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Nearly 200,000 babies in Britain are at high risk of suffering abuse because they are born into families with problems of domestic violence, mental health or addiction, new research suggests.

The NSPCC said under-ones were eight times more likely to be killed than any other age group in childhood.

Launching a new campaign to support the most vulnerable babies, the charity released the first estimates of how many infants are living in high-risk family situations.

Across the UK, 144,000 children under one live with a parent who has mental health problems, 109,000 have a parent with drug or alcohol problems, and 39,000 are in a home affected by domestic violence. Some fall into more than one category.

Two-thirds of official inquiries into cases where babies are killed or seriously injured involve one or more of these factors.

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Cystic fibrosis sisters enjoy dramatic health boost thanks to pioneering drug

Drug is one of the first to tackle the cause of the genetic defect rather than treat the symptoms. Two sisters who have struggled with cystic fibrosis their whole young lives have had their lives transformed by a pioneering drug.

Laura Cheevers, 13 and her sister Cate, 10, have seen a dramatic improvement in their conditions after they started taking ivacaftor.

They can both breathe far more easily, have gained weight and no longer need regular antibiotics.

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He collapses in street after complaining of stomach cramps

Hospital send him home with laxatives after taking X-ray on evening before. A 14-year-old boy collapsed in the street with stomach pains and died three days later after suffering a ‘one in a million’ complication from a routine appendix operation.

Daniel Robinson had undergone the surgery three years earlier, when he was 11, but scar tissue had grown over his bowel, ultimately causing it to twist and burst.

No one realised there was a serious problem until Daniel, from Clitheroe, Lancashire, collapsed in May this year.

The day before his collapse he had complained of stomach cramps and his grandparents had taken him to Clitheroe Hospital. However doctors said he had a urinary tract infection.

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Young women who go on drastic diets to copy celebrities face a ‘ticking timebomb’ by putting themselves at risk of osteoporosis, the Duchess of Cornwall has warned.

In particular, she highlighted the need for women’s magazines to be more responsible about their use of thin models and the way in which they encourage girls to perceive themselves as overweight.

In yesterday’s Mail, Camilla described her anguish at losing her beloved mother, the Honourable Rosalind Shand, to the cruel fragile-bone disease.

The article, her first in a national newspaper, prompted the Mail to launch a campaign to spare other women the same fate. Today, we highlight growing concern within the medical profession about the effect conditions such as anorexia and bulimia are having on female health, as well as strict low-fat diets.

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Young adults who are ‘picture of health’ at risk of clogged arteries

Expert says true figure of those affected is ‘staggering’
Secret killer in artery walls can lead to stroke and premature death, says new study. A high proportion of ‘apparently healthy’ young adults are at risk of clogged arteries, a study shows.

Researchers at the University of Quebec have discovered that a build-up of fatty deposits in the walls of the arteries known as atherosclerosis, is fast becoming a ‘ticking timebomb’.

The disorder, which often remains undetected, can eventually lead to serious health complications including heart disease, stroke, or even premature death.

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A new London-wide public health board set up by Boris Johnson in the wake of the Government’s NHS reforms is to tackle childhood obesity, alcohol abuse and cancer in the capital.

The London Health Improvement Board was created by the Mayor and London Councils after a controversy over the coalition’s plans to scrap NHS London. The Mayor chairs the body, which is to take over strategic planning on health issues blighting the capital, including obesity.

It emerged this year that obesity rates among children are higher than the national average in 30 out of 32 London boroughs. Mr Johnson last year appealed to Health Secretary Andrew Lansley alongside borough leaders and the NHS for permission to set up the board.

The body will now act to improve the health of London’s children through a schools programme, sporting activities and the development of a pan-London strategy to reduce obesity.

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When Miriam Pearman found out she was pregnant for the second time, all she wanted was a natural birth after she had to have her first son by caesarean section.

Unfortunately that wasn’t an option when she went into labour with her son Conor – who was simply too big to push out.

Hospital staff where amazed when the giant baby tipped the scales at just over a stone. At 14lb 1.75oz Conor was twice the average birth weight.

The proud 33-year-old mother from Nottingham, said: ‘I really wanted to try and have a natural delivery, because I had a caesarean for my first child, Leon.

