecedented access to screens in the modern environment. It was recently estimated that children between the ages of 3-8 get almost 3 hours of screen use a day. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) have recommendations for screen-based media use which focus on four variables: access to screens, frequency of use, content and grownup-child interaction, or “co-viewing". In this episode, we meet Early Career Investigator, Dr John Hutton, from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Centre, who has created a composite measure of these variables, reflecting current modes of screen-based media use.

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Demographic and psychosocial factors associated with hair cortisol concentrations in preschool children

Mon, 04 May 2020 20:48:25 GMT

There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that early life stress can have detrimental effects on a child's physical and mental health. Hair cortisol concentrations are increasingly accepted as a cumulative measure of stressful experiences but they are understudied in preschool children. In this episode, we meet Professor Sunny Anand from Stanford University School of Medicine who developed a sensitive assay for hair cortisol concentrations. He and his team took hair samples from children aged 1-4 years in order to uncover psychosocial and demographic factors associated with this measure of physiological stress.

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Sex-specific relationships between early nutrition and neurodevelopment in preterm infants

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 18:56:00 GMT

In this episode, we meet Early Career Investigator, Dr Anna Tottman who during her time at the University of Aukland, Liggins Institute performed a retrospective cohort study looking at the relationship between neonatal nutrition and neurodevelopmental outcomes. Her research suggests that nutrition for preterm infants may need to be sex-specific. Take a listen!

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Fetal exposure to mercury and lead from intrauterine blood transfusions

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 13:01:27 GMT

Preterm infants regularly need Packed red blood cell transfusions. This life-saving therapy can help prevent anaemia of prematurity and in turn, safeguard normal organ function. However, there is a risk that donor blood contains the heavy metals mercury (Hg), lead (Pb) and Cadmium (Cd) which are known developmental neurotoxicants and may be present in neurotoxic doses. In this episode we meet Alison Falck, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who has studied the relationship between the donor concentration, number of transfusions and exposure in preterm infants. Her results may have implications for prescreening of donor blood.

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Eye-tracking during simulation-based neonatal airway management

Wed, 22 Jan 2020 20:31:29 GMT

Medical Simulation is a powerful model for pediatric education. This type of experiential training is used to teach various skills including stressful medical tasks like resuscitation, without putting patients at risk. In order to better understand the behavior of healthcare providers during these situations, researchers have started to use eye-tracking technology. In this episode, we meet Early Career Investigator, Michael Wagner from the Medical University of Vienna, who during a fellowship at the Yale University, carried out a simulation-based study using eye-tracking glasses to explore the gaze behavior and subjective experience of care-givers during a neonatal resuscitation to assess the usability of this technology for training.

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Repetitive noxious stimuli during early development affect acute and long-term mechanical sensitivity in rats

Thu, 02 Jan 2020 21:29:06 GMT

Clinical studies have shown that newborns can experience up to 14 painful procedures each day of admission at the neonatal intensive care unit. There is evidence that these early experiences can cause changes to the developing nervous system affecting, amongst other things, nociception in adulthood. Preterm infants are at particular risk from repeated noxious procedures owing to the extensive developmental and functional changes taking place in the CNS at that time. In this episode, we meet Dr Nynke van den Hoogen, who during her time at Maastricht University, used an animal model to assess whether the number of neonatal noxious events has an affect on acute and long-term mechanical sensitivity.

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Cumulative psychosocial risk and early child development: Using the Childhood Psychosocial Adversity Scale

Thu, 05 Dec 2019 15:50:08 GMT

Cumulative exposure to psychosocial adversity in the early years of life can have an adverse effect on early child development (ECD). Focus on ECD is growing globally, yet to date, the bulk of research on adverse psychosocial experiences and child development has taken place in high-income, Western countries, despite a large burden in developing countries. This month, we meet Early Career Investigator Dr. Annie Berens, a pediatric resident at the University of California San Francisco. She created the Childhood Psychosocial Adversity Scale, a novel measure of cumulative risk which has had its first application in Bangladesh.

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Circulating cytokines as a predictor of childhood epilepsy.

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 13:00:00 GMT

A number of clinical variables are used to predict the likelihood of childhood epilepsy, however, additional predictors are needed to improve patient stratification for those at the highest risk of recurrent seizures. In this episode, we meet Adam Numis from the University of California San Francisco, who set out to assess the utility of circulating cytokines as a predictor of childhood epilepsy. He performed a longitudinal study of newborns at risk of neonatal encephalopathy, revealing an association between circulating levels of particular inflammatory cytokines and the later development of epilepsy.

