Health & Parenting News & Features

The percentage of U.S. children under 2 who haven't received any recommended vaccinations quadrupled in the past 17 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

Among the teens in the study, 28 percent admitted to at least some marijuana use, and 75 percent said they used alcohol at least occasionally.

A new study provides more evidence that young people who use e-cigarettes progress to smoking cigarettes in the future, researchers say.

Teens who averaged less than six hours of sleep a night, were twice as likely to say they had smoked cigarettes, used alcohol, marijuana or other drugs, or had driven after drinking, new research finds.

American teens are using pot in many ways, and smoking is most popular, new research shows. Many also use "edibles" or "vaping" -- where cannabis aerosol is inhaled, smoke-free, with the help of electronic cigarettes.

Kids with the sharpest intellects spent less than two hours a day on their cellphones, tablets and computers, coupled with 9 to 11 hours of sleep and at least an hour of physical activity, according to a study based on data gathered from over 4,500 U.S. kids aged 8 to 11.

U.S. teenagers whose appearance, lifestyle or behavior are different from widely held views of what it is to be male or female face a higher risk for feeling sad, feeling hopeless, and entertaining suicidal thoughts and/or suicidal behavior, a new study has found.

Parents who use coercion or bribes to deter picky eating may be setting the child up for problems down the road, Australian researchers have found.

A new CDC study found a dramatic drop in the number of sexually active U.S. teens, and of those teens, nearly 90 percent used some form of birth control the last time they had sex.

More than 230,000 children younger than 15 months old were treated in emergency rooms between 1990 and 2014 for baby walker-related injuries, new research published in the journal Pediatrics shows. More than 10,000 of those youngsters ended up being admitted to the hospital.

New studies on toddlers are shedding more interesting insights into just what a 2-year-old knows.

Young adults raised by lesbian moms are faring as well as -- or even better than -- other U.S. kids their age, according to the largest, longest-running study to track child development in these families.

More Social Media Time Raises Cyberbullying Risk By Robert PreidtHealthDay Reporter TUESDAY, July 10, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- If your teen spends a lot of time on social media, you might want to get them to cut back due to the risk of cyberbullying, new research suggests.Researchers surveyed more than 12,000 teens in Germany, Poland and Romania and found those who used social network sites for more than two hours a day were at increased risk for cyberbullying."This is an important finding which challenges past research suggesting that simply having, rather than excessive use of, a social

Your Tough Childhood Can Hurt Your Kids Later By Amy NortonHealthDay Reporter MONDAY, July 9, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- When a parent has suffered abuse or other adversities as a child, their children may be more prone to mood and behavior problems, a new study suggests.Their kids were twice as likely to have been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). And they were four times as likely to have been diagnosed with any mental health disorder.The findings imply that the impact of childhood traumas can stretch across generations, the researchers said.Parents' own mental health seemed to partly explain

Kids of Gay Parents Don't Struggle More Socially By Robert PreidtHealthDay Reporter FRIDAY, July 6, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- Children of same-sex parents are not more likely to suffer behavioral or social problems, Italian researchers say.The new study included children, aged 3 to 11, of 195 gay or lesbian parents and 195 heterosexual parents in Italy.Children of same-sex parents had fewer reported difficulties than children of different-sex parents, but scores were in the normal range for both groups, according to the report.Overall, in both groups, adults who felt less competent as parents, were less satisfied in their

July Is Peak Time for Illness From Feces in Pools By E.J. MundellHealthDay Reporter THURSDAY, June 28, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- Is it safe to go in the water this summer? Not if microscopic germs like E. coli or cryptosporidium are swimming in the pool with you, U.S. health officials warn."These germs make people sick when they swallow water contaminated with poop," the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated frankly in a news release on Thursday.The statement accompanied a new report on 140 outbreaks of "untreated recreational water" that sickened nearly 5,000 people and killed

Parents who take refuge in their smartphones when their kids throw a tantrum may, in the long run, make matters worse, a new study suggests.

While the researchers only found an association, rather than a cause-and-effect link, they determined that 2-year-olds exposed to this kind of parenting ended up less able to regulate their own emotions and behavior by age 5. That upped the risk for emotional problems at age 10.

While most parents said they would report a ride operator who appeared impaired by alcohol or drugs, less than half said they would report a ride operator who used a cellphone while operating a ride.

The survey revealed that 74 percent of respondents did not approve of spanking, and 78 percent said spanking never or rarely leads to better behavior.

In general, parents were more lenient about letting their own kids see that kind of violence, versus "unjustified," random violence.

Among parents who smoke cigarettes, pot use increased from 11 percent in 2002 to over 17 percent in 2015, the researchers found.

The annual rate of exposures skyrocketed by nearly 1,400 percent from 2012 to 2015, then fell by 20 percent from 2015 to 2016, the researchers said.

The new review looks back at more than 40 investigations conducted worldwide between 1991 and 2016. It concludes that -- like other types of addiction -- internet gaming disorder is a complex condition that arises when fun morphs into a loss of control, turning into an obsession.

The study found that 2-year-olds who engaged in a physical activity -- like crawling through a tunnel or playing ball -- did better on a test of mental flexibility than did toddlers who were left to play video games on their own.