New Research From Packard Children's Hospital Experts Presented at 2008 Pediatric Academic Societies' Annu...( PALO ALTO Calif. April 30 /- Pret...),Health

PALO ALTO, Calif., April 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Preterm birth, healthy eating and neonatal jaundice are among the many topics to be discussed by Lucile Packard Children's Hospital physicians at the upcoming Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in Honolulu May 2-6. Here are just a few summaries of planned presentations. For more information or to reach one of the researchers, call Robert Dicks at (650) 387-7500 or email rdicks@lpch.org.

**ALL RESEARCH IS EMBARGOED UNTIL THE DATE AND TIME OF THE INDIVIDUAL

PRESENTATIONS NOTED BELOW**

Preterm boys struggle more at school

Recent research suggests that birth certificates may one day trump report cards as harbingers of trouble at school. Developmental pediatrician Trenna Sutcliffe, MD, and her colleagues previously showed that even slightly preterm infants tend to struggle academically years later. Now they go on to show that boys born between four to six weeks early are significantly more likely than equally preterm girls to have trouble reading and to require individualized education programs or special education during their first six years of school. The finding suggests that physicians and educators should be particularly vigilant in tracking the progress of preterm boys and to intervene quickly if they need extra help academically.
Saturday, May 3rd, 12:30 p.m. HST

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Gender Differences in a Mouse Model of Preterm Birth

Slightly preterm babies might struggle in school, but severely preterm infants struggle with life itself. Although the stakes are immeasurably higher, once again boys are at a disadvantage-but until now no one knew why they tended to have smaller brain volumes and were more likely to have cognitive deficits than equally preterm girls. Now, neonatologist Anna Penn, MD, and her colleagues have discovered that newborn male mice exposed to abnormally low levels of oxygen lost greater brain volume than did newborn fema
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