Meconium is essentially a baby's first bowel movement, excreted in the womb, and often expelled with the amniotic fluid. It is considered a sign of fetal distress. A small percentage of newborns inhale a mixture of meconium and amniotic fluid, which can lead to serious lung injury or infection.

"Meconium in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing," Dr. Jennifer Wu, an obstetrician/gynecologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, explained. "It's a bad thing when you have meconium complications like aspiration. It's like being born with the umbilical cord around the neck. Twenty-five percent of babies are born this way, but for most of them, it's not a big deal. It's the same thing for meconium. Only a small number of [babies born with] meconium-stained fluid actually aspirate."

In fact, 11 percent of babies aspirate meconium-stained fluid, but the situation is not dire in all cases.

It's unclear how this latest finding will actually help physicians and expectant mothers during delivery.

"At this point, I don't know what we're going to do with this data," said Wu. "It's not like you would do anything differently or perform a C-section. We need additional studies in order to find a clinical intervention that can help."

The findings were expected to be presented Tuesday at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists annual meeting, in New Orleans.

For this study, researchers from Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., drew blood to measure levels of a hormone, inhibin-A, in 19 pregnant women who had had a normal pregnancy and delivery.

Inhibin-A levels were higher in four women who had normal pregnancies but who passed meconium during delivery. The test was conducted during the second trimester.

More information

The Nemours Foundation has more on meconium aspiration.

While cough and cold medications for children are widely marketed in the United States, how frequently they are used had not been scientifically studied. This new finding, from researchers at Boston University's Slone Epidemiology Center, gives increased weight to recent revelations that cough and cold medication use can lead to serious adverse effects, including death.

"Given concerns about potential harmful effects and lack of evidence proving that these medications are effective in young children, the fact that 1-in-10 U.S. children is using one of these medications is striking," study author Dr. Louis Vernacchio, an assistant professor of epidemiology and pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement.

Yet, the researchers also reported positive news in children's use of cough syrup and other drugs. The overall use of cough and cold medications declined from 12.3 percent in 1999-2000 to 8.4 percent in 2005-2006, they found.

The findings were scheduled to be presented Saturday at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in Honolulu.

Researchers analyzed data gathered between 1999 and 2006 through a national telephone survey and considered all oral medicines approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat children's coughs and colds.

In any given week, 10.1 percent of U.S. children took at least one cough and cold medication, the researchers found. In terms of active ingredients, most used were decongestants and antihistamines (6.3 percent each), followed by anti-cough medicines (4.1 percent) and expectorants (1.5 percent).

Children aged 2 to 5 used the medications most often, but the rate was also high among those younger than 2.

More information

The American Association of Pediatrics has more about cold remedies for children.

"We have demonstrated significant differences in the changes in respiratory function that occur with asthmatic bronchoconstriction in relation to obesity," principal investigator Dr. D. Robin Taylor, of the University of Otago in New Zealand, said in a prepared statement.

The study also found that simple spirometry couldn't determine the level of pulmonary dysfunction in obese people with asthma.

The findings were published in the first issue for May of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. It's the first prospective study to find a significant comparative difference between obese and non-obese people in how the lungs and airways respond to a simulated asthma attack.

The researchers said it establishes a direct link between obesity and the development of dynamic hyperinflation -- air breathed into the lungs can't be expelled. This often occurs with acute asthma, but is more frequent in obese people.

The study included 30 asthmatic women who were divided into three groups based on their BMI: normal weight, overweight and obese. All the women breathed nebulized methacholine to induce an asthma-like attack and were then assessed for changes in lung function, including functional residual capacity (FRC -- how much air remained in the lungs after exhalation) and inspiratory capacity (IC -- how much air could be inhaled on the next breath).

"After the methacholine challenge, the amount of bronchoconstriction was identical for each of the three groups, but the changes in FRC and IC were greatest in the obese group. This indicated to us that greater dynamic hyperinflation was occurring among obese individuals," Taylor said.

The greater a woman's BMI, the higher her FRC and the lower her IC.

"This means that among women with greater BMI, an asthma-like episode has the potential to cause greater breathing difficulties than in non-obese women. The greater dynamic hyperinflation means that obese individuals lose the ability to inhale as deeply or exhale as fully as normal weight individuals," Taylor said.

