Preschool Health & Safety Related Articles & Blog Posts

If it seems like nowadays there’s someone in every school classrooms with a food allergy, that’s because almost 1 in 12 kids today have food allergies – and 1 in 32 have serious food allergies, serious enough to have already caused the child to have symptoms like trouble breathing, a drop in blood pressure, or [...]

Last year an advisory panel of independent experts convened by the FDA recommended that the FDA ban popular over-the-counter oral decongestants, antihistamines and cough suppressants for children under the age of 6 with colds. Recently large drug companies have voluntarily decided to advise parents not to give these medicines to kids under 4.

Question: Who took cough and cold medicines the most? Answer: Kids aged 2 through 5 years – the very group for whom the FDA expert panel voted to ban them last year (although the FDA has not done this as of August 2008).

MRSA infections now kill more Americans than does HIV/AIDS, according to a CDC report in the October 17, 2007 Journal of the American Medical Association. Most of these infections are in adults over age 65, but infections with resistant bacteria are on the rise, even among healthy children. The important bacteria for parents to know [...]

More than 10 percent of American kids between the ages of 2 and 5 are already overweight or obese, according to the January 2005 annual statistics report of the American Heart Association. This number comes from an analysis of children measured in 2002, and is the latest data available. It’s almost half-again as many as [...]

Would you rather your kindergarten-age child had blood lead levels 3 times the safe limit (like children living next to a lead smelters – double the level of most kids with lead toxicity), or would your rather your child snored? The impact on the brain is about the same, according to a provocative study in [...]

The heavier kids are during the toddler, preschool, and school years, the greatest the chance they have of developing cancer as young adults, according to a study published in the November 1, 2004 International Journal of Cancer. Researchers in the Boyd Orr Study of Diet and Health in Pre-War Britain measured the heights and weights [...]

What’s your three-year-old’s blood pressure? August 2004 guidelines from The National High Blood Pressure Education Program Working Group on Children recommend that blood pressure screening begin at age 3 for all healthy children, and even earlier for those at high risk (such as those who were born early, small, or who are taking medicines that [...]

I love watching young children at play. Kids are designed with energy to burn. Unfortunately, though, they’re not burning it! Preschoolers are so naturally full of curiosity and energy that it’s almost a cliché – but today’s screen-time activities have taken that curiosity and funneled it into a sedentary lifestyle. A disturbing study in the [...]

Most parents would be surprised to learn that in the US the 6th leading cause of death among children under 4 years old is the flu and its complications. We know the elderly are at risk; but so are young children. Overall 114,000 Americans each year are hospitalized with the flu, and more than 36,000 [...]