A home for Lucy
Lucy's feeding time
For a 18-month-old girl, Lucy Schurman has very grownup tastes. It’s a cold, blustery December evening in Brookline, Mass., and the precocious toddler sits in a bright yellow child seat in a spacious, warmly lit kitchen, eating chunks of avocado.
“Chili is her favorite food,” her mother Jeana comments to Pam Lodish, who is tending to food on the stove. “But she’ll eat almost anything, kalamata olives or grapefruit. She even loves curry and handles spicier stuff better than her dad.”
As Lucy eats, a playful Bernese mountain dog saddles up beside her and the two enter a heated sta...
Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - March 7, 2014 Category: Pediatrics Authors: Kipaya Kapiga Tags: All posts our patients' stories Parenting Source Type: news
My happy heart accident
Caroline Wigglesworth is a patient of Boston Children’s Hospital’s Heart Center. In the following blog she describes how growing up with a serious heart condition has influenced the young woman she’s grown to be.
Caroline (photo by Ned Jackson Photography)
“Do you think that I’ll grow up to be old?”
“Will people treat me differently because of my scar?”
It’s not often that a 9 year old asks you questions you can’t answer. But this boy, with his cute grin, Spiderman pajamas and wires running from his arms and chest to the life-sustaining machines at his bedside, was asking ...
Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - January 13, 2014 Category: Pediatrics Authors: Guest Blogger Tags: All posts Heart conditions Our patients’ stories Heart Center our patients' stories pediatric Cardiology pediatric cardiovascular care Source Type: news
Steroids No Help in Pediatric Biliary Atresia
WASHINGTON (MedPage Today) -- High-dose steroids following initial surgery for pediatric biliary atresia do not help prevent the need for liver transplantation, researchers reported here. (Source: MedPage Today Pediatrics)
Source: MedPage Today Pediatrics - November 6, 2013 Category: Pediatrics Source Type: news
Pediatric liver transplant recipient returns to UCLA to donate toys to young patients
WHAT:
Nick Wallace, 14, of San Diego, received a liver transplant at UCLA one year ago after being sick and hospitalized for most of his young life, the result of being born with biliary atresia, a congenital defect in which the bile duct between the liver and the small intestine is absent or blocked.
He returns to UCLA Saturday to celebrate two major milestones — his first liver "birthday" (the anniversary of his transplant) and the awarding a year ago of 501(c)(3) status to Nick's Picks, his nonprofit organization. Nick will deliver toy-filled backpacks he created to pediatric patients at...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - September 26, 2013 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Decongestant sprays linked to rare birth defects
Conclusion
This study suggests a possible link between phenylephrine and phenylpropanolamine – found in decongestant medicines – and an increased risk of three specific birth defects (endocardial cushion defect, ear defects, pyloric stenosis). Numerous other medications were tested but were not found to be associated with birth defects.
However, the study performed many statistical comparisons looking for links with many different birth defects. These three defects were the ones where significant links were found, but it is possible that some of the results may be due to chance alone.
The authors clearly recognised the...