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Placental clearance/synthesis of neurobiomarkers GFAP and UCH-L1 in healthy term neonates and those with moderate-severe neonatal encephalopathy

Mon, 30 Sep 2019 13:00:00 GMT

Neonatal encephalopathy (NE) is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality and affects around 1.5/1000 live term births. Predicting the severity and outcome of neonates with NE is therefore vital in order to provide the best care for neonates with NE, and a biochemical marker obtained at birth would therefore be useful to bolster the current scoring system. In this episode, Geoff Marsh speaks to Early Career Investigator Dr. Imran Nazir Mir, from the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center. He's just published a paper testing the utility of two potential candidate proteins for determining the presence and severity of hypoxic NE, and to understand where these molecules are synthesized and cleared.

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Adrenal function links to early postnatal growth and blood pressure at age 6 in children born extremely preterm

Fri, 30 Aug 2019 13:00:00 GMT

For term-born infants, low birth weight has been shown to correlate with a broad array of adverse cardiometabolic outcomes, and excess glucocorticoid exposure has been linked to these relationships. Also, intra-uterine growth restriction (IUGR) in term-born infants has been linked to subsequent increases in adrenal androgen activity. In this episode, we meet Kristi Watterberg, a professor of Pediatrics at the University of New Mexico who evaluated the relationship between preterm birth to salivary cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) at age 6, and assessed the relationship of cortisol and DHEA with blood pressure and measures of adiposity. The results suggest interventions to improve the cardiometabolic outcomes of infants born extremely preterm.

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Comparison of fetal growth by maternal prenatal acetaminophen use

Wed, 07 Aug 2019 13:00:00 GMT

Over-the-counter (OTC) medications are used in an estimated 70% of pregnancies. Acetaminophen, also known as paracetamol is found in a large number of OTC and prescription drugs. Given its prevalence and its ability to freely cross the placenta, researchers are now focusing on the safety of maternal exposure to this drug and its effects on fetal health. There have been inconsistent results in both human and animal studies on the short and long-term effects of acetaminophen use during pregnancy. In this episode, we meet Early Career Investigator, Melissa Smarr, an assistant professor at the Emory University School of Public Health as she describes her study into the effects of prenatal acetaminophen use on fetal growth.

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Enhanced early prediction of clinically relevant neonatal hyperbilirubinemia with machine learning

Fri, 28 Jun 2019 13:00:00 GMT

Almost 10% of newborn infants develop significant hyperbilirubinemia, and many require phototherapy treatment. This is costly and can increase the likelihood of patients developing allergic diseases. However the costs of not treating neonatal jaundice can be more severe as it can cause lifelong disability. Precise patient monitoring and deliberate treatment assignment are therefore essential for at-risk neonates. In this episode, we meet Sven Wellman, then of the University of Basel's Children Hospital in Switzerland. He and his team developed an online tool that uses machine learning methods to accurately predict neonates at risk of developing clinically relevant hyperbilirubinemia.

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In vivo textural and morphometric analysis of placental development in healthy & growth-restricted pregnancies using magnetic resonance imaging

Thu, 30 May 2019 13:00:00 GMT

Placental dysfunction is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in children. Yet, despite its central importance, there is a lack of tools to assess in vivo placental health. Ex vivo evaluation of placentas has shown there to be micro-architectural changes with fetal growth restriction (FGR), but currently there are no tools to assess this before birth. In this episode, we speak with this month's Early Career Investigator- Prof. Nickie Andescavage from George Washington University, who recently performed an advanced textural and morphometric of Magnetic Resonance images of the in vivo placenta in healthy and high-risk pregnancies.

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A multilevel-based research framework on congenital Zika syndrome

Wed, 17 Apr 2019 13:00:00 GMT

In 2015, Brazil experienced an unprecedented epidemic of zika virus infection. Concurrently, there was an increased incidence of children born with primary congenital microcephaly. Researchers quickly suspected a link between the zika virus infection in pregnant women and congenital microcephaly due to the so-called congenital Zika syndrome (CZS). With the impending threat of a second outbreak, Marcio Leyser from the University of Iowa proposes a multilevel-based research framework for CZS, based on the multifaceted aspects of the disease.

