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Cooking Together: Allergy-Free Recipes for Parents & Kids by the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Networ These allergen-free recipes encourage parents and kids to cook together and take control of their special dietary needs. Read "Fighting food allergies"
Children with Visual Impairments: A Parent's Guide, edited by M. Cay Holbrook These articles and essays address day-to-day challenges of parents of children with visual impairments. Read "Seeking sight".
Raising Drug-Free Kids: 100 Tips for Parents by Aletha Solter, PhD Organized by age, this book has suggestions for parents to help encourage kids to say no to drugs. Read "Artificial intelligence"
Buddy Booby's Birthmark by Donna and Evan Ducker and Mike Motz This story of a bird who is offered the chance to remove his birthmark addresses the realities of looking different from others. Read "In her own words"
Check out Children's Hospital Boston's new blog, called Thrive. It features Children's experts addressing timely health topics; stories from and videos about our patients, their families, clinicians and researchers; and the latest health information from around the world.
Among recent highlights:
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An eight-part video series documenting the challenges of living with life-threatening food allergies and how Children's is the first to test a bold approach that might cure people of their milk allergies. (Also see "Fighting food allergies".)
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Extensive coverage of H1N1, including a new, free iPhone app from Children's HealthMap team that tracks disease outbreaks in real time.
- How legislation supported by David Ludwig, MD, PhD, director of Children's Optimal Weight for Life Clinic, might impact rates of childhood obesity and pump tax revenues from sugar-sweetened beverages back into the state budget.
- Regular posts from Children's Chief Executive Officer, James Mandell, MD, on the impact of health care reform on children's health, and why last summer was busier than he expected—both professionally and personally.
While you're visiting Thrive, click on the right side to friend us on our Facebook site, follow us on Twitter or watch our videos on YouTube.
Read more at childrenshospitalblog.org
There is some truth to this aphorism. At our One Step Ahead Program, we recommend eating five servings of fruits and vegetables a day to stay healthy. Eating a variety of fruits and vegetables each day can improve vision and memory, and help lower cholesterol levels and the risk of some cancers. So yes, eat an apple a dayóbut also add at least four other servings, like oranges, pears, broccoli and carrots.
—Tracy Myers RN, BSN, CPN, Children's Hospital Primary Care Center
and One Step Ahead Program
The largest study of kids' use of complementary and alternative medicine reveals that parents are increasingly turning to alternative therapies, like acupuncture and biofeedback, to help keep their children healthy. Eugenia Chan, MD, MPH, from the Developmental Medicine Center, weighs in on this trend and offers advice on what parents and physicians need to know.
Q: Who's using complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)?
A: Children with chronic conditions, children whose conditions are typically treated with powerful medications and children who don't have an effective treatment are the most likely to use CAM therapies. Children with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis and various types of cancer tend to fall into that category. For some families, alternative therapy is a cultural norm, so CAM might be more common in some Latino or Asian cultures. Other families may just want a more holistic approach, which is perceived to be healthier. There's a belief that alternative treatments are safer because they're natural when in fact, parents should approach these treatments with the same caution they use with more conventional medicine.
Read the rest of the Q&A about alternative therapies
Tooth decay is the most common chronic disease of childhoodófive times more common than asthma and seven times more common than hay fever
percent of preschoolers have cavities
school hours are lost each year to dental-related illness
American children and adults are without dental insurance, which is 2.5 times the number lacking medical insurance
The recommended age for the first visit to the dentistóbecause dental cavities are almost completely preventable if the disease and risk factors are identified early
For more on this topic, read Media myths-busters
Learn more at askthemediatrician.org
—Claire McCarthy, MD, medical director of Children's Hospital Boston's
Martha Eliot Health Center, on the rise of "swine flu parties," where
children are purposefully exposed to other kids with H1N1 (swine flu).
Read the rest of McCarthy's blog post about swine flu parties, as well as her
top five things you need to know about H1N1 this fall
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