By Andrea Kane
CNNhealth.com Producer

Last winter, I was told that my young daughter had walking pneumonia. Walking pneumonia? My mind, fueled by alarm, raced: What is walking pneumonia? (A very mild inflammation of the lungs.) Is it serious? (While it can become serious, it is not usually a problem and often heals on its own.) Is she going to be alright? (Of course.) She had very mild symptoms – a cough, a fever – and she wasn’t all that uncomfortable. Her pediatrician said some people let the walking pneumonia resolve itself (that’s how mild it is!), but that I might want to opt for a course of antibiotics. Not wanting to risk complications, and wanting to ease her symptoms sooner rather than later, I quickly agreed (antibiotic-opposed husband be darned). Thanks to access to medical care, my daughter was well within a couple of days; she and I quickly put the episode behind us.

The story ends differently for the more than 2 million children who die of pneumonia – walking pneumonia’s much more deadly cousin - every year. Save the Children, an international humanitarian organization, reports that pneumonia (which can be cause by bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites) kills more children under 5 worldwide than measles, malaria and AIDS combined. Pneumonia accounts for 20 percent of all deaths in this - the youngest and most vulnerable – age group. That’s one child dead from pneumonia every 15 seconds. The vast majority of deaths – 98 percent – occur in South Asia and sub-Sahara Africa.

A great many of these deaths could be prevented with existing inexpensive vaccines or treated with inexpensive antibiotics. But the families of children in the 68 countries most affected by pneumonia either don’t know about available vaccines and antibiotics, don’t have access to them or can’t afford them. And that’s a tragedy.

But the flip side of tragedy is hope. Global health authorities, including WHO and UNICEF, are recognizing November 2 as the first-annual World Pneumonia Day and have outlined a six-year action plan to take the first steps in beating back this beast. The GAPP plan, as it is called, includes education, protection, prevention and treatment efforts, targeting both governments and individuals.

Dr. Bill Frist (the former U.S. Senate Majority Leader and a trustee of Save the Children) and Dr. Richard Sezibera (Rwanda’s Minister of Health) write in this week’s edition of The Lancet, “… lives continue to be lost from this preventable and treatable disease, and, until recently, there was little outcry.”

I for one am glad there is new attention being brought to bear on an old adversary. No parent should have to mourn the death of a child from a preventable and treatable illness.

Editor's Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.

As a  feature of CNNhealth.com, our team of expert doctors will answer readers' questions. Here's a question for Dr. Gupta.

From Shannon:

"I have a 4-month-old infant and I recently had myself and my 6-year-old son vaccinated for H1N1. My question is, will my infant also gain my immunity to H1N1 through my breast milk? I hope so." 

Answer:

This is a great question and a huge concern for many parents whose children are less than 6 months old and therefore too young to get the H1N1 vaccine. Unfortunately, there is no clear answer to your question, Shannon, so the best we can do is spell out what we do know.

We know that any time you breastfeed your 4-month-old, you pass on potent antibodies (proteins that your immune system produces to fend off disease in the body) that protect him or her against a whole range of infections.

We also know a bit about other vaccines and breast milk, for example, the pneumococcal vaccine that protects against things like pneumonia and meningitis. According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, mothers who received that vaccine produced antibodies that were detectable in their breast milk, and passed them on to their babies. What is not as clear is whether those antibodies actually conferred immunity to their newborns.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance about breast milk and the flu vaccine is a tinge more hopeful, albeit far from conclusive: "By breastfeeding, mothers can pass on to the infant the antibodies that their bodies make in response to the flu shots, which can reduce the infant's chances of getting sick with the flu."

While experts wrestle with this question, you have already taken a positive step – and significantly reduced your baby’s chances of getting the H1N1 virus – by getting yourself vaccinated. The next step is to create a "cocoon of protection" around your baby by making sure that other caregivers in the family also get vaccinated.

Editor's Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.

By Miriam Falco
CNN Medical Managing Editor

For all the (legitimate) talk about the new H1N1 influenza virus, it's worth a reminder that this new flu strain is not all we have to worry about as fall turns into winter (except for Colorado, which evidently has winter now).