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Genetic variation in CRHR1 is associated with short-term respiratory response to corticosteroids in preterm infants at risk for bronchopulmonary dysplasia

Fri, 08 Mar 2019 13:00:00 GMT

Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia (BPD) is a form of Chronic lung disease and results from extreme pre-term birth. Systemic corticosteroid therapy is used postnatally to reduce the severity of BPD, however there is a large range in the phenotypic response to this treatment. In this episode, we speak to Tamorah Lewis, a neonatologist at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, who aimed to identify pharmacogenetic variants associated with the clinical response to systemic corticosteroid treatment.

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Time-restricted feeding causes irreversible metabolic disorders and gut microbiota shift in pediatric mice

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 13:00:00 GMT

Metabolic syndrome has been a growing problem in recent decades in both adult and pediatric populations. Time-restricted feeding (TRF), has been shown to attenuate metabolic disorders and obesity in adults. It is thought to be superior to surgical interventions and other dietary patterns as it is non-invasive, and does not lead to unbearable hunger. However, there is a lack of data on its effects in pediatric populations. n this episode, we meet Dr. Dandan Hu, who during her time at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, carried out an experiment using a paediatric mouse model to assess the effects of TRM on their metabolism and microbiota. The results were unexpected.

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Ambient pollutants and urgent visits for asthma: A Study in New York City neighborhoods

Mon, 28 Jan 2019 13:00:00 GMT

Pediatric asthma is a chronic, heterogeneous disease that can be triggered by environmental exposures, leading to urgent medical visits. Numerous studies have demonstrated increases in emergency department visits and hospitalizations in association with increasing concentrations of outdoor ambient pollutants. Social and environmental stressors have also been shown to be associated with a stronger relationship between environmental pollutants and asthma development and symptoms.In this study, Dr Lovinski-Desir from Columbia University Medical Center and her team aimed to determine if the relationship between ambient pollutants and urgent visits for asthma varied between New York City neighborhoods with high versus low asthma prevalence.

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Association between metabolite composition and metabolic risk across adolescence

Fri, 25 Jan 2019 13:00:00 GMT

Metabolomics has the potential to identify specific targets for primary prevention of metabolic disease. Studies in adults have shown that lean vs obese people show distinct differences in their metabolite composition, sometimes preceding the development of established risk factors associated with metabolic disease. The literature in paediatric populations, however is scant. In this episode, we speak to Prof. Wei Perng, who during her time at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, examined the associations between metabolite composition and metabolic risk across adolescence.

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Early human brain development: insights into macroscale connectome wiring

Tue, 11 Dec 2018 13:00:00 GMT

In this episode, we meet Kristin Keunen from The University Medical Centre Utrecht. She and her team used postnatal neuroimaging to map early developmental trajectories of structural brain wiring in preterm and full-term neonates.The study provides valuable insights into the early stages of structural connectome development.

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Physicians' experiences, attitudes and challenges in a Pediatric Telemedicine Service

Thu, 25 Oct 2018 13:00:00 GMT

Telemedicine is estimated to be used in 25% of patient-doctor interactions. It has benefits, including patient's not having to travel and being seen by healthcare professionals when community clinics are closed. But it is considered a high-stress clinical activity and involves decision making under conditions of uncertainty and urgency.In this episode, we speak to Motti Haimi, a Pediatrician and hemato-oncologist at the Clalit Health Services in Israel. He and his team conducted a qualitative assessment of a Pediatric Telemedicine Service operating in Israel in order to assess challenges according to the physicians themselves.

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The lifelong impact of fetal growth restriction on cardiac development

Fri, 28 Sep 2018 13:00:00 GMT

The relationship between birth-weight and heart disease is well documented and is thought to arise from altered developmental trajectories leading to persistent deficits in organ structure and function.Most animal studies looking at the effects of adverse in utero environment have been studied in the context of fetal hypoxia. Less is known regarding the cardiac consequences of maternal malnutrition, a common cause of fetal growth restriction.In this episode, ECI Dr. Brian Stansfield from Augusta University, Georgia, US and his team use a new guinea pig model to test the effects of global maternal nutrient restriction spanning pre-gestation, gestation, and lactation.

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Improved cognitive functioning in obese adolescents after a 30-week inpatient weight loss program

Thu, 23 Aug 2018 13:00:00 GMT

Obesity has been shown to be linked with a host of physiological and psychological problems, such as cancer, diabetes and depression. In adults, obesity has also been shown to be related to decreased cognitive function and structural brain differences. The evidence for this effect on cognition is less well established in children and adolescents. In this episode we meet Dr. Stijn Vantieghem from the ARCS research group at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel who conducted a 30 week weight-loss program for obese adolescents to test its effects on their cognitive function.

