Peds/OB/GYN

All probiotics are not the same in protecting premature infants from common, life-threatening illness
Laboratory analysis of the bacterial contents of fecal samples from the infants, B. infantis was more effective at colonizing bifidobacteria, the healthy bacteria, in the newborns' gastrointestinal tracts than was B. lactis. The highest fecal levels of bifidobacteria were found in the infants who were breastmilk-fed and received the B. infantis probiotic, Underwood said. Eurekalert!

The NICU environment: Not all silence is golden
The researchers studied the outcomes of 127 infants born < 30 weeks gestational age between 2007 and 2010 in a single-center NICU that was located in an urban area with low parental visitation rates. Approximately one-half of the infants were assigned to open wards and the other one-half were assigned to private rooms. Infants underwent neurobehavioral testing, amplitude integrated electroencephalography, and brain imaging prior to NICU discharge. Early neuroimaging and electrophysiological findings suggested altered cerebral development in infants in private rooms compared with those in open wards. Eighty-six of these preterm infants were assessed again at 2 years of age, which showed that children who were in private rooms in the NICU had lower language scores and demonstrated a trend toward having lower motor scores and more externalizing behaviors. Eurekalert!

Children born to teen mothers have delayed development, likely due to social factors
--Babies born to teen mothers have less developed speaking skills at age five than children of older mothers, a new study has found. The study, published online today in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, identified parenting involvement – such as playing, reading, and singing with the child – was predictive of higher-level child development. Eurekalert!

Fecal Microbiota and Metabolome of Children with Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified
This study aimed at investigating the fecal microbiota and metabolome of children with Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) and autism (AD) in comparison to healthy children (HC). Bacterial tag-encoded FLX-titanium amplicon pyrosequencing (bTEFAP) of the 16S rDNA and 16S rRNA analyses were carried out to determine total bacteria (16S rDNA) and metabolically active bacteria (16S rRNA), respectively. De Angelis M, Piccolo M, Vannini L, Siragusa S, De Giacomo A, Serrazzanetti DI, Cristofori F, Guerzoni ME, Gobbetti M, Francavilla R. PLoS One. 2013 Oct 9;8(10):e76993. PMID: 24130822