The findings suggest fundamental differences in the way that obese people with asthma may experience shortness of breath.

"We know that asthma in obese subjects is more likely to persist and is more likely to be perceived to be severe. These individuals often require more treatment to achieve asthma control. Our study provides an insight into why this might be happening -- the same asthma trigger produces a greater effect in obese individuals," Taylor said.

More research is needed to "confirm that the differences in dynamic hyperinflation between obese and non-obese asthmatics are sufficient to explain the differences in symptoms between the two groups. Our study was not large enough to do this," Taylor said.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more about asthma.

Free asthma screenings are scheduled to be held at 250 locations across the United States as part of National Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month. The American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology sponsors the annual effort, and this year the emphasis is on helping those already diagnosed with asthma to get it under control as best they can.

In recent months, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) put out new guidelines highlighting the importance of asthma control, including daily monitoring and proper medication use to treat symptoms and prevent severe attacks from occurring. This came in light of research showing that many people with asthma are suffering more than they need to from the disease.

"The government guidelines emphasize that undiagnosed or inadequately treated asthma worsens the severity of the disease," allergist John Winder, chairman of the Nationwide Asthma Screening Program, said in a prepared statement. "The screening program gives patients who are still having breathing problems a chance to meet with an allergist, discuss their symptoms and learn how to feel better."

More than 22 million Americans, including 6.5 million children, have asthma -- a chronic inflammation of the airways in the lungs. Asthma attacks, which claim nearly 4,000 lives a year, are often triggered by allergens -- these include pollen, dust, animal dander, certain drugs and food additives -- lung infections, or even physical exertion. While the disease's exact cause remains unknown, many treatments are available to keep it in check.

"An asthma 'attack' isn't the only sign of trouble. A cough that bothers you at night, shortness of breath, colds that go to your chest -- these can all be symptoms of asthma. But few people recognize them or that they are a sign of under-treated disease," Winder said. "No one with asthma should have to suffer. Anyone who is experiencing breathing problems or making compromises to live with their condition should attend a free screening and find out how to take control."

The screenings will be overseen by allergists, who are asthma specialists, and done in coordination with local doctors and allied health professionals. During a screening, participants will answer several questions about their breathing issues, take a lung function test that involves blowing into a tube, and meet with an allergist to determine whether a more thorough exam and diagnosis is needed.

The program has screened more than 108,000 people over the years, and more than half of those were referred for further diagnosis.

A list of free asthma screening locations and dates, online versions of the breathing questionnaires, and more information on treating and controlling asthma are on the ACAAI Web site at www.acaai.org.

More information

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more information about controlling and treating asthma.

Researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., looked at 235 people, average age 80.1 years, who were monitored for an average of 6.8 nights. The team used wrist actigraphy to gather data on the participants' sleep patterns and circadian rhythms. The volunteers also kept sleep diaries.

The results showed that naps of at least five minutes were recorded in sleep diaries by 75.7 percent of the participants. Napping was most likely to occur in those with higher levels of nighttime sleep fragmentation, respiratory symptoms, diabetes and pain.

Self-reported diabetes was associated with a 43 percent longer nap duration, while self-reported pain was associated with a 27.5 percent shorter nap duration. Each hour of previous night's sleep time was associated with a 4.1 percent longer sleep time the next night (nap night), and each hour of napping (the next day) was associated with 10.2 percent less sleep on the night of the nap.

"Our study is important both clinically and for future research. It points out the need for health care providers to discuss nighttime sleep and daytime napping with older individuals," study author Suzanne E. Goldman said in a prepared statement.

The study "also points out the need to identify the causes of disturbed nighttime sleep in order to determine appropriate treatment. Our study suggests that older adults nap because of health problems and disrupted sleep at night. Thus the napping may reflect needed sleep," Goldman said.

The study was published in the May 1 issue of Sleep.

Lack of sleep can lead to a number of problems in older adults, including depressed mood, attention and memory problems, excessive daytime sleepiness, more nighttime falls, and increased use of sleep medications.

Research has also linked lack of sleep with increased risk of serious health problems such as obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

More information

The U.S. National Sleep Foundation has more about aging and sleep.