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Gut microbiota in adolescents and the association with fatty liver: the EPOCH study

Wed, 08 Aug 2018 13:00:00 GMT

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common cause of chronic liver disease in the United States. It's all been steadily rising, along with rising obesity levels. Currently, early interventions for NAFLD include dietary, lifestyle counselling, and vitamin supplementation. Recent evidence suggests that the gut microbiota may be involved in the pathophysiology of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.In this episode, we hear from ECI Maggie Stanislawski from the University of Colorado on her work to expand the options for early intervention into this condition.

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Pediatric tuberculosis detection using trained African giant pouched rats

Mon, 02 Jul 2018 13:00:00 GMT

TB was responsible for 1.8 million deaths in 2015, of which children account for almost 10%. A large proportion of TB patients go undetected in high burden countries due to the poor sensitivity of the smear microscopy used to detect the disease. Paediatric cases are often harder to detect because children produce lower quality sputum samples needed for the smear microscopy. As a result, many children with TB go untreated, and the vast majority of children treated for TB are treated empirically. Georgies Mgode, a research fellow at Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania, and his team have tested the use of trained Giant African Pouch rats as an enhanced case finding tool after smear microscopy.

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NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale: 1-month normative data and variation from birth to 1 month

Wed, 20 Jun 2018 13:00:00 GMT

Livio Provenzi is based at the Scientific Institute IRCCS Eugenio Medea in Italy, where he is involved in the Preterm Behavioral Epigenetics Project, a longitudinal research project in very pre-term infants looking at the long and short-term epigenetic and behavioral effects of painful and invasive procedures during the NICU stay. Livio and his colleagues sought to provide normative neurobehavioral data for healthy infants over the first month of life using the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Network Neurobehavioural Scale (NNNS).Acquiring normative comparisons for at-risk populations (e.g. pre-term infants) is key for behavioral studies and for research on early epigenetic biomarkers of developmental risk.

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Paternal smoking and maternal protective behaviors at home on infant's saliva cotinine levels

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 18:29:14 GMT

A major source of second hand smoke (SHS) exposure in infants is the home. Some parents are aware of this risk and make efforts to minimise the exposure by employing a total ban on smoking in the home. However many families opt for a partial smoking ban, only smoking in certain rooms, at certain times, or at certain distances from the child and practice avoidance behaviours like opening windows.In order to better understand how parents' smoking behaviours affected SHS exposure in children, Dr Yi Nam Suen from the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, and her team developed a questionnaire for non-smoking mothers with young infants, and measured salivary cotinine levels in their infants.

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Early career investigator highlight: April

Fri, 30 Mar 2018 18:29:14 GMT

During her PhD Maria Luisa Tataranno performed research into early biomarkers of brain development in preterm neonates. Now a fellow of neonatal neurology of the Wilhelmia Children's Hospital in Utrecht, the Netherlands, Maria and her team have published a paper into the associations between early brain activity and changes in brain morphology and microstructure.In this episode, Maria tells us about her career as a clinical scientist and advocates the early monitoring of preterm neonate brain activity with electroencephalography.

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Early career investigator highlight: February

Fri, 30 Mar 2018 18:29:14 GMT

Patients with sickle cell disease often experience severe pain as a result of vaso-occlusive episodes. Typically their pain is managed with opioids, however some patients experience continued and increasing pain, believed to be as a result of opioid-induced hyperalgesia or tolerance. Many patients go on to develop chronic pain which is thought to have a neuropathic component, for which opioids are ineffective.Ketamine has been suggested as an adjuvant to opioids to treat chronic and acute pain.In this episode, we meet an Early Career Investigator, Dr. Raissa Nobrega, who has a passion for paediatric pain management and who recently published an exploratory study into the patient characteristics that affect the response to ketamine and opioids in these patients.

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RSV vs. rhinovirus bronchiolitis: difference in nasal airway microRNA profiles and NFκ B signaling

Fri, 30 Mar 2018 18:29:14 GMT

There are approximately 130,000 infants hospitalised each year in the US due to bronchiolitis. The majority of these cases are caused by either rhinovirus or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Rhinovirus is associated with increased risks of acute and chronic respiratory outcomes compared with RSV, however the underlying mechanisms remain unclear.In this episode, Kohei Hasegawa from the department of emergency medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses his recent experiment aimed at unravelling the underlying mechanisms between the two viruses' different outcomes by comparing the nasal airway microRNA profiles of infants infected with either virus.

