Volume 86 No. 3 September 2019

Early Career Investigator

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Congratulations to Yide Yang, the Early Career Investigator for September. Dr Yang grew up in a small rural village in Hunan Province in China. During her training, she volunteered in a poor village in Guizhou Province, inspiring her to work on the early-life determinants of pediatric health. She was further inspired by her PhD mentors, who had great passion for maternal and child health. Also in this issue, a study by Yang and colleagues on the interaction between consumption of high-calorie foods and genetic polymorphisms in the SCAP protein reflects her concern for lifestyle behaviors of vulnerable children. Her advice? Find what you are interested in and focus on it! See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0459-8 and https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0402-z

John Howland awardee address

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Each year, the APS awards the John Howland Medal and Award to a pediatric investigator who has had a substantial and significant impact on the field. At PAS 2019, the award was given to David Stevenson. We are honored to publish his acceptance address, in which he contemplates the role of serendipity in his career. See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0456-y

Impact of moderate altitude on birthweight

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Ertl et al. describe a study of over half a million Austrian births. They predicted the birthweight of a second-born from the birthweight of the firstborn, and determined the impact of mothers’ changing residency between births to a higher or lower altitude. They found a significant longitudinal negative effect of altitude on birthweight. See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0434-4

Biochemical markers for persistence of PDA

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Olsson et al. analyzed 14 biochemical biomarkers obtained from serum from 47 preterm infants (<28 weeks’ gestation). Nine were significantly associated with persistent patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) and one was significantly associated with failure of pharmacologic therapy. The authors’ Insights image provides a mechanistic interpretation of these findings. See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-018-0182-x and https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0458-9

Effect of stress on growth and cardiovascular risk profiles in preterm infants

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Stress can significantly impact perinatal programming, but it is not often addressed in attempts to optimize growth in preterm infants. Watterberg and colleagues from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development neonatal research network conducted a large prospective cohort study. They found that salivary cortisol and DHEA correlated with higher systolic blood pressure and poor growth in preterm infants, suggesting future cardiovascular risk. They also found that extremely preterm infants had blunted cortisol responses compared with term infants, indicating significant stress. A related article in this issue describes a family’s experience with preterm birth and associated stress. See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-018-0243-1 and https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0339-2

Heart rate fluctuations as predictors of cardiorespiratory stability

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Jost et al. studied 90 preterm infants for heart rate fluctuation over the first 5 days of life as a prognostic indicator of need for respiratory support and duration of caffeine therapy. They found that the higher the mean sample entropy, the shorter the duration of respiratory support and lower postmenstrual age at cessation of caffeine therapy, indicating its usefulness in discharge planning. See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0424-6

Cord blood leptin DNA methylation and macrosomia

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In a case–control study, Wang et al. analyzed leptin DNA methylation in 61 newborns with macrosomia (birthweight >4 kg) without maternal gestational diabetes and 69 newborns with normal birthweight. Lower levels of cord blood leptin methylation as well as fetal factors were associated with macrosomia without gestational diabetes mellitus. See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0435-3