HealthDay - SATURDAY, Dec. 17 (HealthDay News) -- From buying a Christmas tree to stringing up lights and wrapping gifts, there are a number of health and safety issues parents and guardians should consider during the holidays, according to child health experts.

HealthDay - THURSDAY, Dec. 15 (HealthDay News) -- The recent recession took a toll on parent-child ties, with parents who were under financial strain reporting that they felt less connected to their kids and kids saying they were less likely to act with generosity, a new study finds.

HealthDay - FRIDAY, Dec. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Infants born to mothers who use inhaled glucocorticoids -- a class of steroids -- to treat asthma during pregnancy may be at risk for endocrine and metabolic disorders, a new study indicates.

HealthDay - FRIDAY, Dec. 16 (HealthDay News) -- A cardiac assist device that's designed to keep a child with heart failure alive until doctors can find a donor heart has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Reuters - Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline are increasing sales of cut-price pneumonia vaccine to developing countries by more than 50 percent, marking the scale-up of an international program to protect millions of children.

LiveScience.com - This past March, 42 years into his life prison sentence for assassinating Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan stood in front of a parole board and repeated the same thing he had been saying at parole hearings for decades: that he had no memory of the shooting or his subsequent trial and confession of guilt. For the 14th time, his application was denied. Two weeks ago, Sirhan's attorneys filed the latest in a series of appeals that aim to get Sirhan back in front of a judge to correct what they call "an egregious miscarriage of justice."

AP - Vietnam says an outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease has killed 156 people, mostly children, and sickened more than 96,000 through late November.

HealthDay - (HealthDay News) -- Hemorrhoids are swollen, painful veins that develop in the rectum. Up to half of pregnant women have them, the womenshealth.gov website says.

HealthDay - THURSDAY, Dec. 15 (HealthDay News) -- Toys are a major part of children's fun and excitement during the holiday season, so parents and others need to make sure the toys are safe, experts say.

HealthDay - THURSDAY, Dec. 15 (HealthDay News) -- In what might serve as a hopeful sign for all children in the United States, a new study finds that obesity rates among New York City's school children have dropped slightly in the past five years, particularly among the youngest.

ContributorNetwork - The World Health Organization released findings from a three-year study on interventions to prevent death in mothers during pregnancy and childbirth and also deaths in children under five. Here are study results and how they affect parents.

ContributorNetwork - COMMENTARY | You almost always see something on the television news every day in one manner or another about childhood obesity. However, it seems that the holiday season is the only time where you really hear any sort of emphasis on the epidemic of childhood hunger.

AP - A judge refused to reinstate the medical license of a fertility doctor who gave Octomom Nadya Suleman all 14 of her children, ruling Thursday that the California Medical Board's revocation was the appropriate action.

LiveScience.com - How much we weigh as adults is more influenced by the people around us during childhood than those we spend time with as adults, a new study suggests.

Reuters - Two songwriters reunite at the request of a former associate, with unusual results. A single woman agrees to be named guardian for her widowed sister's children. Dissatisfied with her job, a teacher seeks out the teacher she idolized as a schoolgirl.

Reuters - Like millions of other parents over the past several years, Kevin and Lucy Ferrell used a new baby product called the Bumbo Baby Sitter that they bought at Toys R Us to prop up their son, Colby. The simple molded plastic seat is more upright than a bouncy chair, and less rigid than a high chair, making it a hit with parents looking for new infant gear.

LiveScience.com - Each fall, public safety experts from U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), the federation of state public interest research groups, browses toy stores across the country looking for potentially dangerous toys. Despite the stringent regulations imposed on toy manufacturers in the United States, these experts never fail to find a handful of items on store shelves that appear innocuous, but actually pose toxic, choking, strangulation or excessive noise hazards to children. ...

Reuters - Belgian investigators found the apparent first victim of a gunman who attacked Christmas shoppers and schoolchildren in the city of Liege, and expressed bafflement on Wednesday over why a small-time criminal turned into a multiple killer.

HealthDay - TUESDAY, Dec. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Undiagnosed chronic fatigue syndrome may account for up to 1 percent of children who are absent from school for extended periods of time and are not truant or known to have another illness that would explain why they're out of school, a new study reveals.

HealthDay - TUESDAY, Dec. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Stillbirth has long been a mysterious and devastating pregnancy complication. But two new studies are uncovering more about what causes stillbirth and the factors that may raise a woman's chances of having a stillbirth -- at least some of which are avoidable.