The move shows the growing willingness to do transplants to enhance a patient’s life rather than to save it as donated hearts, livers and other organs have done in the past. More than 70 hands and at least 20 faces have been transplanted in adults, and doctors say it’s clear these operations are safe enough to offer to children in certain cases, too.

“We feel that this is justifiable,” said Dr. Amir Taghinia, who will lead the pediatric hand program at Boston Children’s Hospital.

“Children will potentially benefit even more from this procedure than adults” because they regrow nerves more quickly and have more problems from prosthetic hands, he said.

Only one hand transplant is known to have been done in a child — a baby in Malaysia in 2000. Because the donor was a twin who died at birth, her sister did not need to take drugs to prevent rejection.

That’s the main risk in offering children hand transplants — the immune-suppressing drugs carry side effects and may raise the risk of cancer over the long term.

However, one independent expert thinks the gains may be worth it in certain cases.

“We understand so much more about immune suppression” that it’s less of a risk to put children on the drugs, said Dr. Simon Horslen, medical director of the liver and intestine transplant program at Seattle Children’s Hospital. “This is never going to be done as an emergency procedure, so the families will have plenty of opportunity to weigh the options.”

Also, a hand can be removed if rejection occurs, and that would not leave the child worse off than before the transplant, Horslen said.

Image: Child’s hand in hospital, via Shutterstock

As with peer bullying, sibling bullying is also harmful to a child or teenager’s mental health, the new research finds.

“Historically, sibling aggression has been unrecognized, or often minimized or dismissed, and in some cases people believe it’s benign or even good for learning about conflict in other relationships,” says Corinna Jenkins Tucker, lead author of the paper and an associate professor of family studies at the University of New Hampshire.

“That’s generally not the case in peer relationships. There appears to be different norms for what is accepted. What is acceptable between siblings is generally not acceptable between peers.”

The mental health consequences of bullying between siblings are real, researchers say. Tucker’s report used data from The National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence, a phone survey that collected the experiences of 3,599 children aged 1 month to 17 years who had at least one sibling younger than 18 living in the household at the time of the interview. One child was randomly selected to be the subject of three telephone interviews.

Children ages 10 to 17 answered the questions themselves; for children younger than 10, the parents answered the questions. (Tucker acknowledges this is a potential limitation of the study, as parents may not know as much about sibling conflicts as they might think — particularly if the children share a bedroom.)

The interviewers asked about incidences of sibling aggression in the past year, and they also assessed mental health by asking how often the children experienced anger, depression and anxiety.

Of the children interviewed (or interviewed by proxy), 32 percent reported experiencing at least one type of sibling victimization in the past year. Researchers found that “all types of sibling aggression, both mild and severe, were associated with significantly higher distress symptom scores for both children and adolescents,” the study authors write.

Image: Siblings fighting, via Shutterstock

Because 10-month-olds can’t yet express sympathy verbally, Kyoto University researcher Shoji Itakura and colleagues turned to a common tactic in baby-brain research: using simple animations to determine what infants prefer. They showed 40 babies an animation of a blue ball and a yellow cube.

Half of the infants watched a short clip in which the blue ball chased the yellow cube around the screen, hitting it seven times before finally squishing it against a wall. The other half of the group saw the same movements, including the squishing, but the two shapes moved independently without interacting.

In some cases, the “bully” and “victim” roles were swapped, so that the yellow cube was the bad guy. After watching the show, the babies were shown a real yellow cube and a real blue ball, and given the chance to reach for one of the objects.

In cases where the babies had seen one shape beating up on the other, they overwhelmingly reached for the victim, 16 out of 20 times. In comparison, when the shapes hadn’t interacted, the babies’ choices were basically random — nine went for the shape that had gotten squished, and the other 11 went for the nonsquished shape.

The results could have simply indicated that babies preferred to steer clear of a nasty character, not that they felt sympathy for the bullied one. To rule out that possibility, the researchers conducted a second experiment with 24 babies, also 10 months old. These babies saw a show nearly identical to the first, except there was a third character: a red cylinder. The red cylinder was a neutral presence on-screen, neither bullying nor being bullied.

