Conversations… | with Dr. Greene

Could it be that how you clean or how you decorate your home might influence whether your child develops asthma? Could the smell of new wall-to-wall carpets be linked to asthma risk? A provocative study in the September 2004 issue of Thorax suggests there is a strong connection.

How and when sun damage occurs to children.s skin may surprise you. Many parents know that in the United States alone more than 1 million skin cancers are diagnosed in adults each year, resulting from damage to the skin during childhood. Many of these cancers are deadly melanomas.

Inexpensive toy jewelry sold in vending machines can pose a significant risk to children. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has determined that many of the jewelry trinkets sold in vending machines in the U.S. between January 2002 and summer 2004 contain dangerous levels of lead.

About 8.5 million children in the United States - more than one in 9 American children - do not have health insurance, according to an August 2004 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation study based on statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About half of these children have not seen a doctor or nurse at all for a check-up within the last year - even though eight check-ups are recommended for children in the first two years of life.

Health Canada has issued an August 2004 advisory that certain anti-depressant medicines taken during the third trimester of pregnancy may cause symptoms in the baby at birth.

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 might raise the blood pressure).