The key to better child behavior after surgery may be a more peaceful operating room. “The period before, during and after surgery is a particularly unpredictable time for parents,” explained Nguyen Tram, a research scientist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “By implementing some small measures in the OR, we found we were able…  read on >  read on >

Pediatricians’ offices, children’s hospitals, urgent care centers and emergency rooms across the United States are being overwhelmed by an early, heavy surge of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) among infants and young children. Reported cases of RSV started rising dramatically in September, and by mid-October were at their highest levels in at least two years, according…  read on >  read on >

School-age kids who spend hours a day playing video games may outperform their peers on certain tests of mental agility, a new study suggests. Researchers found that compared with children who never played video games, those who regularly spent hours gaming had higher scores on two standard cognitive tests: one measuring short-term memory and another…  read on >  read on >

Experts studying kids’ sleep and eating habits have learned more about a potential reason for childhood obesity. Kids who are deprived of sleep tend to eat more calories the next day, researchers found. And some of those extra calories come from less-healthy, sugar-laden snacks or treats. “When children lost sleep, overall they ate an extra…  read on >  read on >