Checkup Newsroom

As you watch your little one walking or running during play, you may ask yourself, “Is my child falling too much?” Children initially begin to walk between the ages of 12 and 15 months. In the early stages of walking, you may notice your child “wa...

In a shelled out floor of the South Tower at Cook Children’s Medical Center, the thud of kicks and punches echo off drywall and concrete. Loud and confident, the words “No! No! No!” ricochet through the room. It may sound like a melee, but this is...

It’s spring in North Texas and just like clockwork, severe weather is expected to impact our area this evening. Large hail, damaging winds and even tornadoes are a possibility with the thunderstorms that are predicted to develop by late afternoon. Fo...

Growth charts are wonderful tools to assess how your child is growing compared to his or her peers of the same age. Many factors can play a role in a child’s growth including nutrition, illnesses and plain-old genetics. At every well-child check, ...

In The Media At 2 p.m. CST on Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, Jamye Coffman, M.D., will be a featured expert on Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy on 'The Dr. Oz Show.' The episode will explore the case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, whose mother (Dee Dee Blanchard)...

Fort Worth Star Telegram - Child drownings in Tarrant County have spiked this year, with seven recorded before the official first day of summer on Thursday.  There were only five juvenile drowning deaths in all of 2017, according to Tarrant County...

Summer is off to a deadly start for children in North Texas. Despite calls from local officials and families of drowning victims to ‘Lifeguard Your Child’ around water, 11 children were admitted to Cook Children’s over Memorial Day weekend. Two of th...

CBS 11 - Twenty-eight children have already died in drownings in Texas this year. The next three months, Memorial Day through Labor Day, are often when hospitals see the most victims. Families of drowning victims met together at Cook Children’s in...

Children's Hospital Association - Cook Children's launched a campaign last year called Lifeguard Your Child, its third drowning-prevention campaign in as many years. It all started in June 2015, when 28 children were admitted to the hospital for near...

When Katie and Chas Shira walked into Cook Children’s Medical Center on a warm December night in 2015, they had nothing but a name, a code and an empty car seat. They had driven three hours from their home in the tiny town of O’Brien, Texas with the ...

WFAA - For some families who are about to lose a child, Cook Children's has the ability to record the child's heartbeat and turn it into a song the family will have forever.  Watch the story on WFAA by clicking here.      ...

CBS 11 - Jamye Coffman, M.D., medical director of the Child Advocacy Resources and Evaluation (CARE) team at Cook Children's explains early childhood trauma its potential long-term health effects.  Watch the live interview with Dr. Coffman here. ...

Thanks to Senate Bill 1566, you will now know if someone in your child’s classroom has head lice. The bill requires school nurses to notify parents within 48 hours if their child or a classmate has been identified to have head lice. Along with ...

WFAA - Dozens of Texas children have died from drowning in pools, lakes or ponds this year. "Most of the parents would tell you, it’s just a second, drowning is very silent," says Sharon Evans, trauma injury prevention coordinator at Cook Children's ...

Children's Hospital Association - It's been almost a year since Khala Hart's little boy nearly died. On July 30, 2016, Khala and her husband, Chad, attended a pool party with two of their children, Caleb and Jack. Jack was just 3 years old at ...

CBS DFW - The image of a child in distress, struggling in water is heart-wrenching. But for Cook Children’s Medical Center, it’s the picture they want parents see on a new electronic billboard in Fort Worth. Read the full story here.   ...

Fort Worth Star Telegram - Dr. Jamye Coffman, medical director, The Center for Prevention of Child Maltreatment and Care at Cook Children's Medical Center, talks about putting the puzzle together. Read special report here.   ...

Frank McGehee, M.D., may surprise you when it comes to his parenting tips as a father of four biological children and two step kids – he puts all of the children second. Dr. McGehee, seen here with his daughter Brigid, became a stepfather of two y...

Do children who drink cow’s milk grow to be taller than those who drink other types of milk? Yes, according to a new study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Researchers say children who consumed milk from alternative sources, such a...

“We try to put her on her tummy to play, but she just cries! It breaks my heart!” I hear this almost daily as a pediatric physical therapist. However, tummy time is more important than ever these days. Our babies today tend to have more time on...

Have you ever wondered why they do hearing screens on babies?  Let's begin by looking at the facts: About one to three babies out of every 1000 will be born with a permanent hearing loss. Infant hearing loss is the most common health condi...

So far this year, 21 children have died in the United States as a result of being left in a hot car, according to the Department of Meteorology & Climate Science. The most recent case happened over the weekend in Dallas when a 3-year-old boy was repo...

Baby frogs like funny dogs. Baby hogs like daddy’s dogs. That’s how I remembered this: Blood, frogs, lice, flies, disease, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, death. You might ask, why was I learning the order of the plagues? Obviously, for a bi...

Broken bones are a part of growing up for many children. It’s estimated that 1 in 3 children will have at least one broken bone before age 19 with the likelihood of a broken bone higher in boys than girls. A parent’s natural protective instinct wo...

There are a lot of myths about breast size and development. It can be hard for a young girl to know what to believe and she often has questions that go unanswered about her growing breasts. Breast growth happens over the many years of puberty. The...

Julia Smeltzer brings her dog to work every day. She wears a t-shirt and scrubs. And 'play' is in her job description. Don’t be confused though. Julia and her dog, Journey, have a big responsibility at Cook Children's. Yes, they are there to play,...

We see it on the news almost daily. A teacher or coach in some town, somewhere, arrested for having an inappropriate relationship with a student. Sometimes it’s in another state far away, but far too often it’s in our own communities, even in our chi...

Collin County Health Care Services has confirmed a student at Schell Elementary School in Richardson has tested positive for measles. A letter published by the department reports that they are “reviewing individual exposure status, although anyone...

It may sound unbelievable this time of the year, but the first heatstroke death of 2016 has been confirmed. It happened on Jan. 12, in Rossville, Georgia. The 13-month-old child died after being left in a car for more than 5 hours with the heater run...

Mark Zuckerburg had his baby vaccinated and I don’t particularly care. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he had his baby vaccinated for his baby’s sake, but I don’t want it to affect your decision to vaccinate at all. I don’t want your vaccine decis...