Source: NHS News Feed - July 24, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medication Pregnancy/child Cancer Source Type: news
Study Examines Effects Of Aural Atresia On Speech Development, Learning
Daniel R. Jensen, M.D., of the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, and colleagues examined the effects of aural atresia (AA, a congenital absence or stenosis of the external auditory canal with middle ear anomalies and almost always accompanied by a malformed or absent external ear) on speech development and learning. In the researchers' review of patient records, 74 patients met the criteria: 48 with right-sided AA, 19 with left-sided AA and seven with bilateral AA... (Source: Health News from Medical News Today)
Source: Health News from Medical News Today - July 18, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Hearing / Deafness Source Type: news
Gene Discovered That's Responsible For Multiple Intestinal Atresia In Newborns
Physicians and researchers from Sherbrooke, Montreal and Quebec City have conducted a study that has led to the discovery of a gene that causes multiple intestinal atresia (MIA), a rare and life-threatening hereditary disorder that affects newborns. In addition to exploring novel therapeutic treatments for children with the disease, the discovery of the gene TTC7A will make it possible to develop a prenatal diagnostic test and a screening test for parents who are carriers. The Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke (CHUS) should offer the tests... (Source: Health News from Medical News Today)
Source: Health News from Medical News Today - June 14, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: GastroIntestinal / Gastroenterology Source Type: news
Discovery of the gene responsible for multiple intestinal atresia in newborns
(University of Montreal) Physicians and researchers from Sherbrooke, Montreal and Quebec City have conducted a study that has led to the discovery of a gene that causes multiple intestinal atresia, a rare and life-threatening hereditary disorder that affects newborns. In addition to exploring novel therapeutic treatments for children with the disease, the discovery of the gene TTC7A will make it possible to develop a prenatal diagnostic test and a screening test for parents who are carriers. (Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health)
Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health - June 11, 2013 Category: Global & Universal Source Type: news
Parents’ Night Out: A welcome break from hospital life
By Kipaya Kapiga
While Boston may be well-known for its great cuisine, the last thing a family traveling to Boston Children’s Hospital for long-term treatment is thinking about is fine dining. When parents care for a sick child in the hospital, it can be difficult for them to leave their child’s bedside to catch some sleep, let alone to take in the local fare. For more than a year, however, Boston Children’s has been working to change that by bringing the downtown Boston dining experience into the hospital.
Parents’ Night Out is a monthly dinner event for the parents whose children have a long-term stay at the hos...
Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - May 22, 2013 Category: Pediatrics Authors: Guest Blogger Tags: All posts Our patients’ stories Parenting child life our patients' stories stress relief when caring for a sick child Source Type: news
For this heart patient, what goes around, comes around
By Scott Howe
Robin
When Robin Scott was a little girl, traveling back and forth to the hospital to be treated for her single ventricle heart defect, her mother, Susan, had a simple wish: “What I really wanted was to see an older child who had a heart defect … I wanted to see teenagers, adults … I wanted to see people who had a normal life.”
Funny how things work out. Today, Susan’s daughter is 30 years old and working at Boston Children’s Hospital—the same place she’s been receiving treatment since she was born. Robin, who recently transitioned to an analyst role in the Pediatric Physicians’ Organiz...
Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - February 26, 2013 Category: Pediatrics Authors: Guest Blogger Tags: All posts Diseases & conditions Heart conditions Our patients’ stories Advanced Fetal Care Center congential heart defect Heart Center Michael Freed National Heart Awareness Month our patients' stories Pulmonary atresia Source Type: news
Our patients’ stories: Treating Haven’s pulmonary atresia
By Scott Howe
Haven
When Molly Foley was first pregnant, she admits she knew very little about congenital heart defects, or how they could affect her unborn daughter, Haven. But, around 20 weeks into her pregnancy, Molly discovered that heart defects were very real—and very scary—when an ultrasound revealed that Haven had pulmonary atresia. Also known as “blue baby syndrome,” pulmonary atresia is a condition in which the heart’s pulmonary valve is abnormal and doesn’t open.
“It never occurs to most people that their baby could have a heart defect,” Molly says, noting that many parents are all-too aware...
Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - February 4, 2013 Category: Pediatrics Authors: Guest Blogger Tags: All posts Heart conditions Our patients’ stories Children's Hospital Boston Fetal Cardiology Program; Pentalogy of Cantrell; Hypoplastic left heart syndrome; congenital heart disease Heart Week treating congenital heart defects Source Type: news
Pulmonary atresia: Urgent treatment necessary for this heart defect
Pulmonary atresia — Comprehensive overview covers the diagnosis and treatment of this congenital heart defect. (Source: MayoClinic.com Full Feed)
Source: MayoClinic.com Full Feed - January 24, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