‘But that was a bit of a feat because Conor was just so big. I didn’t feel much pain, but in the end I did have to have a Caesarean because he was so large and he just wasn’t coming out.’

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Women who take a certain type of anti-depressant during pregnancy could be contributing to a dramatic rise in the number of children with autism, say scientists.

They found in a study of rats, that newborns given a drug known as an SSRI, which targets the ‘happy hormone’ serotonin, showed brain abnormalities and behaviour typical of the developmental disorder. Rats are born at an earlier stage of development and those treated in the study were equivalent to babies entering their third trimester.

Unborn babies are exposed to anti-depressants taken by their mothers through the placenta.

The multidisciplinary team from the University of Mississippi Medical Center and University of California, San Francisco, said the findings could shed light on a possible link between anti-depressants and autism.

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UV light cuts risk to vision, say experts

Spending more time outdoors reduces a child’s risk of becoming short-sighted, academics suggest.

For every hour spent outside, the chances of needing glasses drops by 2 per cent, a review of previous studies shows.

Overall, children who are short-sighted spend on average 3.7 fewer hours a week outdoors than those who had normal vision or were long-sighted.

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Doctors told Millie Healey’s parents to prepare to let her go. But she owes her life to the world-beating skills of surgeons at one children’s hospital. Sally Jones reports

When Millie Healey was born with a heart condition, her parents received the agonising news that there was nothing more doctors could do for her. It was only when her notes were transferred to experts at the Birmingham Children’s Hospital for a second opinion that they were offered a ray of hope. Now baby Millie is at home with her parents and three older brothers, despite being born with a condition so complex that doctors in London and Bristol said they were unable to save her.

Millie’s case is the latest in a string of “miracle saves” by the hospital’s cardiac unit. Birmingham’s heart surgeons, cardiologists and intensive-care consultants have developed or improved several of the state-of-the-art procedures that are helping to save the lives of children who even a few years ago would have had no chance of survival.

The Healeys’ problems started when a 20-week scan last February suggested that the baby had hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a severe condition sometimes known as “half a heart”, in which the left ventricle and pumping chamber are dangerously underdeveloped. But the full extent of Millie’s problems only became clear when she was born.

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Babatunde Osotimehin says it was hard to talk about cutting birth rate as families lost their children

The international community has “made a mistake” with the intensity of its focus on the global HIV-Aids epidemic and lost ground on family planning issues as a result, according to the head of the United Nations population agency.

In an interview with the Guardian as the world population reaches seven billion, Babatunde Osotimehin, the executive director of the UN Population Fund (UNPF), said efforts to expand family planning services in the developing world stalled for a decade while global health organisations turned their energies to fighting HIV-Aids.

“We made a mistake. We disconnected HIV from reproductive health. We should never have done that because it is part and parcel,” he said.

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The father of a Down’s Syndrome woman is attempting to force a council to let her stay in school until 25, in a case which could see thousands of special needs adults taught alongside children.

Anthony Williams is locked in a fight with Essex County Council over whether his 22-year-old daughter, Maria, should be allowed to continue in her publicly-funded place at Columbus College, Chelmsford, where she has studied since she was 16.
In a case which raises the prospect of adults with learning difficulties continuing in state-funded education into their twenties, Mr Williams wants to thwart the council’s attempts to bring an end to Maria’s already extended school career.
The Court of Appeal heard that Maria, who is from Chelmsford, entered mainstream education when she was five but was always one year behind her peers and was transferred to the specialist Columbus College in 2006.

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Every hour spent outdoors each week can reduce a child’s chance of becoming short-sighted by two per cent, a study by Cambridge University scientists suggests.

Children who are short-sighted spend an average of 3.7 fewer hours a week outside compared with those who have normal vision or are long sighted, a review of previous research has found.
Nearsightedness, or myopia, runs in families and has also been linked to a host of factors including the amount of time spent focusing on near objects, for example when reading, and levels of physical activity.
But simply spending time out of the house may also be enough to protect the eyesight.
The positive effect from being outdoors appeared to be independent from the amount of time children spent reading or playing computer games, or to an increased amount of exercise, researchers said.

