Growing pains – Children’s Health Queensland blog

Anyone who has cared for a child with whooping cough knows how frightening the disease’s signature coughing attacks can be. Here, Dr Sophie Wen, an immunisation specialist at the Queensland Children’s Hospital, shares what happens when children come to hospital with whooping cough, and what can be done to prevent them contracting it.

Babies are born ready and eager to connect with other people and their surroundings. Their brains are ‘hard-wired’ to quickly learn about family, community and culture, and in the first three years of life, the brain grows to 90 per cent of its adult size. Here are five simple things parents and caregivers can do to foster healthy growth and development in their baby's early formative years.

Though the subject of death and dying is uncomfortable for many of us and the experience of losing a loved one can be overwhelming for all of us, talking about death to your child as openly and honestly as you can is important in helping them to understand that it is a part of life.

Our son, William, was diagnosed with level 3 autism when he was only four-and-a-half years-old. His mind and body had already been compromised from a cancer diagnosis and treatment, but it wasn’t until we engaged with an early childhood development program for his global development delays that we, along with his teachers and hospital staff, noticed his autism-like traits.

The reality of hearing damage won’t be music to the ears of tune-loving teens and tweens addicted to their personal music devices (or loud music in any situation), but the fact is exposure to recreational loud noise is a major cause of hearing loss in Australia.

Completing cancer treatment can be both an exciting and concerning time for families. What a family goes through is tougher than most people realise.