Children’s Health

Blake Farmer, Nashville Public Radio Babies born to mothers who used opioids during pregnancy represent one of the most distressing legacies of an opioid epidemic that has claimed almost 400,000 lives and ravaged communities. In fact, many of the ongoing lawsuits filed against drug companies refer to these babies, fighting through withdrawal …

Nothing Jenn and Jason learned in parenting class prepared them for the challenges they’ve faced raising a child prone to violent outbursts. The couple are parents to two siblings. They first fostered the children as toddlers and later adopted them. (KHN has agreed not to use the children’s names or …

Portia Smith’s most vivid memories of her daughter’s first year are of tears. Not the baby’s. Her own. “I would just hold her and cry all day,” Smith said. At 18, Smith was caring for two children, 4-year-old Kelaiah and newborn Nelly, with little help from the partner in her …

Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names. First Do No Harm: When Financing Health Care Becomes Unethical We attribute the oldest text of ethics in Western medical practice to Hippocrates (460-370 A.D.), …

When Madavia Johnson gave birth to Donald Ray Dowless III last year, she was hit by a case of severe postpartum anxiety. She was scared to carry her son downstairs or drive him in a car. She couldn’t manage to continue law school ― and could hardly leave the house …

Less than a decade ago, the emergency department at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego would see maybe one or two young psychiatric patients per day, said Dr. Benjamin Maxwell, the hospital’s interim director of child and adolescent psychiatry. Now, it’s not unusual for the emergency room to see 10 …

Andrew Echeguren, 26, had his first psychotic episode when he was 15. He was working as an assistant coach at a summer soccer camp for kids when the lyrics coming out of his iPod suddenly morphed into racist and homophobic slurs, telling him to harm others — and himself. Echeguren …

This story also ran on Vice. This story can be republished for free (details). When Ben Packard met with the 16-year-old girl a little over a year ago, she was a patient at Seattle Children’s Hospital, where she’d been admitted after trying to kill herself. Her parents were distraught. “They …

When children are diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, stimulant medications like Ritalin or Adderall are usually the first line of treatment. The American Academy of Pediatrics issued new guidelines Monday upholding that central role of medications accompanied by behavioral therapy in ADHD treatment. Some experts say, however, they are …

Denise Herrmann was only a few months into her new job as principal of a Palo Alto, Calif., high school in fall 2014 when a student took his own life. By the next day, Herrmann said, she and some of her colleagues at Henry M. Gunn High School were in …