After watching the animation, the babies were again given a choice of two toys. Half could pick between the “victim” shape and the neutral shape, while the other half got to choose between the bullying shape and the neutral shape.

This time, 10 out of 12 babies given the neutral-or-bully option went with the neutral cylinder. Meanwhile, of the 12 given the neutral-or-victim option, 10 picked the victim.

In other words, even when there was no mean character present that a baby might want to avoid, the babies still picked the victim.

Though researchers caution this study should not be taken as solid proof of sympathy in babies, it does follow other recent research, including a study published in January that found that babies could demonstrate signs of empathy, or being able to guess what another person is feeling.

Image: Baby, via Shutterstock

Meet Alex, the first Muppet to have a dad in jail. According to a Pew Charitable Trusts report, one in 28 children in the United States now has a parent behind bars — more than the number of kids with a parent who is deployed — so it’s a real issue, but it’s talked about far less because of the stigma.

That’s why the Sesame Workshop says it created the “Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration” initiative, an online tool kit intended to help kids with a parent in prison find support and comfort, and provide families with strategies and tips to talk to their children about incarceration.

Alex is blue-haired and green-nosed and he wears a hoodie – you might think he’s just another carefree inhabitant of Sesame Street. But there’s sorrow in Alex’s voice when he talks about his father.

“I just miss him so much,” he tells a friend. “I usually don’t want people to know about my Dad.”

It’s easier for kids to hear such things from a Muppet than an adult, creators of the initiative noted.

“Coming from a Muppet, it’s almost another child telling their story to the children,” said Jeanette Betancourt, vice president of outreach and educational practices at the Sesame Workshop.

Alex will not be part of the regular cast on “Sesame Street,” but he’s playing a central role in the online tool kit.

Parents.com’s GoodyBlog adds more on the initiative:

The goal of the initiative is twofold. One is to help caregivers–parents, grandparents, extended family members, foster parents–realize they’re not alone and that it’s important to talk to children about their situation. The tip sheet mentioned above provides caregivers with the best language to use with young kids and how to help them manage their emotions. The other aim is to help the incarcerated parent connect with his or her child. In the video, which includes the stories of real children, we meet a young boy who, with his father and sister, draws pictures for his imprisoned mom (that’s them in the photo above). She then colors them and mails them back, and this simple ritual has become very meaningful.

Image: Jail, via Shutterstock

On Saturday — according to E!, the network behind her family’s hit reality show– Kim Kardashian gave birth to a baby girl. The report did not give a name for the newborn, but did say she came into the world at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

She’s the first child for the 32-year-old Kardashian, who has modeled, acted and launched business ventures but is best known as a reality TV star with a huge international following, having amassed some 18 million Twitter followers

The father is rapper Kanye West, who was by his girlfriend’s side during the delivery, E! reported, citing a source. The couple started dating last year, shortly after Kardashian filed for divorce from NBA player Kris Humphries after 72 days of marriage.

While the baby’s arrival was somewhat unexpected — coming a few weeks earlier than the July due date — her gender is not. Like many aspects of the Kardashian family’s existence, it was revealed on an episode of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” — the eighth season premiere, in fact, that aired in June — documenting her 19-week checkup at her obstetrician’s office.

Image: Kim Kardashian, via Featureflash / Shutterstock.com

Local station KSN.com reports that 5-month-old Nessa Shoup of Ludington, Mich., was having trouble breathing while under the care of two baby sitters. One of them called 911.

Bill Hogenson happened to be working nearby and overheard the conversation. He ran into the house and found the baby, who was turning blue and appeared unable to breathe.

Hogenson peformed CPR on Nessa, but the baby continued to struggle.

He told KSN:

“I went into the drawer and found a turkey baster and used the turkey baster to clear her nasal passage and her airway,” Hogenson described.