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Research in the sciences of improvement, implementation, and pediatric patient safety

Fri, 30 Mar 2018 18:29:14 GMT

Over the past twenty years, new sciences have developed around the delivery of high quality, safe healthcare, and Pediatric Research has recognized these developments with the creation of a new section dedicated to research in these areas. In this episode, we discuss the Quality and Patient Safety section with newly-appointed editor, Peter Lachman.

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Gestational age-dependent relationship between cerebral oxygen extraction and blood pressure

Mon, 18 Dec 2017 20:09:16 GMT

One system which is thought to falter in preterm neonates is the cerebrovascular autoregulatory system, which helps to maintain a constant supply of oxygen to the brain. When this system falters in the setting of hypotension, it can lead to intraventricular haemorrhage, which in turn, can lead to serious neuro-developmental impairment. In this episode, we meet Zachary Vesoulis, a Pediatrician at Washington University in St. Louis, who recently published a Pediatric Research paper testing the effects of gestational age on the cerebrovascular autoregulatory system. We also discuss what Zach sees as a missed opportunity to collect data in the clinic.

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Influences of medications on fetal development

Tue, 28 Nov 2017 18:04:02 GMT

It has been known for over 20 years that antidepressant exposure in utero may be associated with poor neonatal adaptation and discontinuation like symptoms in neonates. Poor neonatal adaptation syndrome, or 'PNAS' presents as a distinct set of gastrointestinal, neurological and respiratory symptoms. In this episode we meet Professor Megan Galbally, Foundation Chair in Perinatal Psychiatry at the University of Notre Dame, to discuss her recent Pediatric Research paper examining the use of the Neonatal Abstinence Scoring System in assessing neonates exposed to antidepressants in utero and providing some rare long-term follow up of these children's developmental outcomes at 6 months. We also discuss a commentary article from the Pediatric Policy Council on this topic, and how her study can be expanded upon by following these results further with the children, preferably up to adulthood.

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Early career investigator highlight--October

Thu, 05 Oct 2017 19:16:05 GMT

Veerajalandhar Allareddy is a pediatric cardiac critical care physician in the Stead Family Children's Hospital, University of Iowa. In recent years, he has become interested in marrying his clinical work with studies into public health issues in pediatrics, which he believes are under researched and under reported. In this episode we discuss one such issue: the rising trend of opioid abuse in children across the US.

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Pregnancy swimming causes short- and long-term neuroprotection against hypoxia-ischemia in very immature rats

Mon, 28 Aug 2017 15:00:00 GMT

Hypoxia-ischemia (HI) is a major cause of neurological damage in preterm neonates. Physical exercise in mothers serves as a non-pharmacological intervention to counteract obesity, hypertension, and other such risk factors for prematurity. For this reason, women are widely encouraged to swim throughout their pregnancy. In this episode, Eduardo Farias Sanches discusses how he and his team wanted to test the neuroprotective effects of pregnancy swimming against the damage caused by HI and to understand possible mechanisms behind these effects.

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Pentoxifylline modulates LPS-induced hyperinflammation in monocytes of preterm infants in vitro

Thu, 20 Jul 2017 18:23:06 GMT

Simone Schuller is a pediatrician at the Boston's Children Hospital. She was awarded the Max Kade fellowship to conduct research into neonatal innate immune pathways to aid the development of vaccines for the very young. Previously, Simone was at the Medical University of Vienna, where she recently completed her residency and clinical training. In this episode, we hear how she has strengthened her laboratory experience over the years in a number of countries and has used some of these in vitro skills in a recent Pediatric Research paper about the effect of Pentoxyfylline on the preterm infant immune system in a model of sepsis.

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Electronic cigarette use is not associated with quitting of conventional cigarettes in youth smokers

Wed, 12 Jul 2017 15:19:53 GMT

Electronic cigarettes are used almost as much as conventional cigarettes in some parts of the world and are particularly popular among young people. They are often advertised as a means of stopping smoking but there is a lack of consistent evidence for this claim. In this episode, we hear from Dr. Man Pin Wang from the School of nursing, University of Hong Kong. He and his team performed a longitudinal study of adolescents that called the Youth Quitline in Hong Kong, in order to investigate the links between e-cigs and quitting smoking in this population.

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Early career investigator highlight: Dr. Adam Frymoyer

Tue, 06 Jun 2017 17:18:55 GMT

This is the first in a series of bi-monthly episodes centered around an Early Career Investigator who publishes in the journal. This month, we meet Dr. Adam Frymoyer, a clinical assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at Stanford University. He describes himself as a 39 year old physician-scientist, passionate about promoting the safe and efficacious use of therapeutic drugs in neonates and children. He has established a cross-disciplinary research program that focuses on the application of clinical pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics to guide therapeutic decision making in children.