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Holly will have a revolutionary treatment in America to try and remove most of the brain tumour

A schoolgirl who went to hospital suffering from headaches was horrified to be told she had a brain tumour the size of an orange.

Doctors discovered the benign tumour inside Holly Dougill-Brooks’s brain after they realised she had lost sight in her left eye over a matter of months.

Holly, eight, had started getting headaches last year but after an eye test showed no problems a viral infection was put down as the cause. But the headaches came back in February and after visiting the GP with her mother Melanie Dougill, she was referred to the ophthalmic department at Northampton General Hospital.

When she had her appointment in July doctors said that unbeknown to Holly she had gone blind in her left eye. An emergency MRI scan revealed an orange-sized tumour in her brain.

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Online sperm donation is completely unregulated and places vulnerable, young women at risk.

The stork delivered me a little bundle of joy just an hour after I had posted my online advert for sperm donors.
“im [sic] a 40 year old white male professional discreet,” read the message from a man in Southampton. “i [sic] have two healthy children and would be willing to help”.
Twenty minutes later, a missive arrived from somebody calling himself “Babyno1”. His grammar and punctuation were not much better. “Hi mate where bouts in London you from? Im london based if i can be of help”.
The reply from a man claiming to be a GP, about 45 minutes later, did not suffer from grammatical errors, though perhaps that was because it simply contained his mobile number, and the words “text me”.

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Fears have been raised that women who donate eggs are being subjected to “intensive farming” at fertility clinics.

Official figures show that one woman had 85 eggs harvested in a single session, while another produced 80.
Experts say the drugs needed to increase ovulation to such high levels can lead to side-effects such as mood swings, headaches and fatigue, and in rare cases can cause a potentially fatal condition.
One woman who suffered Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome after producing 50 eggs as part of NHS fertility treatment, told a Sunday newspaper: “I felt like the doctor treated me as if I was a machine. He was looking at me as if I was an animal on that operating table, just producing eggs.”

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Holly will have advanced treatment in America to try and remove the whole brain tumour

A school girl who went to hospital suffering from headaches was horrified to be told she had a brain tumour the size of an orange.

Doctors discovered the benign tumour inside Holly Dougill-Brooks’s brain after they did an emergency MRI scan when they realised she had lost sight in her left eye in a matter of months.

Holly, eight, had visited the opticians with her mother Melanie Dougill in August 2010 after suffering from a throbbing head.

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Autism is a disease that affects children, their parents, their siblings and almost everyone they come into contact with. And it is not hard to understand why.

Often, a contented, smiley baby will have slowly grown into a fractious, withdrawn toddler or young child. While other children start to become independent, the autistic child often won’t speak, refusing to engage or even make eye contact – lost in their own world, staring, rocking, not walking without tiptoeing.

They are prone to tantrums, screaming fits and violent outbursts at the slightest change to daily routine, and often suffer from distressing bowel habits. Once a child is diagnosed – in itself, a difficult and often drawn-out process involving a host of referrals to psychiatrists and other specialists – families are often left to their own devices. They will have been told: there is no cure, and no treatment.

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Online sperm donation is completely unregulated and places vulnerable, young women at risk.

The stork delivered me a little bundle of joy just an hour after I had posted my online advert for sperm donors.
“im [sic] a 40 year old white male professional discreet,” read the message from a man in Southampton. “i [sic] have two healthy children and would be willing to help”.
Twenty minutes later, a missive arrived from somebody calling himself “Babyno1”. His grammar and punctuation were not much better. “Hi mate where bouts in London you from? Im london based if i can be of help”.
The reply from a man claiming to be a GP, about 45 minutes later, did not suffer from grammatical errors, though perhaps that was because it simply contained his mobile number, and the words “text me”.

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A common chemical used in products ranging from baby bottles to CD cases could be causing girls as young as three to become hyperactive and aggressive, researchers have claimed.

A study by leading U.S. scientists has found that those exposed to high levels of bisphenol A (BPA) in the womb are more likely to suffer from behavioural problems.

BPA, which is used to harden plastics, can be found in the lining of tins and bottles and the ends of knives and forks.

It is known as the gender-bending chemical, as previous studies have shown it can interfere with the way hormones are processed.

