Blog

Helping your child understand puberty

Posted on by | Health and Parenting
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We all remember the changes — and awkwardness — of puberty. But helping your child navigate puberty is a whole different matter. For answers, we turned to Boston Children’s Primary Care Alliance physician Caitlyn Hark, MD, at Framingham Pediatrics, and Frances Grimstad, MD, a pediatric and adolescent gynecologist in the Division of Gynecology at Boston ... Read More
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Keeping up with the tween skin care trend: What’s in those products?

Posted on by | Health and Parenting
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More teens and tweens are hitting the mall to grab skin-care products they’ve seen on social media — but are these popular ingredients safe for younger skin? We asked Dr. Jennifer Tan and Dr. Jennifer Huang in Boston Children’s Dermatology Program to weigh in on this trend and break down common ingredients. Trends aren’t for ... Read More
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Then and now: Catching up with some of our short bowel syndrome kids

Posted on by | Patient Stories
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Also known as “short gut,” short bowel syndrome is a life-threatening condition in which a lack of functioning intestine can make it difficult to absorb the nutrients needed to survive and thrive. Thanks to advances in medical and surgical treatments — many of which have been made by the team in Boston Children’s Center for Advanced ... Read More
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Injected microbubbles could be a safe way to deliver emergency oxygen

Posted on by | Basic/Translational, Research
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For years, researchers and clinicians have been trying to find a way to rapidly deliver oxygen to patients when traditional means of oxygenation are difficult or ineffective during critical moments of cardiac or respiratory arrest. Sometimes, hypoxemia caused by airway obstruction or lung disease can be so severe that methods to boost low-oxygen levels (including ... Read More
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A universal gene therapy for Diamond-Blackfan anemia is poised for clinical testing

Posted on by | Basic/Translational, Research
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Diamond-Blackfan anemia (DBA), first described at Boston Children’s Hospital in 1938, is a rare blood disorder in which the bone marrow cannot make mature, functioning red blood cells. Children with this life-threatening anemia have few treatment options. A small handful with a well-matched donor can be cured with bone marrow transplant, but most rely on ... Read More
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A heavy-medaled gymnast and his close call with leg-length discrepancy

Posted on by | Patient Stories
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Ask 15-year-old Kaleb what he likes about gymnastics and with a sly smile, he’ll say, “flipping around.” That’s Kaleb: understated, funny. But watch him in action, and you’ll see a focused gymnast who earned two medals in the 2024 Men’s Eastern National Championships. He probably won’t mention that two years ago, a surgeon told his ... Read More
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Skin organoid could guide new treatments for skin conditions, hair loss

Posted on by | Basic/Translational, Research
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What does it take to build healthy skin? Two research groups converged on this question from different angles. They’ve now produced the most detailed view to date of the cell types and cell collaborations that go into creating our body’s largest organ. Several years ago, Karl Koehler, PhD, and colleagues at Boston Children’s Hospital used ... Read More
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Fuel to be faster: Studying the effects of low energy availability at the Boston Marathon

Posted on by | Clinical, Research
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Like many sports medicine specialists, Kristin Whitney, MD, MA, suspected that many of the issues she treats in runners — bone stress injuries, anemia, decreased response to training, and reduced endurance to name a few — stemmed from insufficient nutrition. Key takeaways Runners with indicators of low energy availability had slower finish times and more ... Read More
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For Fiadh: Pushing the envelope to treat drug-resistant epilepsy

Posted on by | Patient Stories
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Fiadh is a bubbly and empathetic 4-year-old. And if you ask her parents, Elaine and Dario, she’s also mischievous and wild. “She knows when she shouldn’t be doing something,” Elaine says. “Then she gives you a look, giggles, and does it anyway.” Fiadh’s tenacity likely comes from her mother, which is a good thing. After ... Read More
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Making pediatric health equity research truly equitable: An EDI review process

Posted on by | Clinical, Research
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A burgeoning number of studies are examining pediatric health equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). But if not done right, health equity research can do a disservice, perpetuating biases and wrong assumptions that actually exacerbate inequities. To guide EDI-related studies, the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Boston Children’s Hospital (through Tina Young Poussaint, MD, and Susan ... Read More
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Mutations during prenatal development may contribute to schizophrenia

Posted on by | Basic/Translational, Research
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Schizophrenia is known to have a genetic component, and variants in 10 genes have been identified as markedly increasing schizophrenia risk. But together, these genes account for under 5 percent of cases. Now, a pilot study in the journal Science suggests another important contributor to schizophrenia: distinctive patterns of non-inherited (somatic) mutations. These mutations appear ... Read More
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