FRIDAY, March 14 (HealthDay News) -- Surgery may provide only short-term relief for some children with sleep-disordered breathing, say researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

Adenotonsillectomy surgery is the first line of treatment for sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) in children. It is the most common surgery performed upon children, the researchers noted.

This study found that children who gain weight rapidly after having their tonsils or adenoids removed to treat SDB may improve in the short-term, but may relapse or even worsen over the long-term. Black children also tend to relapse.

"The high rate of recurrence we observed in both obese and non-obese children indicates that SDB is a chronic condition," Dr. Raouf Amin, director of pulmonary medicine at Cincinnati Children's, said in a prepared statement.

The study included 40 children, aged 7-13, who had adenotonsillectomy surgery to treat nightly snoring. Most of the children showed improved sleep scores six weeks after surgery, but the rate of relapse at one year had no correlation with the six-week score, the researchers found. Relapse was more likely to occur among children who were obese, had worse SDB at baseline, had an accelerated body-mass index (BMI) gain, had high blood pressure, or were black.

"Most post-adenotonsillectomy outcome studies have focused on the assessment of SDB six to 16 weeks after surgery. Resolution of SDB during this window was usually interpreted as a cure for the disorder," Amin said. He said the study is the first to identify the importance of weight gain and race on the recurrence of the condition.

Prior to surgery, half the non-obese and two-thirds of the obese children in the study had an AHI (apnea/hypopnea index -- a measure of the severity of SDB) score of 3. A year after surgery, 27 percent of non-obese children and 79 percent of obese children had an AHI score of greater than 3, which suggests the surgery was significantly more effective after one year for non-obese children.

"SDB appears to be a chronic disorder that is clearly linked to other medical problems. Given the rate of relapse, we advocate long-term follow-up of children with SDB, monitoring of BMI [weight] gain, and reevaluation of children who demonstrate rapid BMI gain, especially those who are African-Americans," the researchers concluded.

The study appears in the second issue for March of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

More information

The Nemours Foundation has information about sleep apnea in children  .

FRIDAY, March 7 (HealthDay News) -- Extra government financial support of poor families boosts children's physical and mental development, a U.S. study concludes.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley found that children in low-income families in Mexico who received an extra amount of cash from a government-run conditional cash transfer program were taller, less likely to be overweight, and scored higher on motor, cognitive and language tests than children in families that received less money.

The findings were published in the March 8 issue of The Lancet.

Cash benefits in traditional welfare programs are based on a family's income or residence in a specific geographical area. Conditional cash transfer programs give money to low-income families if they meet specific requirements, such as making sure their children attend school or get vaccinated. Food and nutritional supplements are also included in some of these programs, according to background information in the study.

"Previous research has shown positive outcomes for child development from conditional cash transfer programs, but the general assumption, particularly from the public health perspective, was that the improvements were the result of the health and education components rather than the cash. This new study is the first to tease out the impact of the money from the other elements of the program." lead author Lia Fernald, assistant professor in public health nutrition at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health, said in a prepared statement.

Fernald and her colleagues didn't analyze exactly how the extra cash boosted child development but believe the additional money helped families buy more nutritious food or medicine, or perhaps purchase items for the home -- such as a refrigerator or a covering for a dirt floor -- that improve their lives.

"Even the purchase of additional books or toys for the children -- something we often take for granted in this country -- could help stimulate cognitive development," Fernald said.

"Also, the additional cash could have the psychological benefit of taking some of the pressure off the mothers. These are families who are at the bottom 20th percentile in Mexico for household income. When relieved of the constant worry about not providing enough food for their children, mothers may feel less depressed and may be better able to interact with their children."

In 1997, the Mexican government became the first to offer a conditional cash transfer program, which now includes more than 5 million families and has been replicated in more than 20 developing nations.

Last year, New York City launched the first conditional cash transfer program in a developing country. It's already distributed more than $740,000 to more than 1,400 families who've met specific criteria related to education, health, and workforce participation and training.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about child development.

THURSDAY, Jan. 31 (HealthDay News) -- Long known to help prevent birth defects, folic acid may also help prevent premature births, new research suggests.

In a large study that included almost 40,000 women, a team of U.S. and Irish researchers found that women who took folic acid supplements for a year or longer before conception had a 70 percent decreased risk of preterm birth between 20 and 28 weeks of gestation.

"There have been all sorts of protocols, lifestyle interventions and medications tested, and nothing has made a difference in preterm births, so this is a really exciting study," said Dr. Katharine Wenstrom, president of the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.

Wenstrom said it's likely that folic acid is regulating certain genes that malfunction to cause early labor. "Now that we know that folic acid makes a huge difference, researchers can look at the different reactions that folic acid causes and see which might be related to preterm labor," she said.

A premature birth is one that occurs before 37 weeks' gestation, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Improved medical knowledge and technology have made survival for these small infants more likely -- of babies born at 28 weeks or after, 90 percent are expected to survive, according to the NIH.

But the earlier a baby is delivered, the greater the risk of serious complications, including bleeding in the brain, infection, delayed growth and intestinal problems, according to the NIH.

The new study included 38,033 women pregnant with one baby. Women who had known pregnancy complications, such as preeclampsia or high blood pressure, and women pregnant with babies with known chromosomal or other birth defects weren't included in the study.

A baby's gestational age was determined by ultrasound between 10 and 14 weeks of pregnancy. Folic acid supplementation history was reported to the researchers by the women.

The researchers found that women who took a folic acid supplement for at least a year prior to becoming pregnant reduced their risk of preterm delivery between 20 and 28 weeks of gestation by 70 percent. A year of folic acid supplementation dropped the risk of delivering during weeks 28 through 32 by 50 percent, according to the study.

"This study saw a huge decrease in spontaneous preterm delivery for women who took folic acid for one year prior to conception. Now we can add prevention of prematurity to the mix of reasons for all women to take an additional folic acid supplement," said Dr. Alan Fleischman, senior vice president and medical director of the March of Dimes.

Results of the study were to be presented Thursday at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine annual meeting, in Dallas. Fleischman noted that the current findings are preliminary and need to be published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

In the meantime, Wenstrom said she believes that everyone -- both male and female -- should take a daily folic acid supplement in addition to a multivitamin containing folic acid.

"Cereal and grain products are fortified with folic acid, but the level of fortification isn't optimal. Folic acid influences so many things. It reduces the risk of stroke, cardiovascular disease, and it prevents birth defects," she said. "It's a simple preventive measure for a variety of severe problems."

The March of Dimes recommends that women take 400 micrograms daily of folic acid before becoming pregnant, and continuing to take folic acid throughout the pregnancy.

More information

To learn more about folic acid and pregnancy, visit the March of Dimes  .

(HealthDay News) - Developing reading and communication skills is a vital part of a child's growth.

The Nemours Foundation offers these suggestions for encouraging a daily dose of reading:

• Keep a book or magazine with you, and encourage your child to read while running an errand or waiting for an appointment.
• Have your child read you recipes while you cook dinner, or read recipes aloud to other children.
• Encourage your child to read magazines, catalogs and other mail you receive.
• Encourage family members to write letters or emails to your child.
• Have your child read aloud to you while you clean the house or do other chores. Or, read to her while she does her chores.