He patted her on the back, spun her around and saw a good sign.

“She smiled at me, and I knew we were going to be in the good,” Hogenson said.

Nessa’s father, Shawn Gasciogne, told KSN, “If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t have this beautiful baby here right now and we are forever grateful.”

Image: Turkey baster, via Shutterstock

[The study] found that compared with babies who received formula, breast-fed infants had increased development in white matter regions of the brain, including areas associated with planning, social and emotional functioning, motor ability and language. The differences were linked to better performance on tests of motor development and visual acuity.

The scientists studied 133 healthy children ages 10 months through 4 years in three groups: exclusively breast-fed, exclusively formula-fed, and those fed a combination of formula and breast milk….

….“I’m not saying if you didn’t breast-feed, you’re doomed,” said the lead author, Sean C. L. Deoni, an assistant professor of engineering at Brown University. “We couldn’t control for things like how much interaction a kid has with his parents, what kind of learning environment he lives in, and so on. There are a lot of factors that go into making a successful adult.”

Image: Breastfeeding baby, via Shutterstock

“My son will be an American, but I remain French,” Martinez told PEOPLE in Paris on Wednesday.

The actor, 47, made the comment at the opening night of the Champs-Elysées Film Festival, where he is serving as this year’s honorary president.

While joking with reporters, Martinez remarked about his experiences walking red carpets.

“It’s not the first one, not the last [I've been on],” he said with a smile. “It’s part of the job.”

Image: Halle Berry, via s_bukley / Shutterstock.com

Huge numbers of children are unable to swim, which largely explains why drowning is the second leading cause of death among children ages 1 to 19. Three years ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics updated its policy, reinforcing its advice that children ages 4 and older should learn to swim but also noting that children ages 1 to 4 are less likely to drown if they have had formal swimming lessons.

Furthermore, very young children who are comfortable in water are likely to be easier to teach to swim when they are ready to learn formal strokes.

According to the USA Swimming Foundation, about 70 percent of African-American children, 60 percent of Latino children and 40 percent of white children are nonswimmers. Lack of access and financial constraints account only partly for these numbers. Fear, cultural factors and even cosmetic issues play a role as well.

“Before the Civil War, more blacks than whites could swim,” Lynn Sherr, the author of “Swim: Why We Love the Water,” said in an interview. “There are many stories of shipwrecks in which black slaves rescued their owners.”

But as Ms. Sherr learned from Bruce Wigo of the International Swimming Hall of Fame, segregation destroyed the aquatic culture of the black community. “Once whites discovered swimming, blacks were increasingly excluded from public pools and lifeguarded beaches,” Mr. Wigo told her.

As a result, many minority parents never learned how to swim. Adults who can’t swim often fear the water and, directly or indirectly, convey that fear to their children.

Image: Child swimming, via Shutterstock

[Dr. De-Kun Li, a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California,] and colleagues studied 1,326 school-age children in Shanghai, China, and measured BPA levels in their urine. In girls ages 9 to 12, higher BPA urine levels were associated with a doubled risk of obesity. And as BPA urine levels increased, so did the girls’ obesity risk – measured using their weight in reference to weight distribution in the population.

But strikingly, only girls in this age group were affected, the research showed. Neither girls outside of the 9-12 age range nor boys experienced a risk of being overweight or obese, even with high levels of BPA in their urine.

“Girls seem to be more sensitive to environmental impact, and we don’t know exactly why,” said Li, the lead study author.

Researchers do know BPA is an endocrine-disrupting chemical. It enters the body and mimics estrogen, the main hormone involved in female development.

When BPA acts like estrogen in young girls, it may accelerate the onset of puberty and cause weight gain – thus earning its “endocrine-disrupting” title.

“It is biologically plausible that BPA interferes with your normal hormone process – then your body gets screwed up,” said Li.

In March, a study reported a link between BPA and childhood asthma, and last year, the FDA banned BPA from all baby bottles and sippy cups.

Image: Overweight girl, via Shutterstock