Bubble Wrap PLUS – September 2026

Can’t get enough of Bubble Wrap? The Bubble Wrap Plus is a monthly paediatric Journal Club reading list from Professor Jaan Toelen (University Hospitals Leuven) and Dr Anke Raaijmakers (Sydney Children’s Hospital). 

This comprehensive list is developed from 34 journals, including major and subspecialty paediatric journals. We suggest this list can help you discover relevant or interesting articles for your local journal club or allow you to keep a finger on the pulse of paediatric research.

We always like to highlight some studies that sparked our interest:

Prenatal depression and fetal brain connectivity

Design: Cross – sectional fetal fMRI study of 123 pregnancies.

Finding: Greater maternal depressive symptoms were associated with increased fetal amygdala – cerebellar functional connectivity.

Take home: Maternal mental health may be linked to fetal emotional network development before birth.

Caveat: This is a small observational imaging study. Altered connectivity is not necessarily harmful, and later clinical outcomes were not measured.

Screen use and language development

Design: Three – year prospective Norwegian cohort of 747 children (aged 5 -7 yrs).

Finding: Most measures of children’s screen use were not associated with language growth. However, each additional hour of parental smartphone use was associated with slightly slower receptive-vocabulary growth.

Take home: The family’s pattern of technology use may matter more than children’s screen time alone.

Caveat: Screen exposure was reported by parents, and residual confounding may explain some associations.

Screen time and sleep in preschool children

Design: Cross-sectional study of 604 children aged 4 – 5 years.

Finding: Longer daily screen exposure was associated with greater sleep disturbance, daytime sleepiness, and sleep-wake transition problems. Bedtime media use was associated with difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep.

Take home: Asking about both total and bedtime screen use is reasonable when assessing paediatric sleep problems.

Caveat: The cross-sectional, caregiver-reported data cannot establish whether screens caused poor sleep or whether children with poor sleep were given more screen time.

Dexamethasone eye drops for retinopathy of prematurity

Design: Double-masked randomised trial of 100 preterm infants with severe, pre-threshold ROP.

Finding: Treatment-requiring ROP occurred in 20% with dexamethasone versus 38% with placebo, but the difference was not statistically significant (adjusted OR 0.44; 95% CI 0.17-1.12; P=.08). No important safety differences were detected.

Take-home: Topical dexamethasone remains unproven; the observed absolute risk reduction of 18 percentage points requires confirmation in a larger trial.

Caveat: A non – significant primary result should not be presented as evidence of efficacy.

Symptoms of respiratory infections in young children

Design: Longitudinal US birth cohort recording 15,898 respiratory illnesses in 1,223 children.

Finding: Infants had greater odds of respiratory distress with influenza A, RSV, metapneumovirus, and SARS-CoV-2. Asymptomatic infection was common and gastrointestinal symptoms frequently accompanied RSV and influenza.

Take home: Age strongly modifies illness severity, while symptoms alone may not reliably identify the pathogen.

Caveat: This was a descriptive, single-region cohort of otherwise healthy children.

Azithromycin for acute preschool wheeze

Design: Multicentre randomised placebo-controlled trial of 840 children aged 18–59 months presenting with moderate-to-severe wheeze.

Finding: Azithromycin did not improve wheezing symptoms or secondary clinical outcomes, even in children carrying potentially pathogenic nasopharyngeal bacteria.

Take-home: Do not routinely prescribe azithromycin for acute preschool wheeze without a clear additional indication.

Caveat: Nasopharyngeal bacterial detection may represent colonisation rather than causative infection.

You will find our list is broken down into four sections:

If we have missed out on something useful or you think other articles are absolutely worth sharing, please add them in the comments!