Northwest Film Forum’s 8th annual Children’s Film Festival Seattle will be rolling out the red carpet to children and their families today through Feb. 3. It has become the largest film festival on the West Coast dedicated to this young audience, reaching more than 10,000 people during festival screenings in Seattle and a subsequent festival tour of 15 to 20 U.S. cities.
New this year, current and former patients at Seattle Children’s Hospital will have a few very special starring roles in the festival.
Lights, camera, action!
The festival will showcase more than 120 innovative, inspiring and fun films from 38 countries. Children’s is excited that five short films created by patients or featuring patients’ creative works have been selected to be shown at the festival.
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Research in South America on a rare ear defect could help pinpoint risk factors for some of the most common birth defects in the United States.
Some 120,000 babies in the United States are born each year with birth defects, according to the March of Dimes. The most common birth defects are heart defects, cleft lip and cleft palate, Down syndrome and spina bifida.
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Seattle Children’s Emergency Department (ED) is an extremely busy place. In 2012, our ED team saw over 36,000 patients. Visits have increased 30 percent since 2003. We exceed recommended capacity every day during our busy season, from November to March.
ED Lobby: The new ED has more space and additional treatment rooms to reduce wait times and shorten lengths of stay.
To handle current volumes, the team cares for emergency patients in three distinct and physically separate spaces – an often inconvenient and inefficient situation for families and staff.
However, on April 23, our ED will move into its new home in Children’s Building Hope expansion. The new ED increases capacity, expands the size of patient rooms, provides adjacent radiologic access and enhances staff visibility and communication. It also improves the way patients and families flow through the space and how caregivers respond to their needs.
“Our current Emergency Department wasn’t built to accommodate the number of patients we’re seeing today,” said Tony Woodward, MD, MBA, chief of emergency services at Seattle Children’s. “A larger facility with more treatment rooms and improved clinical workflow will reduce wait times and make a trip to the ED a far less stressful experience for patients and their families.” Read full post »
Five doctors at Seattle Children’s offer their top tips for keeping kids healthy in the new year. Their suggestions range from protecting kids against the flu and environmental toxins, to helping them get the rest they need to succeed.
Make one of these your family’s 2013 New Year’s resolution:
1. Protect your whole family against the flu
Doug Opel, MD, MPH, general pediatrician at Seattle Children’s Hospital, says “It’s not too late, but don’t wait” to get a flu shot. Opel advises parents to vaccinate their children and themselves against the flu, a contagious virus that infects the nose, throat and lungs, and can cause fever, cough, sore throat, muscle aches, fatigue, vomiting and diarrhea.
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Following the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that has shocked the world, many families may feel uneasy as their children return to school this week. Not only has the tragedy made some parents question their children’s safety at school, but children and teens may also find it difficult to return to their normal routine as they remain concerned about the events that took place.
Seattle Children’s pediatrician and blogger Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson provides helpful advice about how parents can support their children as well as themselves in the next few days and weeks ahead.
- Remember your child’s school is safe – Random shootings are an anomaly and it is important to remind yourself that this tragedy was an exception.
- Get the information you need – Reach out to your child’s school to ensure there are good safety measures in place.
- Step back from media reports – Any overwhelming informational stream can increase anxiety and heartache.
- Listen to your children before you speak – Ask what your children have heard and how it makes them feel. If your children don’t speak about it, begin the conversation and ask open-ended questions.
- Discuss the safety measures you take in your own home and at school to protect your children from harm.
- Check in with your child when they get home from school – Ask open-ended questions to see what they’ve learned or how they’re feeling and continue to check in over the next few weeks. Read full post »
Cancer Patient Room
In April 2013, Seattle Children’s will open Building Hope, a new facility that will house a new cancer inpatient unit with 48 single patient rooms. Additionally, Building Hope will include 32 private rooms for critical care treatment and a new Emergency Department.
The cancer care space will span two floors and offer several features that will make a patient and their family’s stay as personalized and comfortable as possible.
A 16-bed teen and young adult cancer space will occupy its own floor, where patients will benefit from the support of their peers in an age-appropriate environment. No other hospital in the United States currently offers a dedicated inpatient unit of this size for the care of teens and young adults with cancer.
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If there’s one thing 12-year-old Chloe Schmidt of Pasco, Wash., is thankful for this holiday season, it’s the absence of pain.
For her mom, Erin, it’s the Pain Rehabilitation Program at Seattle Children’s – and the physical and occupational therapists, psychologists, nurses and physicians who helped her daughter move past the pain that derailed her life earlier this year.
Chloe’s downward pain spiral started with a cat bite in January. By February, she had body aches that her pediatrician blamed on growing pains. A week later it morphed into a searing, all-over pain.
That’s when Erin scooped Chloe off the floor and rushed her to a local emergency room.
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Kawasaki disease is a condition that can affect many parts of a child’s body, including the mucous membranes (lining of the mouth and breathing passages), skin, eyes, and lymph nodes, which are part of the immune system. The disease is the leading cause of acquired heart disease in children in the U.S, and it can affect the coronary arteries, which supply blood to the heart. This can lead, in rare cases, to heart attack and death.
What causes Kawasaki disease?
There are lots of theories about what causes Kawasaki disease. Researchers have thought that it might be linked to genetics or even the wind, of all things. Patients tend to be diagnosed with the condition more frequently from winter through spring, which suggests a possible environmental trigger. Some investigators have even theorized that carpet mites could be carrying a pathogen that causes the disease. “People had their carpets cleaned and, soon after, their children were diagnosed with Kawasaki disease,” said Michael Portman, MD, of Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
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Several studies conducted in Los Angeles and New York City have identified high concentrations of air pollution as harmful to a developing fetus, but there have been few studies of traffic-related air pollution and birth outcomes in areas that have low to moderate air pollution. Now, a team led by Sheela Sathyanarayana, MD, MPH, of Seattle Children’s Research Institute, has found modest effects on fetal growth in the Puget Sound Air Basin, a region in Washington state with low overall air pollutant concentrations.
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Most children watch TV before age two, typically starting at about five to nine months. That’s despite the fact that recent guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics discourage television or video viewing by infants before the age of two. Encouraged by disputed claims that videos can benefit an infant or toddler’s educational development, the infant digital video disc (DVD) business has become a $500 million industry in the U.S.
First Study to Look at Brain Chemistry in Infants
However, a new study conducted by investigators at Seattle Children’s Research Institute suggests that video watching causes different brain reactions than simple interactive games, such as playing with building blocks. The purpose of the research was to test whether there are quantifiable differences in the levels of cortisol between a known beneficial and traditional type of play and one that is new and relatively understudied.
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