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A couple who treated their sick four-year-old son with alternative medicine are being investigated for manslaughter, Italian police have said.

Luca Monsellato was taken to hospital with a high fever and cold symptoms but failed to respond to emergency medical treatment and died.
His parents, Marcello and Giovanna Pantaleo, told doctors they had been treating his apparent three-week cold with fennel tea – a popular homeopathic remedy for coughs – in an attempt to keep his fever under control. They eventually took him to hospital when his condition worsened.
Staff at the hospital described Luca as looking “pale, thin and breathless”.

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Daughter pays £1,000 for private carers after NHS hospital staff said she couldn’t be saved

A woman spent £1,000 hiring private carers to go undercover and look after her dying elderly mother in an NHS hospital because nurses were not giving her the attention she needed.

Annette Townend acted out of desperation after a doctor warned family members that 82-year-old Sheila Smith would be dead within days ‘if something wasn’t done’.

The great-grandmother’s liver and kidneys were failing because she had not been eating or drinking, and overworked nurses at Bradford Royal Infirmary did not have time to spend with her.

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Great Ormond Street Hospital has been heavily criticised by the parliamentary health service ombudsman for repeated failings that left a teenage boy to die in agony.

A scathing report ruled that the life of Arvind Jain, 13, who died from Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a condition that causes muscles to weaken, would have been prolonged had it not been for a series of inexcusable delays by the world famous hospital.
Following a complaint from Arvind’s family, the report concluded that “the care Arvind received fell so far below the applicable standards as to amount to service failure”.
Arvind’s sister, Shushma, believes her brother, who died in August 2009, would be alive today had he been treated properly and promptly.

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Fatima has spent 12 weeks away from friends and family trying to control the demons in her head.

“The voices started by saying ‘I’m your best friend’ then they started getting abusive and it got worse and worse…”

Her voice tails off as the memory of that dark period of her life returns.

Fatima is just 16 years old.

She was sitting her GCSE exams when the stress became too much and she started hearing voices. The pressure to achieve, anxiety over her self-image and family issues all combined to send her spiralling into a fragile and disturbed state.

She struggled with psychosis all summer before ending up desperate in A&E.

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A charity warns today that it has just days left to raise £6m for an effective treatment for cystic fibrosis (CF) or a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” will be missed.

A shortfall in funding, caused by the economic slump, means that clinical trials to repair faulty genes in sufferers of the chronic lung disease could be axed. Early trials have shown that the treatment prevents lung damage caused by the disease, which affects 9,000 people in the UK.

The Cystic Fibrosis Trust has so far raised £1m this year. Gifts and guaranteed pledges are needed by the end of October for trial drugs to be ordered.

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The family of nine-year-old Nabeel Nanuck had all but given up hope of him having a lifesaving kidney transplant.

Born with chronically damaged kidneys, the schoolboy spent two years waiting for a suitable donor. It meant that daily trips to hospital for dialysis were keeping him alive.

Today, though, Nabeel is enjoying a normal life thanks to a revolutionary new treatment. He was the first child in Britain to benefit from a pioneering procedure that essentially ‘washes’ the blood, meaning he could receive an organ from an incompatible donor – his mother Bibi, 35.

The process, previously only available to adults, could bring hope to youngsters like him dying of kidney failure. There are 6,494 patients waiting for a kidney, 95 of them under 18. Every day, about ten die. And though last year there were 1,502 kidney transplants in Britain, this was five per cent fewer than in the previous year.

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Form of dwarfism stops Joshua’s ribcage from growing
Only 125 recorded cases in the world since condition was first identified in 1955

A four-month-old baby suffering from a rare bone abnormality is thriving despite doctors’ gave him only weeks to live after he was born.

Joshua Adair was diagnosed with Jeune’s Syndrome – a form of dwarfism – which stopped his ribcage from growing while he was in the womb.

Experts told Joshua’s parents Mark and Amanda that the tiny tot was unlikely to survive more than a couple of weeks due to the life threatening condition but months later he is about to undergo his first surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

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Halloween is a time for dressing up in scary costumes and watching horror films but it’s not, it seems, the time to give birth.

Scientists found that births decreased on Halloween compared to a week before and after but increased on Valentine’s Day.

