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In this week's round-up, we feature news of a new federal approach to understanding poverty, insights about the adolescent mind, new research on child obesity, and more.

School nutrition, a policy shift at TYC, a big national health reform summit, and disheartening news about child abuse dominated the week's news. All are featured in our weekly round-up. We also invite your thoughts on a letter to the editor published this week--our response to an editorial in Monday's Dallas Morning-News . . . .

Poor infant health outcomes, particularly prematurity and low birth-weight, were the topic of this month's meeting of the Texas Infant Health Alliance. Claudia Rodas of Smoke-Free Texas presented information about the negative consequences of maternal exposure to secondhand smoke, with emphasis on recent efforts at local and statewide levels to reduce smoking in public spaces. Morgan Sanders of March of Dimes discussed the prevalence of low birth-weight in Texas and highlighted promising practices for providing expectant mothers with culturally competent, effective prenatal care and support.

Perhaps the most startling and heartening lesson in the forum came in a presentation by Dr. Michael Nix from the Seton Family of Hospitals, concerning a hospital model program to eliminate elective childbirth inductions before 39 weeks. Seton Hospital has found amazing improvements in health outcomes and reduction of need for critical care interventions for infants by simply eliminating this option. He also discussed a program in Ohio where, just by making doctors and hospitals accountable for reporting their number of elective inductions, the number dropped dramatically. In both cases, the solution was easy to administer and cost-effective. It turns out the right thing to do for infants, letting them be born on their own timetable whenever possible, results not only in better health outcomes, but also in incredible savings.

Advocacy in its simplest form is about people speaking their truths to public servants whose job it is to listen. Every day, the mounds of paper we call laws are affected by actions as simple as a one-minute phone call. . . .

[Gov. Rick Perry] said he has the experience to handle a budget shortfall, having already led the state through a similar situation in 2003. "We've already done this," Perry said. "We will cut it, just like we did in 2003. We have the experience."

The 2003 [Children's Health Insurance Program] cuts . . . caused enrollment to drop by more than 215,000 children at the lowest point--more than 42%. As a result of drops in coverage in CHIP and Children's Medicaid, Texas' uninsured rate for children got worse from 2004 to 2006.