Leader of Britain's midwives disputes survey's claims that home birth is riskier than hospital deliveryA "concerted and calculated" backlash by some doctors is downplaying the benefits of home births and has involved the use of "flawed" evidence to support claims that babies were more likely to die if not born in hospital, the general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives claims today.Cathy Warwick, who heads the body that represents 38,000 midwives in Britain, has been incensed by a recent paper presented by US academics last month that claimed a home birth carried three times the risk that a baby would die.It prompted the respected medical journal the Lancet to write, in an editorial, that "women have the right to choose how and where to give birth, but they do not have the right to...

Conclusion: In this total population of children with CP, aged 3-18 years, 29% used a wheelchair indoors and 41% outdoors. A majority using manual wheelchairs needed adult assistance (86%) while powered wheelchairs provided independent mobility in most cases (86%). To achieve a high level of independent mobility, both manual and powered wheelchairs should be considered at an early age for children with impaired walking ability. (Source: BMC Pediatrics - Latest articles)

Abstract (Source: Child: Care, Health and Development)

US researchers are developing a wheelchair that uses a robot to teach young users how to use it safely at their own pace, in the hope that it will lower the cost and improve accessibility to wheelchair training for children with a disability. You can read how Dr Laura Marchal-Crespo and colleagues at the University of California at Irvine developed and tested the robotic wheelchair with a group of children without disabilities and one child with cerebral palsy, in the 13 August issue of the open access Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation... (Source: Health News from Medical News Today)