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Childhood overweight and obesity have experienced epidemic growth in recent years. Excessive adiposity presents challenges to orthopedic, neurological, pulmonary, gastroenterological, endocrinal, and social development. Thus, the time course of weight development in early childhood is of special public health concern. A major goal of childhood obesity research is to identify mechanisms contributing to excess weight gain. In infancy, executive function has been identified as one possible contributor. Unfortunately, no studies have yet examined infant obesity risk with respect to executive function development. In this study, we present the first evidence that executive function may be linked to obesity risk in infancy. Thirty middle-class, primarily White infants visited the lab of the ETSU Program for the Study of Infancy at 18 and 21 months of age. Measures of infant weight and recumbent length were taken at both ages. Weightfor-length BMI z-scores were derived from international growth curves published by the World Health Organization. Executive function was measured at the 21-month visit, using the Multilocation Search Task. In this task, infants are shown the location of a cracker in one of five drawers. Once infants select the correct drawer on three successive trials, the cracker is moved to a new drawer in plain view of the child, and the child is asked to find the cracker again. The location of the cracker is changed on two more trials. Children’s perseverating responses to the old cracker location is viewed as an inverse measure of executive function. Results showed that from 18 to 21 months of age, BMI z-scores decreased significantly [t(30) = 2.63, p = .013]. This finding suggests that on average, infant BMI scores decreased across the three-month period. To explore whether executive function performance varied as a function of infant BMI, we divided our sample into two BMI groups via median split. A mixed-design ANOVA revealed that infants with the greatest decreases in BMI from 18 to 21 months (i.e., the “Hi Decrease” group), showed the greatest gains in performance across the three trials of the executive function task [F(2, 25) = 5.29, p = .012]. Specifically, by Trial 3 of the multilocation search task, Hi Decreasers were making an average of 0.57 perseverative errors, whereas the Lo Decreasers were making an average of 2.231 perseverative errors. These results are consistent with expectations. To the extent that executive function capacity helps regulate weight gain, it stands to reason that infants with greater executive function capacity would be advantaged in regulating their eating behaviors. Although we recognize that there are likely multiple contributors to infant and child obesity, findings from the present study supports the possibility that one of these contributors may be executive function. To our knowledge, this is the first study documenting a link between executive function and infant BMI.

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Only a few of the widely used medications used to treat seizures are approved by the FDA for use in children. Your doctor can tell you the details of your child's specific medication including the indications for use and its safety profile. Learn more here.

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Childhood obesity and its sequelae are a major public health problem in both the USA and globally. This review will focus on a systems medicine approach to obesity. Systems medicine is an integrative approach utilizing the vast amount of data garnered from “omics” technology and integrating these data with conventional pathophysiology as well as diverse environmental factors such as diet, exercise, community dynamics and the intestinal microbiome. Omics technology includes genomics, epigenomics, metagenomics, metabolomics and proteomics. In addition to unraveling etiology, the goals of a systems medicine approach are to provide actionable and evidenced-based clinical approaches. In the case of childhood obesity, an additional goal is characterizing measureable risk factors/biomarkers for obesity at the earliest possible age and devising age-appropriate optimal intervention strategies. It is also important to establish the age at which interventions could be critical. As discussed below, it is possible that some of the pathophysiological and epigenetic changes resulting from childhood obesity could become more irreversible the longer the obesity remains untreated.

Postpartum depression (PPD) refers to the onset of depressive symptoms anytime within first year following the birth of a child. PPD affects approximately 10-20% of new mothers and often goes underdiagnosed and untreated. Left untreated, PPD can predispose women to more severe and frequent future depressive episodes. Literature suggests depression in mothers may have long-term negative effects on infants’ and children’s psychosocial development. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has identified pediatric primary care as the ideal location to screen and refer mothers possibly suffering from depression. Routinely assessing PPD in mothers during well-child checks is not only recommended, it is increasingly being considered a best practice standard. The AAP calls for further research to improve the feasibility of assessing and treating PPD in mothers in pediatric primary care. This paper is part of a larger study that will be evaluating the effectiveness of screening new mothers for PPD in pediatric primary care settings and providing a brief same day interventions. The current aims of this portion of the study will be to evaluate 1) referral results, and 2) mothers’ level of satisfaction with the protocol. Research assistants (RA) will approach mothers of infants, birth to 6 months of age in the waiting rooms of ETSU Pediatrics in Johnson City, TN. Mothers will be given a brief description of PPD, the study and will be asked to participate by signing a voluntary informed consent document. As part of the visit, nurses will distribute and score the Edinburg Postpartum Depression Scale (EPDS). Mothers scoring 9 or above will receive a brief educational brochure about PPD, a brief intervention and a one week follow-up phone call with an onsite behavioral health consultant (BCH) or social worker (SW). At mothers’ discretion, an appropriate outside referral to preferred provider will be made, if necessary. Approximately two weeks postintervention, a satisfaction survey by phone will be administered by RAs. The survey will examine referral results (e.g., of high scores, what recommendations were made, did mothers follow through, treatments received, was there improvement in EPDS score) and the mothers’ level of satisfaction with the protocol (e.g., satisfaction with how protocol was handled by staff and how well mothers felt their needs were addressed). Satisfaction will be noted on a likert-scale ranging from 0 (no satisfaction) to 10 (very satisfied). Data is pending and collection will start during the first week of March showing EDPS uptake, referral results and mother satisfaction. Data is expected for approximately 60-100 new mothers.