Next week, March 1-8 marks National Sleep Awareness Week, a time to take a look at our own sleep habits. Do your family members get enough sleep? Are you getting quality sleep? If not, is your disrupted sleep affecting day-to-day activities? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, it’s important to note that sleep is a key component to our health, performance, safety and quality of life. Sleep is just as important as exercise and good nutrition! Adults should sleep between seven and nine hours a night and adolescents on average should be sleeping approximately nine hours a night. Toddlers and newborns should be sleeping even more than that!

Unfortunately, 39 percent of Americans are sleep deprived and are sleeping less than the recommended hours of sleep each night. Two-thirds of all children experience at least one sleep problem a couple of nights a week and nearly one-third of children younger than 10 wake up at least once a night needing attention. Only 20 percent of adolescents are getting the recommended hours of sleep each night, and more than 50 percent of teenagers surveyed reported that they feel tired during the day. This can lead to adverse effects such as being late to or absent from school, falling asleep in school, being too tired to exercise, or driving while drowsy. Also sleep deprivation can be associated with hormonal changes that lead to weight gain.

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Have you ever wondered how it is that we know so much about many of the injuries and illnesses that occur in children? Did you ever think about how a medication was developed to treat cancer, epilepsy, asthma, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or Crohn’s Disease? How in the world did physicians figure out how to treat and repair heart defects in newborns?

The answer is clinical research. You are very important in the effort to discover causes and cures for the medical issues we deal with every day at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.

Children are not just small adults. They are quite different in how they act, think, get sick or injured and respond to treatments. Still, the majority of our treatments used in sick kids only have been clinically proven in adults. The rules for clinical research have, until recently, not allowed much drug testing in children. As a result, most drugs used in kids today are just lower doses of adult medications.

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Did you know that every month 100 Milwaukee County children enter foster care? Right now, there are approximately 2,600 children in foster care. These children come from diverse backgrounds and have a wide range of needs. What they have in common is a need for a nurturing, temporary place to call home. In our work as adoption and foster care advocates, we see how the lives of children and families have been affected when a family is in distress. But we also see what good can happen when a community pulls together and helps a family through difficult times.

That is one of the reasons the recruitment team at Children’s Service Society of Wisconsin and some of the foster/adoption staff has teamed up to work together to make connections in the community. We are stepping out of our normal job duties to develop a comprehensive grassroots initiative to move towards solving some of the major issues in our community revolving around child welfare. (more…)

Today marks 40 days until Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin’s new west tower lobby opens. We’re absolutely busting with pride and excitement about what this will mean for our patients and our staff. Our average daily patient census recently has been hovering consistently in the high 200s. With our current bed count at 236 that means many families are doubling up during this, our busiest time of year. We’re grateful for their patience, but we really want to give them more. With that said, here is a random list of things about the west tower that we can’t wait to share with our patients, our staff and the community when the front door opens on Monday, March 30.

40 random things about the new west tower expansion:

1. We will have 100 percent private rooms, which will make absolutely everyone happy.
2. Our total bed count will be 294 when the West Tower opens.
3. It will add three new critical care floors and three new acute care floors.
4. It has two floors of shell space (floors 7 and 8) for future expansion.
5. Rooms are substantially larger than our current rooms (and by the way, they’re gorgeous).
6. Patient rooms are organized into three zones: the staff zone, the patient zone and the family zone.
7. The tower was built on researched principles of design that include safety, flexibility and adaptability.
8. We will have separate public and private traffic areas and state-of-the-art workspaces to facilitate the best patient care.
9. We will have family amenities like wireless internet access.
10. At 12 stories tall, Children’s Hospital now is the tallest building in Wauwatosa and a stunning addition to the skyline. (more…)

Meteorologists predict winter will be making a big comeback this week, whether we like it or not. When it does, we need to make sure our kids are playing safely outside.

There’s nothing more fun for kids in the winter than to sled down a hill that’s blanketed with fresh snow. Before your kids hit the hill, remember to top off their winter gear with a helmet. Nearly 25,000 kids are injured in sledding accidents every year, and 3,000 kids receive serious brain injuries as a result.

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