Editor's Focus

Volume 85 No. 7 June 2019

Early Career Investigator

Congratulations to Nickie Andescavage, the Early Career Investigator for June. Her career interest in neurodevelopment was sparked during an undergraduate research internship. After medical school, she headed to Children’s National in Washington, DC, where she completed two fellowships: one in neonatal–perinatal medicine, followed by one in fetal and translational medicine. Her growing interest in intrauterine development and its influences led her to the Developing Brain Research Laboratory and the strong dual mentorship of Drs. Limperopoulos and du Plessis. In this issue she and colleagues present work on placental growth and morphometrics in healthy and growth-restricted fetuses. Her advice to those early in their career? Stay curious and open-minded! See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0380-1 and https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0311-1.

Trials for neonatal seizures

Treatment for neonatal seizures is limited by the lack of well-designed clinical trials. A global expert working group developed consensus recommendations for the design of clinical trials based on available literature and expert consensus, pharmacokinetic analyses, ethical considerations, and parental concerns. In this review article, Soul et al. explain the basis of these recommendations. See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-018-0242-2.

TV in the preschool bedroom

In this fascinating article, Pagani et al. studied 1859 children from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development. The associations between having a bedroom television at age 4 and multiple health outcomes at 12–13 years of age were examined. Among the findings were that children who had a bedroom television had a higher body mass index, unhealthy eating habits, depressive symptoms, and lower levels of sociability. (Photo: Azem Ramadani/Getty.) See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-018-0265-8.

NICU nurses reduced postpartum depression following training

Ahlqvist-Björkroth et al. describe an educational intervention for NICU staff and its effect on maternal depressive symptoms. They found a significant reduction in depression scores in mothers of very-low-birthweight infants following the training. Also in this issue, the impact of postpartum depression is reviewed from the point of view of the patient as well as from a policy prospective. See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0306-y, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0377-9, and https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0373-0.

Early desaturation events predict BPD

Fairchild et al. quantified desaturation events for 502 very-low-birthweight infants. Using models of clinical risk, they developed a logistic regression model for bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.889. Adding the desaturations to the model increased the AUC to 0.902. Bradycardias did not significantly affect the predictive ability of the model. See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-018-0223-5.

LED phototherapy reduces oxidative damage

Using the Gunn rat model of hyperbilirubinemia, van der Schoor et al. compared the effects of LED phototherapy with those of fluorescent tube-emitted phototherapy. In an analysis of multiple markers for oxidative damage, no effect could be found with either low- or high-intensity LED phototherapy. See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0367-y.

C. difficile toxins affect human intestinal cells

Using human-derived intestinal cells, Buccigrossi et al. determined the effect of three toxins secreted by Clostridium difficile on ion secretion and epithelial damage. They found that individual toxins have their own effects that differ when in combination. See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0365-0.