They said this suggested cultural beliefs could have an impact on pregnant women and that mothers-to-be might have some control over the timing of spontaneous births.

While October 31st is associated with witches, ghouls and death in the U.S and UK, February 14th is a celebration for rose-wielding lovers.

A team from the Yale School of Public Health looked at birth-certificate information for all births in the U.S across 11 years.

The Halloween period included 1.8 million births, and the Valentine’s Day period included 1.6 million births.

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Scientists identify subtle ‘distinct facial characteristics’ of children with autism

The findings could help uncover the underlying causes of the developmental disorder. Children with autism have distinct facial characteristics compared with non-autistic children, according to a team of scientists.

Researchers at the University of Missouri made the claim after mapping the faces of dozens of boys both with and without the developmental disorder.

The face and brain develop in tandem, with each influencing the other, beginning in the embryo and continuing through the teenage years.

Scientists believe that pinpointing when these subtle changes occur could help them discover when autism begins to develop a child.

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Intellectual curiosity is rightly admired, but the accumulation of facts for facts sake is a mug’s game.

The capital of New Zealand, the date of the Battle of Waterloo, the boiling point of water, the six wives of Henry VIII, the longest river in Africa, the names of David Beckham’s children, the colours of the rainbow, the last three winners of The X Factor… we all have that sort of tat cluttering up our brains, but how much of it do we actually need? Shouldn’t we be making a determined effort to forget the lot?
That’s the intriguing question raised by new research published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science. People who forget pointless facts have a better memory for important things, according to researchers at the University of Illinois – which should not be surprising, but runs so counter to the Zeitgeist that most people will instinctively discard the research and its implications.

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Though his sister is no longer in his life, he has a precious, living-breathing reminder of her every day.

Ray Phillips and his wife Jennifer are now the legal guardians of baby Dottie Mae, whose mother Stacie Crimms sacrificed her life for, foregoing chemotherapy so she could give birth to a healthy child.

Stacie died from head and neck cancer just three days after Dottie Mae was born. Her brother Ray remembers the moment she held her daughter for the first – and last – time. He told the Today show: ‘I felt like it was probably the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. I don’t think I’ll ever see anything that beautiful again.’

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Glue ear which affects tens of thousands of young children could soon be treated with drugs – avoiding the need for operations to insert grommets.

Mainly affecting the under-fives, the condition occurs when a sticky fluid builds up in the middle ear following an infection, and chronic cases are only treatable with surgery.

It is the biggest cause of hearing loss in children and the most common reason for operations with 30,000 procedures carried out every year to insert a tube into the ear called a grommet. But in a breakthrough which has taken 15 years of research, scientists at the Medical Research Council in London and Oxford University have found existing cancer drugs could provide an effective cure.

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Rapid advancements in science present an ever-greater challenge to doctors and society as a whole, especially in the field of human reproduction.

Huge moral questions now arise from processes like IVF treatment and sperm donation.

It is not enough to listen only to the demands of individuals and couples who want to conceive.

We must also consider the interests of others – the egg or sperm donors, the children who can be created from such processes, and the wider effect on families and the rest of the country.

These ethical questions have been thrown into sharp relief this week by the proposal from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority that there should be a significant increase in payments made to those donating their eggs or sperm for infertility treatment.

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Doctors told parents to encourage eight-year-old son to exercise, leaving him in agony

An outraged mother has revealed how doctor failed to spot her two sons had broken ankles.

Both Charlie Silvestro, eight, and his two-year-old brother Sunny – who were injured in separate incidents – were diagnosed with bad sprains and sent home.

But on both occasions staff at the North Devon District Hospital had to contact mother Heidi, 31, telling her they had failed to detect fractures and her youngsters needed further treatment.

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Children say there need to be limits to stop them ‘succumbing to temptation’

Children feel bombarded by alcohol adverts and want tougher restrictions to prevent them from succumbing to temptation, research has found.

A survey of under-18s found that 60 per cent want alcohol adverts in the cinema to be limited to 18-certificate movies only.

A similar number – 58 per cent – said firms should be restricted to promoting drinks in adverts after the 9pm watershed only.

