Physical education (PE) in schools is one of the main tools used to increase physical activity and to prevent childhood obesity, and PE-related injuries are on the rise. Although increasing physical activity may reduce obesity, it may also increase the risk of injury.

A study in the Aug.1 issue of the journal SLEEP found that alcohol consumption during pregnancy and small body size at birth predict poorer sleep and higher risk of sleep disturbances in 8-year-old children born at term. Findings are clinically significant, as poor sleep and sleep disturbances in children are associated with obesity, depressive symptoms, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and poor neurobehavioral functioning.

Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston say one organism discovered during their study may unlock the key to what causes colic, inconsolable crying in an otherwise healthy baby.

Increasing numbers of children around the world are suffering from respiratory problems – coughing, wheezing and asthma attacks. Although the key external causes of these diseases were identified a long time ago (traffic and industrial air pollution), it had not previously been possible to distinguish clearly between these two factors so as to have a targeted impact on them.

Endothelial progenitor cells may play a role in the start and progression of metastatic disease in children with cancer, according to study results published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Research from the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota indicates that a baby born to an older mother may have a slightly increased risk for many of the cancers that occur during childhood.

The relationships between children and their parent of the same gender in the earliest years of life could be the key to understanding why some young people become obese and others do not, new research conducted by the EarlyBird Diabetes Study has shown.

A new national study finds kids are being hurt in bathtubs and showers at a surprising rate. You might think scalding or near drownings would be the most common threat in the bathroom, but they're not.

Infants and young children treated with heart drugs get the wrong dose or end up on the wrong end of medication errors more often than older children, according to research led by the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center published July 6 in Pediatrics.

Researchers from the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have collaborated to uncover important new insights into the neurological basis of autism. Their new study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, examined patterns of movement as children with autism and typically developing children learned to control a novel tool.

Parents who value strenuous team sports are more likely to influence their children to join a team or at least participate in some kind of exercise, and spend less time in front of the TV or computer, a new study says.

A scary unknown for many children, the prospect of surgery can cause intense preoperative anxiety. While some amount of stress is normal, what many parents do not know is that extreme anxiety before surgery can contribute to the occurrence of emergence delirium, a distressing incidence of acute behavioral changes experienced when "waking up" from anesthesia.