Harvard Health Content API

Child injuries from home cleaning products have dropped by almost half since 1990, a new study finds. But the injury rate from cleaners in spray bottles has remained steady. Products in spray bottles caused 40% of the injuries, the study found. Researchers used data on 267,000 children ages 5 and under who had these types of injuries. All were treated in emergency rooms between 1990 and 2006. About 72% of the children were 1 to 3 years old. Bleach was the most common chemical linked to an injury. The journal Pediatrics published the study online. USA Today and HealthDay News wrote about it August 2. Safety guidelines include keeping cleaning products locked up. Experts interviewed by HealthDay offered other tips. They said you should always close a container even if you are going to use it again in a minute.

People whose hearts pump less blood may have earlier aging of the brain, new research suggests. Brains tend to shrink as people get older. They shrink especially fast in people with dementia. People with heart disease have a higher risk of dementia. But most of the 1,500 people in the study did not have heart disease. They also did not have a history of stroke, transient ischemic attack or dementia. Doctors calculated the cardiac index for each person. Cardiac index is a measurement of how much blood your heart pumps, compared with your body size (surface area). Researchers also measured brain size. People who had a low or low-normal cardiac index tended to have smaller brains than people with a high index. On average, the difference was equal to about two years of aging. But they did not have brain function problems.

Childbirth options have been in the news often in the last few weeks. CBS News reported this week on a Lancet editorial that called home births riskier for babies. The editorial quoted a recent study on neonatal death rates. Though low, deaths were two to three times as high at home as in the hospital. An August 2 Time magazine article also discussed childbirth issues. It quoted new guidelines from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The guidelines say women who had a prior cesarean section should get the chance to have a vaginal birth next time. Induction of labor may be another cause of C-sections. Time quotes a new study that found C-section rates in first-time births doubled when labor was induced. Guidelines support induction after 41 weeks of pregnancy. But the study found that about 4 out of 10 women who did not meet guidelines had labor induced anyway.

Schools shouldn’t force kids to stay home because they have head lice, a group of children’s doctors says. The new guidelines on head lice are the first from the American Academy of Pediatrics since 2002. They take aim at schools that do not allow children who have head lice or nits to remain in school. Nits are the empty egg casings that get stuck to kids’ hair at the roots. It makes no medical sense to keep kids at home if they have lice or nits, the doctors said. The risk of spreading lice in school is very small. The doctors also offered advice on treatment. Over-the-counter shampoos containing permethrin or pyrethrin are usually the first choice. But some lice can resist them. The guidelines explain other steps parents can take. These include washing bedding in hot water, putting stuffed animals in a sealed bag for a couple of weeks and using a fine-tooth comb to remove nits.

Two forms of CPR are equally likely to save a life, two new studies conclude. And bystanders usually will help when they get firm, clear instructions, they found. One form of CPR uses a cycle of either 15 or 30 firm chest pushes and two quick breaths into the person’s mouth. The newer form is “hands-only.” It skips the breaths and uses 100 pushes per minute. The larger study included 1,900 people who saw someone in cardiac arrest and called 911. Dispatchers told them how to do a form of CPR. Half were randomly chosen to do each type. About 8 out of 10 were willing to try the hands-only form. About 7 out of 10 agreed to do the other form. Previous research has found that no more than one-third of bystanders will try CPR. Survival rates were about 12% for those who got either form of CPR. This is double the average survival for cardiac arrest outside a hospital.