How new guidelines are helping kids and teens lose weight   ..read more

Aquablation offers the newest response to BPH   ..read more

Authors Meghan Elizabeth Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli explore reproductive choices with climate change at the door On a warm, February afternoon in Chicago (a line that, having grown up here, I never imagined I’d write), I spoke with authors Meghan Elizabeth Kallman, PhD, and Josephine Ferorelli about their new book, The Conceivable Future, which explores how climate change is affecting families and reproductive health. The book serves as a guide for the approximately 4 billion Millennials and Gen-Zers who are facing one of the biggest decisions of their lives: whether or not to have childr ..read more

Making room for adolescents’ healthy risks As anyone who has ever been a teenager or known a teenager is well aware, they sometimes take irresponsible, even dangerous risks. But some of that risk-taking is healthy, teaching them how to become independent, responsible adults. Student journalists Jubriel Chaparro, recently 20, and Jermaine Jackson, 18, take risks in atypical ways. In their work with Street Level, a youth media arts center in Chicago’s West Town, they occasionally approach people on the street for interviews; they also have others critique their writing. In both instances, they’r ..read more

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul knew that he was at risk of developing prostate cancer. His family history seemed inescapable. He lost his father, as well as his paternal and maternal grandfathers, to the disease. Raoul also knew he had additional risk factors: He is Black and of Caribbean ancestry. His father, who was a community physician, and his mother had grown up in Haiti before they immigrated to Chicago. Prostate cancer develops more often in Black men and in Caribbean men of African ancestry than in other races, according to the American Cancer Society. Overall, prostate cancer ..read more

When Covid-19 shuttered schools and services, children with special needs were left behind With interruptions to school and socialization, the Covid-19 pandemic has hit millions of American children hard. But for children with special needs, the impact of the pandemic has been especially disruptive. Nearly 20% of children under age 18 in the U.S. have special healthcare needs, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. These children — who require therapeutic support systems, socialization, and medical services to thrive — have had their lives upended physically, emotionally, an ..read more

  Mary Kay Doyle is sure that having her son’s medical records close at hand has helped his new doctors better treat him. Doyle, who lives in Frankfort, keeps a list of her son’s surgeries and medications at the ready, so doctors will immediately have background on her son Tommy, 27, who has VATER syndrome, which involves multiple related birth defects. “Having his medical records available when visiting a new doctor can be so helpful. It takes all the guesswork out of it,” Doyle says. While Tommy’s case is complex, it can be beneficial for most people to create a list of medical records ..read more

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: I am 72 and take a drug for rheumatoid arthritis that suppresses my immune system. I’m scheduled to receive a vaccine later this year. Is it safe for me to receive this vaccine? ANSWER: Appropriate and timely vaccines are important for anyone with a suppressed immune system. That’s because a suppressed immune system increases your vulnerability to infections, including those that vaccines can prevent. However, vaccine selection for a person with immune suppression is a nuanced topic. It’s important to have a detailed discussion with your healthcare provider, as the choices ar ..read more

As Murphy’s Law would have it, children’s tantrums seem to happen at the most inconvenient times. Your toddler or independent-minded 3-year-old turns red, screams, stomps, and appears possessed when you’ve finally gotten everyone geared up for a family walk, or wrangled that video call you spent days coordinating with relatives to get everyone live at once — or even worse, when you need silence for your weekly video conference call at work. “What’s gotten into you? We don’t have time for this!” you might think. Everything you say and do seems to make the tantrum worse, and it takes all of your ..read more

When Tania Nava of Berwyn gave birth to her first child at a local Chicago hospital, she knew it was an experience she never wanted to repeat. “The hospital staff was really harsh on me,” she says. Throughout the process, Nava says she felt stressed and pressured to take drugs like Pitocin to hurry the labor along, despite her wishes. When she became pregnant with her second child, Nava knew she wanted to explore other options for the birthing process. That’s when she came across the midwife-led Birth Center at PCC Community Wellness Center. After a tour and several prenatal visits, she and he ..read more