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Pentoxifylline inhibits TLR- and inflammasome-mediated in vitro inflammatory cytokine production in human blood with greater efficacy and potency in newborns

Tue, 23 May 2017 19:38:31 GMT

Neonatal sepsis is a common cause of mortality in newborns. Often, it is the inflammation in response to the pathogen, rather than the pathogen itself, that causes the most harm to the sick patient. Neonatal sepsis is currently treated with corticosteroids but they come with a significant number of adverse effects. One promising new anti-inflammatory drug is a phosphodiesterase inhibitor called pentoxyfylline. Esther Speer, a pediatrician specialized in neonatology at Stony Brook Children's Hospital, carried out an in vitro study using cord blood from healthy-term neonates, providing further evidence that pentoxyfylline represents a promising alternative to corticosteroids.

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Detecting biomarkers of secondhand marijuana smoke in young children

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 16:00:00 GMT

The legality of medical and recreational marijuana use is on the rise across the US, and this has led to an increase in its usage. But the effects of second hand marijuana smoke on young infants is unknown. Taking advantage of a newly developed high sensitivity assay, Dr. Karen Wilson showed that 16% of a cohort of young children hospitalized with bronchiolitis between 2013 and 2015 showed detectable levels of secondhand marijuana smoke metabolites in their urine and are potentially at risk for negative health effects.

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Studying drugs in newborns

Thu, 17 Nov 2016 16:00:00 GMT

We know that drugs can work differently in adults and in children. But in newborns? We know their physiology is different, and that can affect how drugs are metabolised and processed; for instance, their heart doesn't respond as readily to drugs meant to increase its force. But neonates are often excluded from studies of medicinal products. Clinicians need more specific guidelines as to how to study and use drugs in this vulnerable population. Hear more from Robert Ward!

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Seven great achievements

Thu, 22 Sep 2016 18:05:08 GMT

Researchers in pediatrics have much to be proud of from their last four decades of work. From cutting fatalities from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, to vaccinations that have protected the lives of millions, Dr. Tina Cheng and colleagues believe that these achievements would not have been possible without a strong research base. Hear more from Tina in this podcast.

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Neonatal Nutrition

Wed, 27 Jul 2016 16:54:40 GMT

A baby's healthy growth depends on receiving the right balance of energy and nutrients. If a baby is born pre-term, its carers must provide the nutrition it would otherwise have received in the womb. Surprisingly, there is very little consistency in studies of neonatal nutrition and growth regarding how much energy and nutrients should be administered to preterm infants, and the expected growth trajectories. A team from the University of Auckland in New Zealand have looked at 22 studies and developed a way to standardize this information.

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Participatory research: Getting children involved

Thu, 19 May 2016 14:30:16 GMT

It's usually the job of the researcher to devise a hypothesis, set up a trial, and collect data. But in participatory research, some of this power is handed to the study participants; in the case of paediatric research, it's given to children. The idea is to have children play an active role in the questions being asked, the data collection process, and any actions that result from a study. A new paper sets out to find examples of participatory research in paediatrics and gives suggestions on best practices.

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Preterm diagnostics: The SafeboosC II trial

Thu, 17 Mar 2016 15:34:10 GMT

The brains of preterm babies are delicate - and mysterious. It can be difficult to assess what is happening in the brains of babies born preterm, in order to work out the best course of action. The SafeboosC II trial tested whether using a brain imaging technique called NIRS (Near Infrared Spectroscopy) on preterm infants could guide diagnosis, and whether it could help reduce the burden of hypoxia. It had the desired clinical effect - but two biomarkers of brain injury were not reduced in line with the burden. Researchers Gorm Greisen and Anne Mette Plomgard discuss this unexpected result.

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Child health: Nature and nurture

Wed, 03 Feb 2016 17:50:16 GMT

It's not just biology that determines the health of an infant or child - and the adult they will become. Social and environmental factors such as parenting, the home environment, substance use in the home or child abuse can have important impacts on pediatric health and later life repercussions. The January 2016 issue of Pediatric Research features several reviews on the social determinants of health. Guest editor Margie Skeer talks through a few examples.

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Brain damage: Are stem cells safe?