And 59 per cent want alcohol promotion limited to supermarkets and off-licences selling alcohol.

The survey of more than 2,300 people under the age of 18 by Alcohol Concern is said to be the largest study of what young people think about alcohol marketing.

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Indian doctors are increasingly coming to the UK to encourage childless British couples to use their surrogacy programmes, in a country where the multi-million business remains unregulated.

In a semi-detached house in London, a group of people are mingling near a kitchen.

On the surface, it could be any suburban dinner party. Drinks are served and plates of samosas and onion bhajjis are being offered.

However, these couples are here not to socialise but to find out more about surrogacy in India.

The guest of honour at this gathering is Dr Kaushal Kadam, who has been invited by Bobbi and Nikki Bains to share her expertise.

Bobbi and Nikki’s two children, three-year-old Daisy and one-year-old Dhillon were born to Indian surrogates after several attempts at fertility treatment in the UK faile

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It’s not just women who have a ticking biological clock, according to a study that has found the chances of men fathering children fall with every passing year once they reach middle age.

Analysis of patients at an infertility clinic found that the chances of a man getting his wife pregnant dropped by 7 per cent each year between the ages of 41 and 45, reducing even more sharply among older men.
The quality of the husband’s sperm was also found to deteriorate with time.
Until now the pressure has been on women to start a family before they turn 40, when the chances of them getting pregnant naturally or artificially start to decline sharply as their reserves of eggs run low and their quality declines.
But experts say that men should not leave it too late either if they want to be sure of having children.

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How a healthy diet could see your great-grandchildren benefit

Study first to find your environment can affect longevity of your descendents – without altering your DNA. Those who live to a ripe old age may put it down to healthy living, but they could actually have their great-grandparents to thank.

Scientists have discovered that a good diet and lifestyle could help a person’s children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren live longer.

A team at Stanford University in California found that altering three types of proteins can affect longevity.

By blocking or modifying them in roundworms, which have the same proteins as humans, lifespan was affected in the worm itself and in up to three generations of descendants, increasing their life expectancy by up to 30 per cent.

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Stacie Crimm gave birth by Caesarian on August 18 as heart rate plummeted.
Mother met baby girl Dottie Mae just once as she battled in intensive care

Three days later, on September 11, Stacie died in Oklahoma hospital
Her brother and his wife will now care for the girl, who weighed 2lbs at birth. Faced with the knowledge that only chemotherapy would save her from terminal neck cancer, newly-pregnant Stacie Crimm made the ultimate sacrifice.

The 41-year-old, who had been told by doctors she would never be able to conceive a child, decided to refuse the treatment so her unborn daughter could live instead.

Stacie was able to survive for five months before being forced to deliver Dottie Mae, weighing just 2lbs 1oz, by Caesarean section – and even managed to hold her on one occasion before succumbing to the disease three days later.

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Researchers ‘on the cusp’ of a vaccine after widescale African trial shows the risk of malaria cut in half

Millions of children’s lives could be saved by a new vaccine shown to halve the risk of malaria in the first large-scale trials across seven African countries.

The long-awaited results of the largest-ever malaria vaccine study, involving 15,460 babies and small children, show that it could massively reduce the impact of the much-feared killer disease. Malaria takes nearly 800,000 lives a year – mostly children under five. It damages many more.

The vaccine has been in development for two decades – the brainchild of scientists at the UK drug company GlaxoSmithKline, which has promised to sell it at no more than a fraction over cost-price, with the excess being ploughed back into further tropical disease research.

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In a desperate attempt to make her daughter a more favourable candidate for two elite schools, a mother told them a rival applicant was a lesbian with a sexually transmitted disease, a court heard.

To make herself sound believable, the 53-year-old New Zealand woman, who cannot be named, pretended to be a sexual health worker when she rang St Hilda’s Collegiate School and Columba College in Dunedin.

She made the slur in the hope that the rival applicant’s reputation would be damaged enough to persuade the schools to put her daughter ahead in the pecking order – but she could now face prison as a result. Queenstown District Court heard how the mother used a made-up name and said she was from the Oxford Clinic in Invercargill when she rang St Hilda’s principal Melissa Bell.

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The US Senate has blocked a proposal by the Obama administration to limit potatoes in school lunches.

