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  Emma was born in Ukraine in 2015 but before her birth her parents were told she had spina bifida.   Spina bifida is a birth defect in which there is incomplete closing of the vertebrae in the spine and the membranes around the spinal cord during early development of pregnancy.   Thanks to one…

  To look at five-year-old Lucas Gutman you wouldn’t know he is living with a congenital heart defect.   His mum Jennifer says he is every bit as active as a typical kid – but the Ohio boy was born with HLHS – hypoplastic left heart syndrome – and became just the second such patient…

  Teen boys are a much-maligned group but we’re told beyond the stereotypes of being hard to talk to, always hungry, restless and accident prone they are generally big hearted youths yearning to be understood and valued.   Teen boys face biological drivers which make their struggle to venture into independence very real and which…

  Toddlers might not be as self-absorbed as you think.  A study into altruism in 19-month-olds found that even when hungry, they would give a tasty snack to a stranger in need.   The team at the University of Washington’s Institution for Learning and Brain Sciences studied nearly 100 toddlers and found not only do…

How Maia’s cord blood changed her life and the lives of her family   Maia Friedlander was the first NZ child to be successfully treated with her own cord blood after suffering brain damage at birth. Thankfully her parents, Jillian and Daniel, had this option because they had saved Maia’s cord blood stem cells with…

Saving Frances’ cord blood saved her life   This is a cord blood story that is both heart-wrenching and inspirational. When Frances Everall’s family banked her cord blood with CordBank in 2002, they never dreamed it would be needed so soon and so dramatically. But at four years old their daughter was diagnosed with a…

If your friends are friends you are likely to feel more supported.  A study done by Ohio State University has found people whose friends and family know and like each other feel they have more social support. The study author, David Lee, says the more cohesive and dense your network of friends and family is,…

While it is well understood parents often put their own relationship to the side to meet their children’s needs, it turns out that might not be the best approach.   Using unique data from Nepal, researchers from the University of Michigan and McGill University in Quebec has found the affection between parents shapes their children’s…

A six month old baby is smarter than you might think and can understand when adults imitate them.   A new study from Lund University in Sweden has found six month old infants perceive imitators as more friendly.    The babies in the study looked and smiled longer at an adult who imitated them as…