Neonatal sepsis is an important cause of under-5 childhood mortality. Infants born to HIV-infected mothers are at increased risk of morbidity and mortality, even if not having acquired HIV. This association needs further study during the neonatal period.

Maternal HIV infection was associated with increased vaginal colonization by Escherichia ecoli but not group B Streptococcus. Neonates born to HIV-infected mothers were only at increased risk of sepsis if they had acquired HIV-infection, but not if HIV-uninfected. (Read the full article)

Honey is recommended as a cough medication by the World Health Organization. To date, the efficacy of this treatment has been shown in 2 studies: one tested only buckwheat honey and the other study was not blinded.

In a randomized controlled trial, we compared 3 types of honey versus placebo as a treatment of upper respiratory tract infection–associated cough. These types of honey were superior to placebo in alleviating cough. (Read the full article)

Micronutrients are essential for brain development during gestation and infancy. Few randomized trials of maternal multiple micronutrient supplementation during pregnancy and postpartum have examined child outcomes beyond the neonatal period or tested which cognitive domains show long-term effects.

Children of undernourished mothers given multiple micronutrients performed as well as children of well-nourished mothers in motor and visual attention/spatial ability at age 42 months; children of undernourished mothers given iron/folic acid showed 4- to 5-month delays in these abilities. (Read the full article)

Few longitudinal studies from developing countries have assessed the relation between early maternal depressive symptoms and child growth beyond age 2. The results of these studies have been inconclusive.

Early maternal depressive symptoms were related to higher odds of deficits in stature but not to deficits in weight among preschool- and school-aged children. Well-child care provides opportunities to identify maternal depressive symptoms to prevent future child growth delays. (Read the full article)

Pediatric specialists are increasingly involved in prenatal care, particularly for congenital fetal conditions. Questions remain about pediatricians’ role in the management of maternal conditions that may affect postnatal health, and the attitudes of obstetric and pediatric specialists around such care.

Obstetric and pediatric specialists’ attitudes differ substantially regarding pediatricians’ role in providing consultation for maternal conditions that may affect a child’s health postnatally, and regarding whether court authorization may be appropriate when a woman refuses certain treatment recommendations. (Read the full article)

Maternal obesity is an increasingly important public health concern and may adversely affect central nervous system development in offspring. However, few studies have explored the relationship between maternal prepregnancy BMI and neurodevelopmental outcomes in children, with conflicting results.

Using data from a large and contemporary UK birth cohort, we found that maternal prepregnancy BMI is negatively associated with children’s cognitive performance. The relationship appears to become stronger as children get older, although the overall effect size is modest. (Read the full article)

Paternal mental disorders during the postnatal period are associated with an increased risk for behavioral and emotional problems in their children; however, less is known about the effect of fathers’ mental health during pregnancy on children’s development.

The study demonstrated a positive association between fathers’ prenatal mental health and their children’s subsequent socioemotional and behavioral development. Psychological distress in fathers was associated with a risk for emotional difficulties in their children at 36 months of age. (Read the full article)

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use is common among children, especially those with chronic, recurrent, or incurable conditions. Concurrent use of CAM with conventional medications is of concern and needs to be assessed, especially in vulnerable patient populations.

CAM use is high among pediatric cardiology, gastroenterology, neurology, oncology, and respiratory patients, most of whom use CAM concurrently with conventional care. This study provides additional evidence to suggest the use of CAM be included in routine patient history taking. (Read the full article)

Reductions in infant mortality in the 20th century have not continued. Racial and socioeconomic inequalities in both infant mortality and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) persist. Rates of infant mortality in English-speaking countries are higher than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average.

At least 16.4% of SIDS and 3.4% of infant deaths not classified as SIDS are attributable to maternal alcohol use. Maternal alcohol-use disorder increases the risk of infant mortality through direct effects on the fetus and indirectly through environmental risk factors. (Read the full article)

Guidelines encourage pediatric health care providers to aid in identifying women with postpartum depression but not postpartum anxiety, yet the major life event of childbirth can be anxiety provoking for many women.

During the postpartum hospital stay, anxiety was far more common than depression among breastfeeding women. Anxiety remained more common for the 6 months after childbirth, and was associated with increased health care use and reduced breastfeeding duration, particularly among primiparous women. (Read the full article)

The etiology of congenital heart defects (CHDs) is largely unknown. A few studies have suggested that maternal emotional stress around the time of conception may be related to the occurrence of CHDs.

Using a large registry-based data source from Denmark, we found that prenatal exposure to maternal bereavement, as a marker of severe stress exposure, may increase the prevalence of CHDs in offspring. (Read the full article)

Extreme prematurity is a well-established cause of cognitive and motor impairment. There is some evidence that late prematurity and modifiable maternal attributes may negatively influence scholastic achievement, including standardized test performance.

We found that preterm birth significantly increases risk of first-grade failure rate even when the birth is just a few weeks before term gestation. Low maternal education status compounds the effect of prematurity. (Read the full article)

Studies reveal that mothers of infants with colic (defined by Wessel’s criteria of >3 hours per day of distress) are more likely to develop depression. No studies have examined whether the consolability of infant crying predicts maternal depression risk.

