MONDAY, Sept. 29 (HealthDay News) -- In children and teens, individual and group cognitive behavioral therapy helps reduce depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other trauma symptoms, say U.S. researchers who reviewed of dozens of studies on the subject.

However, despite the proven effectiveness of cognitive therapy, many mental health professionals use unproven treatments such as art, play or drug therapy to treat children with psychological trauma, said the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, a group of independent scientists partially funded by the U.S. government.

"The good news is there is substantial research showing the effectiveness of group or individual cognitive behavioral therapy in treating children and teens experiencing the psychological effects of trauma. We hope these findings will encourage clinicians to use the therapies that are shown to be effective," study co-author Robert Hahn, coordinating scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Community Guide Branch, said in an agency news release.

The study was published in the September issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Hahn and his colleagues recommended further research on other forms of therapy to determine whether they may help children with psychological trauma.

"Childhood trauma is a widespread problem with both short- and long-term consequences. Many kids with symptoms of trauma go undiagnosed, which can lead to unhealthy behaviors in adulthood, such as smoking, and alcohol or drug abuse," Hahn said.

"Individual screening to identify trauma symptoms in children can help these kids get the therapy they need and lessen the likelihood they will engage in these risky behaviors when they become adults," he noted.

More information

The National Alliance on Mental Illness has more about cognitive behavioral therapy  .

MONDAY, Sept. 29 (HealthDay News) -- In a small clinical trial, a miniature heart pump that's already in use in Europe helped U.S. youngsters waiting for heart transplants.

Even children at the top of the transplant waiting list can wait months before a suitable heart becomes available, and according to the current study, this small heart pump -- called the Berlin Heart Excor -- can help provide children a "bridge" to transplantation.

"We found the Berlin Heart was a very beneficial tool to have in our armamentarium," said study author Dr. Sanjiv K. Gandhi, surgical director of the heart failure program at Saint Louis Children's Hospital in Missouri.

Results of the study were published in the current Cardiovascular Surgery Supplement of Circulation.

Currently, if a child awaiting transplant gets into serious trouble, surgeons will place them on the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine. The problem with this device, however, is that children have to remain immobile, which furthers physical deterioration. And, the device carries significant risks of complications.

There are already devices approved and in use for adults called ventricular assist devices, and the small version of a biventricular assist device is available for use in Europe, though it's not yet approved in the United States. Biventricular means the device does the work of both sides of the heart. And, the benefit of this device is that it allows children to be mobile. With special preparations, they can even leave the hospital with this device.

Gandhi said the primary reason the device hasn't been approved yet in the United States is that the market is small, and clinical trials are just now under way.

Gandhi's research included nine children between the ages of 12 days to 17 years, with an average age of 1.7 years. Most of the children weighed less than 80 pounds, according to the study.

All of the children had severe heart failure from complex birth defects of the heart or cardiomyopathy, a weakening of the heart muscle that can occur as a result of an infection.

Three of the children were already on ECMO, and six were already on mechanical ventilation. All of the children were placed on the Berlin Heart Excor between April 2005 and July 2007.

One infant died of kidney failure soon after being placed on the device. The remaining children all survived to heart transplantation and were on the heart pump for an average of 35 days.

Five patients had to have additional surgery, but there were no strokes, blood clots or bleeding complications in this group of children.

"These are fantastic outcomes, better than you see in many other centers," said Dr. Peter Wearden, a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon and director of pediatric mechanical cardiopulmonary support at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh.

But, he cautioned, "This is not a complete panacea." There are still risks, and he said that parents often focus on the potential benefits and don't always hear that there can be complications.

Still, both Gandhi and Wearden felt this device is definitely an option for children awaiting transplant. "A significant number of children in this study would not have lived to transplant without this," said Gandhi.

The makers of the Berlin Heart Excor provided limited funding for the study; the bulk of the study funding came from Saint Louis Children's Hospital, said Gandhi.

