I am currently Editor of L.A. Parent, a free-distribution monthly magazine and website serving families in Los Angeles County. I have been writing about health issues for children and families for much of the past 20 years, and am the author of Safe and Secure: The Loving Parent's Guide to Child Safety (Berkley Trade, 1998) and The 24-Hour Pediatrician (Three Rivers Press, 2002). My 2010-11 California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowship project -- a five-part series on the impact of air pollution on children's health -- won a Parenting Media Association Award.

Articles

Fragile X Syndrome: Getting to the Diagnosis Behind the Diagnosis

The most common inherited form of intellectual disability and autism, Fragile X Syndrome still isn't familiar enough to the general public -- or to pediatricians -- says one Southern California doctor. He urges all parents of children with autism to have them tested.

Childhood Obesity: A Few Resources For Reporters

An expert told this reporter in an interview about childhood obesity that it remains a major threat to kids’ health, the emotional issues surrounding it are at least as important – if not more so. And these issues aren’t covered often in the media.

In the air: Teenage lungs

<div class="node-body"><p>What is air pollution doing to our kids? The air we breathe gets plenty of media coverage, but we tend to consider it more of an inconvenience than an emergency. Yet at every stage of children’s lives – from their time in the womb until they’re ready to leave the nest – the pollution in the air affects their health.</p></div>

In Utero

<p>What is air pollution doing to our kids? If you live in L.A. County, and especially if you’ve driven back to the Los Angeles basin from somewhere else, you’ve seen it. A steely brown haze hangs over us for much of the year. We live in the smoggiest region in the United States (according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District), but for those raising children here it may not be top of mind. In some parts of the county, moms claw their way onto waiting lists for the “right” preschool while they are still pregnant. Concerns about finding the right neighborhood, the right school, about keeping kids away from gangs and drugs or getting them to turn off the Xbox and do some homework tend to take center stage. The air we breathe gets plenty of media coverage, but we tend to consider it more of an inconvenience than an emergency.</p><p>Yet at every stage of children’s lives – from their time in the womb until they’re ready to leave the nest – the pollution in the air impacts their health. 2010 California Health Journalism Fellow Christina Elston reports.</p>

In the Air

<p><!--StartFragment--></p><p>Eight weeks without food. Five days without water. Three minutes without air. In the world of survival math, breathing is at the top of almost every equation. But here in the L.A. Basin, we inhale much more than life-sustaining oxygen, drawing in a mix of ozone, carbon

Fellowship Project: What Are Our Kids Breathing?

<p>If you live in L.A. County, and especially if you've driven back to the Los Angeles basin from somewhere else, you've seen it. A steely brown haze hangs over us for much of the year. We live in the smoggiest region in the United States (according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District), but for those raising children here it may not be top of mind. In some parts of the county, moms claw their way onto waiting lists for the "right" preschool while they are still pregnant.