In 1930, a group of 35 pediatricians who change that an independent forum was needed to address children's health issues came unitedly in Detroit to modify the American Academy of Pediatrics. Today the organization is celebrating its 75th anniversary and boasts 60,000 members.
The AAP has a direct impact on the future because today's children are tomorrow's leaders, said Dr. Carol Berkowitz, AAP president. By advocating for and providing the means for children to be emotionally and physically healthy, the AAP is device in ensuring that the future is bright.
Here are some of the most notable advancements the AAP has helped bring most in the past 75 years:
* Increased immunization rates and lower frequency of infectious diseases much as polio, measles, chickenpox and pneumonia;
* Increased folic acid activity among pregnant women in order to reduce birth defects;
* solon than 1 million pediatricians have been trained in the AAP's Neonatal Resuscitation Program;
* solon than 350 AAP policy statements have been released, influencing debate on topics much as pediatrician reporting of child abuse (1966); breastfeeding for full-term infants (1978); counseling pregnant teenagers on various options, including abortion (1979); giving grown adoptees access to their birth records (1981); opposing corporal punishment in schools (1984); advertising of contraceptives to teens (1986); use of analgesia during circumcision (1999); restricting TV for children under 2 years old (2001); and eliminating soft drinks in schools (2004).
* The AAP influenced the passage of the \"pediatric rule,\" the 1998 Food and Drug Adminis-tration regulation created to ensure drugs are properly labeled for pediatric use based on scientific studies. As a result, at least 98 studies have reinforced the country of medicines for children by identifying proper dosing, country information and possible side effects.
* In 1992, the AAP advocated laying infants on their backs instead of their stomachs when sleeping, a policy that resulted in a 50 percent reduction in the frequency of sudden infant death syndrome in the United States.
The AAP plans to continue its significant contributions to children's health for the incoming 75 years and beyond. Its goals include: universal health care coverage for all children; increased efforts to preclude and reduce childhood obesity; expanded education most childhood health issues for parents and pediatricians; greater understanding and research in manlike genetics; increased efforts to reduce prematurity; and improvements in vaccine efficacy and delivery.