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THURSDAY, March 16, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- In state after state, doors are quickly slamming shut on the ability of doctors to provide gender-affirming care for transgender minors.The newest restriction is set to take effect Thursday in Florida, where that state’s Board of Medicine decided last month to ban the use of all puberty blockers, hormone therapies and/or surgeries for any patient under 18, whether or not those minors have parental approval for such care. The ban stems from an effort first launched by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Surgeon General back in April 2022, when the pair issued a joint call for the ban. That was followed in August 2022 by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration’s rewriting of Medicaid coverage rules that disallowed reimbursements...

THURSDAY, March 16, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- When Yoni Silverman, now 13, was a toddler, his parents fretted as he missed milestone after milestone. The New York City couple took their son to a host of specialists, searching for answers about why he wasn’t speaking and had difficulty with balance, among other developmental issues.Fast forward a few years later, and a Boston couple was going through something similar with their now 8-year-old son, Ollie. At the time, unlike other toddlers, Ollie wasn’t speaking, sitting up or looking at objects.Neither family felt satisfied with the answers they were getting or the labels that specialists tried to place on their sons, so they pushed the envelope and ordered extensive genetic testing.And that’s where this story of hope and synergy...

THURSDAY, March 16, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Sometimes new moms receive opioid prescriptions for pain, particularly after a cesarean delivery. They needn't worry, researchers say.Their newborns are at no greater risk of harm than those whose moms don’t get those prescriptions, according to a large new study in Canada. The findings, published March 15 in the BMJ, should reassure parents and their doctors, the researchers said. “Findings from this study suggest no association between maternal opioid prescription after delivery and adverse infant outcomes, including death,” the study authors said in a journal news release. Researchers included Dr. Jonathan Zipursky, of the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, and Dr. David Juurlink, of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in...

THURSDAY, March 16, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Women with multiple sclerosis who want to undergo fertility treatment can do so without worry, according to a new study. Participants who had MS were no more likely to have a flare-up of the disease after receiving fertility treatments than they were before their treatments, researchers found. The study also found a link between MS medication and lack of an increase in relapses during fertility treatment.“These results are exciting, as MS is common among females of childbearing age, and those with MS are more likely to be diagnosed with infertility but have been less likely to receive fertility treatment than those who do not have MS,” said study co-author Dr. Edith Graham, an assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University...