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October 4, 2012 For over a decade, peanut butter paste supplements like Plumpy'Nut have saved children around the world from malnutrition. Now health officials want to use the packets not just to save starving kids, but to keep them healthy in the first place. But will it work?

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October 3, 2012 In northern Nigeria, some miners use crude methods to extract raw gold ore — a practice fueled by rising gold prices. But the gold here is embedded in lead, and the dust kicked up by this dirty and illegal mining has killed hundreds of children and sickened thousands more. Experts say this may be the worst case of lead poisoning in recent history.

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October 2, 2012 Medicaid is likely to undergo a major change regardless of whether President Obama is re-elected or replaced by Republican Mitt Romney. Democrats support a much bigger program. Republicans have plans to scale it back.

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October 1, 2012 The typical child in the U.S. is exposed to nearly four hours of background TV a day, a national survey finds. The youngest kids are exposed to the most, yet should watch the least, according to guidelines from pediatricians.

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September 30, 2012 Gold ore mined in northern Nigeria is mixed with lead. When the ore is dug up, crushed and processed, the lead escapes into the air and settles on the ground. Children are being poisoned when they swallow lead-contaminated dust and dirt.

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September 24, 2012 The new drug reversed changes in blood vessels that usually lead kids with the rare genetic disease progeria to have heart attacks and strokes. Research on the toxic protein responsible for progeria is also changing scientists' understanding of how normal cells age.

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September 24, 2012 A leading group of pediatricians is out with a sterner warning than ever about trampolines. They say the risk of injury to kids remains too high, despite some safety measures. Use of trampolines at home "is strongly discouraged."

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September 24, 2012 With local hospitals in Durban, South Africa, strained by the AIDS epidemic, city leaders are trying to restore and reopen a historic children's hospital shut down in the 1980s during apartheid. The hospital originally opened in 1931 with a mandate to serve kids of all races.

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September 24, 2012 In the past few years, some sports medicine specialists have become convinced that strength training activities like CrossFit can be great for kids. But others worry that CrossFit trainers aren't teaching appropriate techniques for weightlifting to adults, much less kids.

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September 18, 2012 In a study, researchers found that among white kids and teens, higher BPA levels were associated with more than twice the risk of obesity. But higher BPA levels didn't affect childhood obesity risk for blacks and Hispanics.

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September 17, 2012 About 15 percent of high schoolers with cellphones said they had sent sexually explicit texts or images, according to a survey in Los Angeles. More than half of the students reported knowing someone who sexted.

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September 17, 2012 Kids' high salt consumption is putting them at risk for illnesses linked to high blood pressure. The association between salt and blood pressure was highest in kids who are already overweight, the CDC says.

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September 10, 2012 Overweight teens eat fewer calories than their thinner peers, a new study says. So why do they weigh more? Researchers suspect a drop-off in exercise in the tween and teen years may be one reason.

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September 10, 2012 Researcher say parents don't need to worry about their babies being emotionally scarred by crying while they're learning to sleep. Techniques like controlled comforting and camping out for managing infant sleep are quite OK, they say.

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September 6, 2012 A Scottish cluster of injuries caused by kids swallowing liquid detergent packs highlights risks from the popular products. In August, there were 735 calls to U.S. poison control centers about children under 5 being exposed to laundry packs, up from 725 in July.

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