Ing C, DiMaggio C, Whitehouse A, Hegarty MK, Brady J, von Ungern-Sternberg BS, Davidson A, Wood AJJ, Li G, Sun LS: Long-term Differences in Language and Cognitive Function After Childhood Exposure to Anesthesia. Pediatrics 2012. Further data, again from Australia about the potential long term effects of anesthesia (or surgery or both), this time examining specific intellectual domains and showing associations of reduced language and abstract reasoning with having had anesthesia before the age of 3.

Morley CJ, Keszler M: Ventilators do not breathe. Archives of Disease in Childhood – Fetal and Neonatal Edition 2012. A well reasoned plea from Colin Morley and Marty Keszler to use different terminology when talking about assisted ventilation. Babies inspire, ventilators inflate, etc. I agree!

Thomson T, Habeeb O, DeChristopher PJ, Glynn L, Yong S, Muraskas J: Decreased survival in necrotizing enterocolitis is significantly associated with neonatal and maternal blood group: the AB isoagglutinin hypothesis. J Perinatol 2012, 32(8):626-630. I was a bit surprised by this, but, if confirmed, it shows that mortality is different depending on infants blood group, specifically, worse if the infant is AB. The authors suggest that this may be due to increased concentrations of isoagglutinins in these babies.

Legrand C, Michaud L, Salleron J, Neut D, Sfeir R, Thumerelle C, Bonnevalle M, Turck D, Gottrand F: Long-term outcome of children with oesophageal atresia type III. Archives of Disease in Childhood 2012, 97(9):808-811. The long term complications of children who had a repair of the commonest type of oesphageal atresia are much more frequent than I realized. With reflux, dysphagia, and respiratory symptoms being very common.