Children’s Health

Alec Murray was 13. He enjoyed camping, fishing and skiing. At home, it was video games, movies and books. Having just completed middle school with “almost straight A’s,” those grades were going to earn him an iPhone for his upcoming birthday. Instead, he killed himself on June 8 — the …

Use Our Content This story can be republished for free (details). Starting this year, routine pediatric visits for millions of California children could involve questions about touchy family topics, such as divorce, unstable housing or a parent who struggles with alcoholism. California now will pay doctors to screen patients for …

By Sarah Varney January 3, 2020 Sarah Varney, Kaiser Health News More than a million fewer children receive public health insurance now than in December 2017. In some cases, their parents acquired coverage at work. But researchers also see a troubling rise in uninsured children — and say the Trump …

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 …