Category: children’s health

With No End in Sight to Pandemic Life, Parents Find Disruption Is the New Normal

Amid covid-related staffing shortages and testing requirements, school systems are stretched thin. And so are parents’ nerves.

As Omicron Surges, Effort to Vaccinate Young Children Stalls

Just 18% of 5- to 11-year-olds are fully vaccinated, with rates varying significantly across the country, a KHN analysis of federal data shows. Pediatricians say the slow pace and geographic disparities are alarming, especially against the backdrop of record numbers of cases and pediatric hospitalizations.

New Parents Slapped With Surprise Bills for Treating Newborns

Regular use of a more advanced screening method turns a low-cost procedure into a pricier one.

NICU Bill Installment Plan: That’ll Be $45,843 a Month for 12 Months, Please

After baby Dorian Bennett arrived two months early and spent more than 50 days in the neonatal ICU, his parents received a bill of more than $550,000 — despite having insurance. The Florida hospital had a not-so-helpful suggestion: monthly payments of more than $45,000 for a year.

Pandemic Poses Short- and Long-Term Risks to Babies, Especially Boys

A mother’s immune response to covid can be a greater danger to the fetus than the virus itself.

Covid Shots for Kids Are Scarce — And Demand Is Mixed — In Rural Montana

Although covid vaccines have been available to children as young as 5 for more than a month, they’re not being offered in some rural Montana counties, and parents don’t know where to find them in others.

How LA, Calling the Shots on School Vaccine Mandates, Can Lead the Way on Covid Rules

In the middle of a measles outbreak in 1977, the Los Angeles school system required students to be inoculated or stay out of class. Other school systems followed the practice. Will it work again now that the county is insisting that teens have their shots against covid?

Watch: No Extra Resources for Children Orphaned by Covid

Grieving children face grave risks to their well-being, both in the short and long term. But there is no concerted government effort to help the estimated 140,000 children who have lost a parent in the pandemic.

A Covid Head-Scratcher: Why Lice Lurk Despite Physical Distancing

With kids back in school, business is picking back up for professional nitpickers. But how are kids getting head lice if they’re physically distancing in the classroom?

Schools, Pediatricians Look to Make Up Lost Ground on Non-Covid Vaccinations

Health officials hope the rollout of covid shots for young children and other initiatives will boost routine vaccine rates that dropped during the pandemic and narrow socioeconomic disparities.