Child life programs, which help doctors and nurses engage children, from infants to teens, through play, talk and other tools to prepare children for health care and recovery, are growing across the country as research shows these programs are effective in delivering care and containing costs. A new AAP policy statement, “Child Life Services,” published in the January 2021 Pediatrics (available online Dec. 28), updates the AAP’s 2014 policy on child life with new data, research and information about the continued expansion of child life services beyond inpatient hospitals. There are more than 430 child life programs in North America, and while most are located in children’s hospitals, pediatric units, and emergency departments, today they are being added to radiology and imaging departments, dialysis centers, neonatal intensive care units, urgent care centers, psychiatric units, hospice programs, camps for children with chronic illness, rehab units, and outpatient dental and physician offices. Child life programs address the psychosocial concerns of hospitalization and health care, which can include helping parents hold a young child during simple surgeries and even bereavement counseling, and this can impact the need for pain management and long hospital stays. In studies, it was found patients who work with a child life specialist spent less time on narcotics, had slightly shorter hospital stays, decreases in post-traumatic stress, less fear and anxiety, better cooperation, better long-term coping and adjustment to future medical challenges, and caregivers were more satisfied. Child life programs are also keeping up with new technologies like virtual reality and Internet devices to distract patients, reduce pain, and connect kids in hospitals to their schools, families and communities. The new AAP policy also details some new challenges for child life specialists, including increasing numbers of children with special health care needs, which has risen to 18.8% of all children from 12.8% in 2001, and the increasing survival rate of patients with cystic fibrosis, cardiac conditions, spina bifida, cancer, and other chronic illnesses. As children with special health care needs live longer, child life specialists play an important role in helping these young adults transition to adult health care.
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The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 67,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.