Prolonged inconsolable infant crying has a stronger association with maternal depressive symptoms than overall daily duration of fussing and crying, suggesting that a mother’s report of inability to soothe her infant may be a powerful indicator of her depression risk. (Read the full article)

Prosmoking messages, delivered through marketing and the media, can reach very young children and influence attitudes and behaviors around smoking.

Marketing of tobacco and cigarette brands has successfully reached young children in low- and middle-income countries. More effective measures are needed to restrict the reach of tobacco marketing. (Read the full article)

Stress affects health of children, potentially persisting as a trajectory into adulthood. Earlier biological markers assess only momentary stress, making it difficult to investigate stress over longer periods of time. Cortisol in hair is a new biomarker of prolonged stress.

Mother and child hair cortisol association suggests a heritable part or maternal calibration. Cortisol output gradually stabilizes, has a stable trait, and is positively correlated to birth weight. Hair cortisol is a promising noninvasive biomarker of prolonged stress, especially applicable for children. (Read the full article)

Prenatal exposures to diverse pollutants and psychosocial stressors have been shown independently to adversely affect child development. Less is known about the potential interactions between these factors, although they commonly co-occur, especially in disadvantaged populations.

The combination of high prenatal exposure to environmental polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and maternal demoralization adversely affects child behavior, and maternal demoralization has a greater effect among children with high prenatal polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon exposure for a majority of behavioral symptoms. (Read the full article)

Previous studies have found links between prepregnancy BMI and/or pregnancy weight gain and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) risk. Several contributing factors to BMI and pregnancy weight gain (ie, prematurity, advanced maternal age, parental education, and parity) overlap with established ASD risk factors.

This study identifies an association between ASD risk and prenatal weight gain, but not prepregnancy BMI, and accounts for important confounding variables excluded in previous analyses. It provides the first within-mother comparison of these factors by including unaffected sibling controls. (Read the full article)

Payment arrangements that blend global budgets with pay-for-performance are proliferating. However, little is known about how these contracts affect pediatric health care quality and spending for children with and without special health care needs receiving care from large provider organizations.

A prototypical global budget contract significantly improved preventive care quality measures tied to pay-for-performance, especially for children with special health care needs. It did not alter trends for spending or for quality measures that were not tied to pay-for-performance. (Read the full article)

Self-medication with over-the-counter (OTC) analgesics, particularly paracetamol (PCM), among children is widespread and increasing. Parents often administer the medicine. The health care system has little knowledge or possibility to regulate OTC medication, and use of PCM for children may be partly unjustified.

Maternal frequent self-medication with OTC analgesics is associated with frequent use of OTC analgesics, particularly PCM, among 6- to 11-year-old schoolchildren, even when the child’s frequency of pain is accounted for. (Read the full article)

There is growing understanding of the detrimental effect of paternal depression on children. The transition to fatherhood is a unique time for men. Identifying which fathers are at-risk and when will inform effective methods to help men and their families.

Nonresident fathers have the highest depression symptom scores, peaking before entering fatherhood. Although resident fathers’ scores decrease preceding entry into fatherhood, there is a significant increase from 0 to 5 years of their child’s life when key parent–infant attachment occurs. (Read the full article)

In very preterm infants, outcomes depend not only on the degree of immaturity, but also on the underlying pathologies that trigger preterm delivery. Studies that have addressed this issue have provided unclear results.

Patterns of outcomes differ between maternal hypertension and chorioamnionitis: hypertension is associated with greater risks for bronchopulmonary dysplasia and retinopathy of prematurity, and lower risks for brain injury, necrotizing enterocolitis, early-onset sepsis. For mortality, the effect changes across gestational age weeks. (Read the full article)

Restrictive feeding by parents is associated with poorer eating self-regulation and increased child weight status. However, this association could be due to confounding home environmental or genetic factors that are challenging to control.

Differential maternal restrictive feeding is associated with differences in twins' caloric compensation and BMI z score. Controlling for the shared home environment and partially for genetics, these findings further support a true (ie, unconfounded) association between restriction and childhood obesity. (Read the full article)

Maternal depression has been associated with adolescent engagement in risky behaviors such as substance use. However, there is a lack of longitudinal research examining timing-specific effects in this relationship.

The results of this study indicate that youth exposed to increasing levels of maternal depressive symptoms in middle childhood are more likely to engage in substance use and delinquent behaviors and have an earlier debut age of these behaviors. (Read the full article)

Parental depression is associated with adverse child outcomes. It is important to understand possible mediators and moderators. Several studies suggest that the family environment or parenting style may be potential pathways for transmission of risk from parents to children.

Paternal depression appears to exert its influence on children’s outcomes through an effect on family functioning (couple conflict and maternal depression), whereas maternal postnatal depression appears to affect children through other mechanisms, potentially including direct mother-infant interaction and care. (Read the full article)

Both obesity and developmental disabilities have increased in recent decades; however, the full long-term effects of prepregnancy obesity on a child’s psychosocial development remain unknown. Limited studies suggest associations between maternal prepregnancy obesity and child psychosocial development.