The lawmakers also backed an amendment which bars putting any limits on serving other vegetables in US schools.

The administration’s proposal had envisaged that pupils would have no more than two servings a week of potatoes and other starchy vegetables.

Government health officials say pupils should have more diverse diets, because they get enough potatoes already.

But opponents of the proposal argue that potatoes can be a source of fibre and potassium.

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Scientists in Britain today welcomed news that a trial of a vaccine for malaria has halved the number of cases in young children.

Interim results of testing of a vaccine called RTS,S developed by GlaxoSmithKline showed it had halved the number of cases in children between five and 17 months.

Professor Brian Greenwood of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who has contributed to the project and co-authored the paper detailing the results, said at a conference in Seattle: “The School is pleased to have been able to contribute in various ways to the success of this important trial of the malaria vaccine RTS,S.

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Parents told to ditch pushchairs as pre-schoolers are capable of walking

Parents should ditch buggies and make their young children walk, experts have said.

In a bid to tackle the growing obesity epidemic – which costs the NHS £4.2 billion a year – politicians are urging parents to take responsibility for their youngster’s weight and fitness.

They say that making children walk is an easy way to help them exercise more.

A quarter of adults in Britain are now classed as clinically obese and almost one in five 10 to 11-year-olds are overweight.

Now parents have been told their three-year-olds should be made to walk on short trips to combat the problem.

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An intensive care nurse is so desperate to have a baby she has decided to undergo a womb transplant from her own mother.

It means that should the operation be successful her child would be born from the same uterus from which she herself was born.

Melinda Arnold, 34, from Melbourne in Australia, was born without a womb but has ovaries that produce eggs.

Her mother’s age has not been disclosed, however she would only be accepted as a viable womb donor if she was pre-menopausal. The average age for a woman to reach the menopause is 52.

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We were more relaxed during sleep-sex session when our son was conceived, wife reveals

A couple who spent 18 months trying for a baby were astonished to realise they had managed to conceive their son while the husband was asleep.

Ryan and Dee Harris, from Basingstoke, were about to start fertility treatment when Dee discovered she was pregnant.

They had kept records of each time they had sex while they were trying for a baby and realised they had conceived their son during a nocturnal tryst.

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How coughing, turning round or having a hairdo can trigger a potentially fatal blood clot

When Sarah Riley started feeling sick, she initially put it down to lack of sleep – she’d given birth to her second daughter only two weeks earlier, so thought she just needed to lie down.

She decided to walk her children to her in-laws’ house nearby so she could have a rest. But lying down made no difference; the dizzy, nauseous feeling continued and her symptoms quickly worsened as Sarah became unable to speak – or walk – properly.

Within five hours she was lying in a hospital bed. At the age of just 38, Sarah had suffered a stroke — and, incredibly, one brought on by nothing more than a quick turn of the neck.

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The Duchess of Cambridge has written a moving letter to a nine-year-old cancer patient she met last month on a visit to the Royal Marsden hospital.

Catherine sent the note of support to young leukaemia sufferer Fabian Bate, with whom she spent time when she and William attended the opening of a new children’s wing at the hospital.

The hand-signed letter, believed to be her first personal act of charity since marrying into the royal family, spoke movingly of how the Duchess had been touched by the boy’s ‘strength of character’.

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Entire families unfairly removed from practices following trivial disagreements

Patients removed from doctors’ lists ‘without fair warning or proper explanation’
2,581 complaints – seven a day – made about GPs last year. Patients are being banned by their GPs simply for making minor complaints.

Entire families are being unfairly removed from practice lists and barred from making appointments following trivial disagreements with doctors or staff.

One complaint concerned a woman who had merely replaced a flat battery in a device administering anti-sickness medicine to her terminally-ill mother.

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We have long been obsessed with how women’s bodies and health are altered by motherhood — what it does to their hormones, brain power, relationships and even their risk of cancer and other diseases.

But while men might not go through the physical process of childbirth, a growing body of evidence suggests they, too, experience physical and psychological transformations when they become fathers.

Last month, a study of 624 men found their testosterone levels dropped by one third when their children are born. The researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago said this drop causes men to become less aggressive and display a more caring side.

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