Thu, 19 Nov 2015 18:36:46 GMT

A lack of oxygen or blood to the brain in newborn babies can lead to brain damage. One promising treatment currently being trialled in animal models involves giving a type of stem cell by inhalation. Before the therapy can be tested in humans, though, scientists need to know it is safe and won't cause uncontrolled cell growth in the brain. A new report in Pediatric Research now establishes its safety.

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Caffeine in prematurity: Friend or foe?

Thu, 24 Sep 2015 16:21:42 GMT

Caffeine makes the adult world go round - but could it also be used as a therapy for premature babies? Several studies have suggested that in premature babies with breathing difficulties, caffeine could help stimulate them to breathe on their own and even have a positive effect on their brain development. But by contrast, a new study in Pediatric Research finds that a high dose of caffeine can have harmful effects.

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Gut bacteria in preterm babies

Thu, 23 Jul 2015 04:00:00 GMT

Our bodies are home to more bacterial cells than human cells. These bugs are collectively known as our microbiota. But when we're born, we have very few. Max Vento studies how infants amass their community of bugs and what effect being born preterm has. And it's the subject of a review, in which he and his colleagues also outline how the microbiota of preterm babies can be impaired, and how to coax it into health.

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Baby learns to breathe

Thu, 21 May 2015 14:51:33 GMT

At the moment of birth, babies go through the most disruptive physiological transition they will ever experience: they rid their lungs of fluid and start to breathe. Then the umbilical cord is clamped, shutting off air and blood supply from the mother and cementing their independence. New insights into this process, detailed in a review article by Stuart Hooper and colleagues, could help ease the transition for babies who have problems beginning to breathe on their own.

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What causes 'false brain tumour'?

Thu, 26 Mar 2015 14:00:00 GMT

Sometimes, adults or children experience the symptoms of a brain tumour - headaches and vision problems - without an actual tumour. The formal name for this mysterious condition is Pseudotumor Cerebri Syndrome. Shana McCormack thinks that insights from kidney biology might help us to understand it. She's our podcast guest this month.

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Getting the dose right

Thu, 22 Jan 2015 18:26:52 GMT

Most drug doses for newborns are based on studies done in adults or older children. In this podcast, Brian Smith outlines the problems with this method, and suggests ways to test drugs in this vulnerable population.

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Social inequality and childhood health

Thu, 20 Nov 2014 15:00:00 GMT

Early childhood is a crucial period. The environment that a child grows up in - their family and neighborhood - influences their health and development for the rest of their life. In this podcast we hear about an ambitious attempt to synthesize 200 studies linking social inequity to childhood health outcomes in Europe.

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A new way to understand SIDS

Thu, 25 Sep 2014 14:43:00 GMT

Occasionally, a baby under a year dies unexpectedly in sleep, for no apparent reason. This is known as sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. Studies have thrown up genes and molecules that are sometimes associated with SIDS deaths, but we're a long way from fully understanding the causes. Now, Nathan Salomonis has created a systems-level model of SIDS, to help researchers see how pathways in the brain, heart and immune system are involved - and to identify new targets for research

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Malnutrition and cystic fibrosis in India

Thu, 24 Jul 2014 14:00:00 GMT

Case studies in the US show that children with cystic fibrosis often suffer from vitamin deficiencies. In India, this problem is exacerbated by malnutrition, as Dr Angurana discovered when he studied patients in the northern city of Candigarh.

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The Bayley Scales: Measuring infant development

Thu, 22 May 2014 14:38:00 GMT

The Bayley Scales are a suite of IQ-like tests for babies and young children. They're used to assess infant development. But the latest edition of the tests, the Bayley-III, seems to produce higher test scores than its predecessor, the Bayley-II. This is causing problems for researchers like Neil Marlow who use the tests to check the effectiveness of different interventions. Neil decided to compare the two tests. He talks about the results of his study, and its implications, on this month's podcast.

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Catch-up growth

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 14:00:00 GMT

In this podcast we're focusing on children born with extremely low birth weights. Researchers are interested in how quickly these children grow and catch up with their normal birth weight peers. A new study, of children born in the 1990s, suggests that improvements in neonatal nutrition have led to improvements in catch-up growth. The study also looked at gender differences and obesity. Study leader Maureen Hack talks us through the findings.

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A new way to track red blood cell survival in infants

Thu, 23 Jan 2014 15:00:00 GMT

Researchers normally use a radioactive label to track red blood cell survival. But this method is deemed unsafe for infants and children. So an alternative method - one using biotin to label the cells, instead of radioactive Chromium 51 - is good news for pediatrics. Dr. Jack Widness and colleagues from the University of Iowa have tested the biotin labeling method on a group of critically ill premature babies. In this podcast Dr. Widness presents their results and explains how the method could be used to improve transfusion practices for infants with anemia.