This study in 6-year-old children provides evidence that severe prepregnancy obesity is associated with adverse child psychosocial outcomes, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. These findings were not explained by many pregnancy and postpartum factors related to maternal obesity or child development. (Read the full article)

Parents generally adapt well to newborn screening results, but reactions to carrier status for X-linked conditions are unknown.

Results suggest that detection and disclosure of FMR1 newborn carrier status may not result in significant adverse events for mothers. (Read the full article)

Parental adherence to recommended infant care practices (eg, breastfeeding; safe sleep) is below targeted goals. Adherence to practice recommendations increases when parents receive appropriate advice from multiple sources such as family and physicians.

Using a nationally representative sample, this study explores the advice mothers receive about safe sleep, immunization, breastfeeding, and pacifier use; the findings suggest infant care practices about which mothers receive little or inappropriate advice, suggesting possible targets for intervention. (Read the full article)

Concern of the risk of malignancy from ionizing radiation has prompted many to advocate for judicious use of computed tomography (CT) and as low as necessary radiation doses administered per scan. Recent analysis has shown a decline in CT utilization.

We identified decreases in CT utilization between 2004 and 2012 for the 10 most common diagnostic groups receiving CT. Decreases were typically associated with increases in alternate imaging modalities. We provide a possible reason for the decrease in CT utilization. (Read the full article)

The vitamin D concentration in breast milk of women taking 400 IU vitamin D per day is relatively low, leading to vitamin D deficiency in breastfeeding infants. As a result, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding infant vitamin D supplementation within days after birth.

Maternal vitamin D supplementation alone with 6400 IU/day safely supplies breast milk with adequate vitamin D to satisfy the requirement of her nursing infant and offers an alternate strategy to direct infant supplementation. (Read the full article)

Maternal gestational weight gain is associated with childhood overweight. It is unknown whether gestational weight gain programs the child’s health or whether gestational weight gain is an indicator of postnatal behavioral factors.

We disentangled these influences by studying the effect of gestational weight gain simultaneously with postdelivery maternal weight change as an indicator for shared family lifestyle on child’s weight development and found that both had an independent effect. (Read the full article)

Students are learning how to research and write scripts, hone interviewing techniques, and edit video footage, and some teenagers are even earning certifications in media technology.

We travel to Kielce to find out more about one of the leading grassroots events for children in Poland.

Saudi Arabia has begun an internal investigation into the disappearance of a prominent journalist at its Istanbul consulate and could hold people accountable if the evidence warrants it, according to a Saudi official.

La fièvre des élections s’empare de l’Afrique centrale. Pour la seconde fois depuis la fin des guerres qui ont dévasté la région, les scrutins s’enchaînent au Burundi, au Rwanda, en République centrafricaine et au Congo.

Dans de nombreux pays, le pétrole suscite des débats controversés sur son rôle de moteur de changements économiques, sociaux et géopolitiques. Depuis quelques années, les réflexions sur la question du pétrole ont démontré une corrélation négative entre son exploitation, le développement socioéconomique, la gouvernance et le regain des conflits dans les pays producteurs.

In numerous countries, the exploitation of oil has generated debate about its economic, social and geopolitical consequences.

A la veille de l’entrée en vigueur le 15 avril de l’obligation de rendre publique l’origine des minerais pour les grandes compagnies basées aux Etats-Unis, ICG a effectué une mission au Nord Kivu afin d’évaluer les différentes stratégies de lutte contre les minerais des conflits et leur impact sur le terrain.

As legislation requiring large U.S. companies to disclose the origins of the minerals they use is meant to come into force this year, Crisis Group sent a mission to North Kivu to assess the different strategies used to fight conflict minerals and their impact in the field.

The United Nations Security Council decided on 10 April to deploy a peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR) which will take over the mission of the African Union (MISCA), which itself succeeded the mission of the Economic Community of Central African States (MICOPAX).

Highly conserved PenI-type class A β-lactamase in pathogenic members of Burkholderia can evolve to extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL), which exhibits hydrolytic activity towards third-generation cephalosporins, while losing its activity towards the original penicillin substrates. We describe three single-amino-acid-substitution mutations in the ArgS arginine-tRNA synthetase that confer extra antibiotic tolerance protection to ESBL-producing Burkholderia thailandensis. This pathway can be exploited to evade antibiotic tolerance induction in developing therapeutic measures against Burkholderia species, targeting their essential aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases.

Watch out for suspicious interview requests. 'The main focus of this phishing campaign was stealing email account information of the victims, and finding information about their contacts/networks,' the cybersecurity experts at Certfa Lab warned on Wednesday.

Runners-up Germany outnumber champions Spain four to three in the official #WU17EURO team of the tournament.

Champions Germany supply five of the UEFA technical observers' Women's U17 team of the tournament.