More information

To learn more about pediatric heart transplant, visit the American Heart Association  .

FRIDAY, Sept. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Babies who start eating fish before the age of 9 months have a lower risk of developing eczema, new research shows.

The study, reported in a recent issue of the Archives of Disease in Childhood also found that one in five infants suffer from the skin condition in western Sweden.

The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a recommendation in 2000 for children at risk for eczema that parents hold off on various foods until they were older, including eliminating fish until they turned 3, said Dr. Sandra McMahan, an assistant professor of internal medicine with the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and an allergist/immunologist at Scott & White.

In 2008, the academy reversed many of those recommendations, saying that children as young as 4 months to 6 months could have various foods, including fish, as there was no convincing evidence of harm.

Now it appears fish might actually make a positive difference.

"There has been a been a fear of early fish introduction, especially in infants with a family history of allergic disease," said study author Dr. Bernt Alm, a pediatrician with The Queen Silvia Children's Hospital, University of Gothenburg in Gothenburg, Sweden. "We have been afraid that this could lead to eczema and other allergic diseases. With this new knowledge, it is possible to relieve the parents from the burden of this fear," Alm said.

The proportion of allergic disease, including atopic eczema, has increased dramatically in developed countries in recent years. Although heredity is a strong factor in the development of such conditions, environmental and dietary factors also play a role.

These findings line up with previous research showing that mothers who fill up on apples and fish during pregnancy might protect their children from developing asthma and allergic diseases.

The authors of this study relied on medical records, as well as questionnaires filled out by parents when their children were 6 months of age and 1 year. All children were born in western Sweden in 2003.

By 12 months of age, almost 21 percent of infants had eczema or had experienced it previously. The average age of onset was 4 months.

The strongest risk factor was a family history, particularly children of mothers and siblings who had had eczema.

Infants who started eating fish before 9 months of age, however, were 25 percent less likely to be affected. Children who lived in a household with a bird were also less likely to develop eczema, possibly because birds are usually kept inside, exposing children continuously to endotoxin, toxins found inside pathogens.

The type of fish consumed had no effect on the risk of developing eczema, suggesting that omega-3 fatty acids, as had been proposed earlier, had nothing to do with the benefit.

Breast-feeding, the age at which dairy products were included in the diet, and having a furry pet were neutral in their effect.

Gerber doesn't produce any fish preparations, so Alm suggested that fish be slowly introduced together with other solids, preferably in puree form at about 5 months to 6 months of age.

McMahan sees many ethnic parents, such as the Vietnamese, give fish early in a mush or stew to their children.

Given that both U.S. and European recommendations on the subject have recently been revised, added McMahan, "this gives researchers a really good opportunity to start following this and see if makes a difference or not."

More information

The Nemours Foundation   has more on eczema in children.

THURSDAY, Sept. 25 (HealthDay News) -- The more overweight children and teens are, the more numerous and severe their headaches, according to a U.S. study.

But losing weight eases the frequency and severity of the headaches, the researchers said.

The study, conducted at seven pediatric headache centers, found that 34.1 percent of patients were either overweight (17.5 percent) or at risk of becoming overweight. That's similar to rates of overweight in the general child/teen population.

The researchers analyzed data collected on 913 patients at the start of the study, and again at three and six months, and found evidence of a link between weight and headaches.

"Among children who are overweight at their initial headache center visit, a change in their body mass index (BMI) was associated with a change in the frequency of their headaches over time," study lead author Dr. Andrew Hershey, director of the Headache Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, said in a hospital news release.

"While we can't claim a causal link between obesity and headache, the association suggests some physiological or environmental processes that are common to both conditions," he said.

The findings, published online in the journal Headache, have important implications for clinical practice, according to Hershey.

"Physicians should actively consider a child's weight in the context of treatments for headaches," he said. "They should routinely assess weight and BMI and be prepared to offer weight control information at the initial treatment visit."

More information

The Nemours Foundation has more about children and headaches  .