Do eye problems cause kids' headaches?
When a child complains of frequent headaches, many pediatricians order an eye exam.
Often, a child may experience headaches while reading or doing schoolwork, leading parents to think the child needs glasses. But are eye problems really a cause of childhood headaches?
In a recent study, Dr. Zachary Roth, a resident in ophthalmology at Albany Medical Center, and his colleagues examined 158 children under age 18 who were referred to ophthalmologists for frequent headaches.
Ultimately, the researchers could not find any significant link between headaches and diagnoses of vision problems. In three-quarters of the subjects, the headaches went away over time, both in those who received glasses and those who did not.
The study, which was presented at a recent American Academy of Ophthalmology conference, was not designed to look for causes of the headaches.
Doctors back OTC birth control pills
No prescription or doctor's exam needed: The nation's largest group of obstetricians and gynecologists says birth control pills should be sold over the counter, like condoms.
Tuesday's surprise opinion from these gatekeepers of contraception could boost longtime efforts by women's advocates to make the pill more accessible.
But no one expects the pill to be sold without a prescription any time soon: A company would have to seek government permission first, and it's not clear if any are considering it. Plus there are questions about what such a move would mean for women's wallets if it were no longer covered by insurance. Still, momentum may be building. The influential American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is declaring it's safe to sell the pill over the counter.
Half of the nation's pregnancies every year are unintended, a rate that hasn't changed in 20 years — and easier access to birth control pills could help, said Dr. Kavita Nanda, an OB/GYN who co-authored the opinion for the doctors group.
— Associated Press
Study: Soggy pants not parents' fault
Can the wrong type of toilet training lead to incontinence later? Probably not, a new study concludes.
Broadly speaking, parents use one of two techniques. The first, sometimes called parent-oriented, rewards good behavior and punishes accidents by withholding the reward. In the other, called child-oriented, parents wait until the child seems ready for training and then praise success and ignore accidents. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests the child-oriented approach, but until now there has been little research to support either.
Researchers studied 58 children ages 4 to 12 with symptoms of daytime incontinence, comparing them with 147 children without the problem. The study, published online Nov. 1 in Clinical Pediatrics, found no association between urge incontinence and the method by which the children had been toilet-trained.
— New York Times