There's also something called "RSV." As a medical reporter, I've come across this term a few times. As a new mom of a 6-month-old, I've paid a little more attention and did some research. RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, can cause upper- and lower-respiratory infections.
The symptoms include runny nose, dry cough, low-grade fever, sore throat, mild headache and general discomfort. But in severe cases, it can cause bronchiolitis (infection of the tiny airways in the lungs) and pneumonia. According to the Mayo Clinic, severe symptoms include "high fever, severe cough, wheezing - a high-pitched noise that's usually heard on breathing out (exhaling), difficulty breathing, and bluish color of the skin due to lack of oxygen. "

RSV is so common that virtually every child will be infected before his or her second birthday. Fortunately, only a small percentage of infants develop severe illness. Luckily for my little guy, he's apparently no longer in the highest risk group, since most children hospitalized for RSV infection are younger than 6 months of age, according to the CDC. However, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in February suggests that among children 5 and younger, RSV infection is responsible for approximately 1of every 334 hospitalizations, 1 of every 38 visits to an emergency department, and 1 of every 13 visits to a primary care office each year in the United States.

Older people and adults with underlying illness can also be affected, but young children are at highest risk. One way to limit the risk to your child is to require folks to wash their hands before picking up your baby. Kissing can also spread RSV.

On August 30, the CDC stopped counting only H1N1 hospitalizations and deaths and started counting all hospitalizations for H1N1 and pneumonia; the new numbers will probably include cases of RSV too.

Consider this your reminder that in addition to H1N1 or swine flu, there are other viruses that lurk around. So if you or your children or parents get sick, it's not automatically always swine flu.

Have you had an experience with RSV that you can share with others?

By Leslie Wade
Producer CNN Medical News

I had the pleasure of meeting pop star Nick Jonas when he and his band were touring in Atlanta, Georgia, in late August. I know he's had media training and been in front of cameras for years, but I was impressed with his composure as he told me about his journey with a disease that affects one in 300 teens.

Nick Jonas talks about living with diabetes.

Four years ago Nick, the youngest member of the Jonas Brothers band, spent three days in the hospital. He'd lost 15 pounds in the previous three weeks and he and his family knew something was terribly wrong. Nick had developed type 1 diabetes - his body was no longer producing insulin, a hormone needed to convert sugar into energy for our bodies.

Nick made a promise to himself that day. "My commitment to myself, when I was on my way to the hospital, was that I would not let this slow me down. And I didn't," said Nick.

Nick and his family jumped into action, learning all about diabetes and how to treat the disease. "I was devastated. I didn't know anything about diabetes, had no knowledge,” said Nick's mother, Denise Jonas. “I knew he was very ill just by looking at him."

"We had to take steps to have everyone in our family and my brother, who toured with the boys on a regular basis, trained on how to care for Nick. How to monitor him, how to administer his insulin shots, how to test his blood, how to give him a glucose shot if for some reason he passed out and went into a diabetic coma. It's a lot of work," said Denise.

After leaving the hospital, Nick was determined to write a song about his experience. But the piece didn't come together for another 2½ years. "I was having one of those days where it [the blood sugar] was out of range, things were not where I wanted them to be with my diabetes. I sat down at the piano and wrote the song and it came out in 15 minutes," explained Nick.

His song "A Little Bit Longer" seems to touch a chord in teens with diabetes, some of whom feel stigmatized and ashamed to have the disease. "He's had a great voice in helping encourage children and teenagers with type 1… to let other people know they have it,” said Denise Jonas. “I didn't realize how much of the population was ashamed."

Nick's doctor, pediatric endocrinologist Francine Kaufman of Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, California, also knows about the concerns of teens. "The real driving force for a teen is to be just like every other teen, so having anything different - and particularly a chronic illness - sets you apart and many, many of these teenagers feel it, " explained Dr. Kaufman.

Nick is trying to raise awareness and money for diabetes through the band's Change for the Children Foundation. (He's also a paid spokesperson for Bayer, which makes a device to monitor blood glucose levels.)

