Quality of life measures are often included in research on adults but less frequently in paediatric research. Now a quality of life measure for children (C-QOL) has been developed with the participation of mothers and 5–8 year old children in Thailand (British Journal of Health Psychology 2000;5:299–321). The two sets of the C-QOL, children's and carers', gave similar results. Several other health related quality of life measures for children have been developed in recent years; four are referred to in this paper.

Research about the long term effects of pain in the newborn period has been reviewed (Nature Medicine2000;6:971–3). Painful lesions in newborn rats produced changes in peripheral nerve and spinal cord which lasted into adulthood but the relevance to pain in newborn babies is uncertain. Human studies suggest that pain in preterm neonates diminishes later response to pain whereas pain in term neonates increases it.

Treatment with growth hormone increases the final height of children with chronic renal failure. In Heidelberg (New England Journal of Medicine 2000;343:923–30) 38 children with chronic renal failure were treated. Their mean height was 3.1 SD below the mean at the start of treatment and 1.6 SD below the mean at the end of growth. Fifty children with chronic renal failure not given growth hormone had a mean baseline height of 1.5 SD below the mean and a …