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A plastic baby for DXA machines

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 15:00:00 GMT

Roman Shypailo and his colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine have built a 7kg baby out of PVC, nylon and polyethylene. Their plastic baby - or 'phantom' - is a calibration tool. Roman hopes that it will be used to standardize infant scans in DXA machines, which are used to measure bone density.

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Improving mild hypothermia treatment

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Mild hypothermia is a well-established treatment for babies at risk from long-term brain damage following a lack of oxygen at birth. Doctors would like to tailor the treatment to individual cases and predict long-term outcomes. To this end, two studies published in Pediatric Research investigate ways to guide therapy; the first identifies brain metabolites in a mouse model; the second tests a combination of two bedside monitoring techniques. We hear from authors of both studies on this month's podcast.

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Placebo effects in children

Thu, 25 Jul 2013 14:00:00 GMT

We have a good understanding of placebo effects in adults, but how about children? The current literature suggests some significant differences in the way children respond to placebos, but more research is needed to understand these differences properly. In this podcast, Katja Weimer from University Hospital Tübingen explains why it's difficult to study placebo effects in children and how we might overcome these difficulties.

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Prematurely born children and exercise

Thu, 23 May 2013 14:00:00 GMT

We have become very good at looking after babies born extremely prematurely, before 32 weeks of gestation. Now researchers are turning their attention to how these children develop, and what specialist care they might need as they grow up. A new study finds that prematurely born children have significant breathing problems after running on a treadmill for several minutes. François Marchal and Jean-Michel Hascoet, who carried out the study, are our May podcast guests.

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Kawasaki disease and soy

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:00:00 GMT

The causes of this childhood disease are largely unknown. What we do know is that a child in Japan is 10 times more likely to show symptoms than a child in the United States. Michael Portman, from Seattle Children's Research Institute, thinks this difference is down to diet. In this podcast, he proposes a link between soy consumption and Kawasaki disease.

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Breast milk and childhood growth

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Over the last thirty years, our diets have changed and obesity has become more prevalent. In particular, we're now eating fewer foods rich in omega-3. A study based in Copenhagen has found a link between the amount of omega-3 in a mother's breast milk and her child's physical development. In this podcast, study leader Louise Pedersen explains how this finding relates to obesity and gives some advice to pregnant mothers.

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Developing an artificial placenta

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 14:00:00 GMT

For 50 years, scientists have been trying to make an artificial placenta. Such a device could revolutionise the treatment of extremely premature babies. On this podcast, Yuichiro Miura from Tohoku University in Japan talks about his new, compact design.

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Smoking and the developing lungs

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:00:00 GMT

It's well known that smoking during pregnancy damages the developing lungs, increasing the risk of infections in newborns. Researcher Cherry Wongtrakool thinks this damage could extend all the way into adulthood, explaining some of the cases of asthma she sees in her clinic. To work out exactly how this damage occurs, Cherry and colleagues have been taking a closer look at nicotine, the fat soluble and addictive component of tobacco. On this podcast, Cherry explains how nicotine crosses the placenta and affects the function of immune cells in the lung.

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Diagnosis by computer

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:00:00 GMT

Our daily lives rely on the power of computers. So why not medical diagnosis? Getting the right diagnosis is a challenge, particularly in the emergency room, where up to 15% of patients are misdiagnosed.Could computers lend a guiding hand? Doctors have been trying to use computerized support for decades - but current systems are quite crude, built to deliver 'yes' or 'no' answers. Lorenz Grigull and his colleague Werner Lechner from the Hannover Medical School, Germany, have been working on something new.

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From the lab to the clinic

Fri, 25 May 2012 14:00:00 GMT

Getting a new drug or treatment from the lab to the clinic, where it can be used to improve the health of patients, takes time. To speed up this process, in 2006 the National Institutes of Health launched a new science award program - the CTSA. In this podcast, we hear how the program is affecting child health research in the US. The results of an initial evaluation are encouraging, but there's room for improvement says pediatric researcher Charles Huskins.

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Project Ice Storm

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:00:00 GMT

When a severe ice storm hit the Canadian Province of Quebec, it gave researchers at McGill University the chance to study prenatal stress. On this podcast, we hear how the hardships faced by pregnant women in the weeks after the storm are affecting their children.

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