Nick checks his blood sugar 10 to 12 times a day and his doctor says he takes his disease seriously. "Nick does what somebody with diabetes needs to do: wears an insulin pump, worries about how much insulin he's taking, monitors his blood sugar, stays healthy and gets exercise," says Dr. Kaufman.

But if the demands of his schedule mean a skipped meal before show time his brothers sometimes have to improvise. "I just give them a look and tell them to cover for me while I go off stage and take care of some stuff," says Nick. Which usually means grabbing a little apple juice, orange juice or a bit of food to normalize his blood sugar before heading back out on stage. "All of the crew on the tour are aware that I'm diabetic and they all know how to react in case of an emergency or a situation where I may need assistance," says Nick.

And fortunately those times are rare - a testament to his promise to himself four years ago: Nick, now 17, has not let diabetes keep him from sharing his craft and living his dream. "I'm just thankful to be able to be out here doing what I love with diabetes... and if there is something that I can do personally to inspire and encourage somebody that means the world to me, " says Nick.

Question: Do you or anyone you know struggle with telling others about diabetes? Tell us your story.

Editor's Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.

By Caleb Hellerman
CNN Medical Senior Producer

We're still waiting on federal guidelines for how day care centers and preschools should handle the H1N1 flu virus. They were promised last week, but the date has slipped amid behind-the-scenes debate over how far the guidance should go: Should they match the advice for K-12 schools, which say that students who are out sick can come back after just 24 hours without a fever? Or should the day care guidance be more restrictive, since young kids are more prone to complications – and tend to transmit more virus?

In the meantime, I’m watching the debate play out in miniature at the pre-school of my 3-year-old daughter and 15-month-old son. As it happens, my wife helps research flu guidance for the CDC, as do two other parents at the preschool. They helped write a preparedness plan for the school, which goes well beyond the CDC's guidance for K-12 schools – and is stronger than the basic advice the federal government is currently considering for daycares.

My wife and her colleagues recommended that students who are sick with respiratory symptoms stay away for at least seven days. One of them, a senior CDC flu scientist, told me that children with H1N1 typically shed virus – i.e., it's in their mucous and other secretions – for five to 10 days. She said that fits with published research on other flu strains, showing that young children often shed virus for seven days or even longer.

But the head of the school is pushing back. She’s OK with a seven-day restriction for toddlers, but wants it at five days for 3- to 6-year olds, and “24-hours fever-free” – the CDC’s K-12 guideline – for elementary-school-age students. More than that would be too hard on parents, she says. My wife and her friends want to include a warning that the rules are not meant to stop the spread of flu.

In the midst of all this, I talked with Dr. D.A. Henderson of the Center for Biosecurity, who oversaw the CDC's response to the global flu pandemic of 1957. He thinks the guidance to date has been too intrusive – that keeping sick students home longer than usual won't stop the spread of H1N1 and would lead to serious disruptions – including a shortage of health care workers staying home with their kids.

No easy answers, and a lot of disagreement, even among medical professionals. Just one more example: Yesterday, Dr. Sanjay Gupta visited a doctor at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, who reminded us that for most people, even young children, H1N1 is not likely to cause more than passing symptoms. Dr. Jim Fortenberry said that parents should not bring their kids to the ER unless they seem dehydrated, are younger than 12 weeks, have fever for three days or have a fever that returns after being gone for 12-24 hours. That's all well and good, but he didn’t mention CDC guidance – which says that people in high-risk groups (including children younger than 5, as well as pregnant women and people with medical conditions such as asthma) – who have flu-like symptoms (fever higher than 100 PLUS a cough or sore throat) – should take antiviral medication right away, as a precaution. If you’ve got a child with those symptoms, you don’t have to go to the ER, but do call your doctor right away.

The head of my preschool wants to finalize and send out guidelines by tomorrow. As of now, she and the parents on the health committee have to make their decision without official CDC guidance.

Are you a parent? Have you received guidance from your child's day care on what to do if your child becomes ill?

Editor's Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.

By Miriam Falco
CNN Medical News Managing Editor

Expectant parents have a lot to think about as the birth of their child approaches. Parenting classes can provide tips on a variety of topics including breathing techniques to help get through labor, breastfeeding and how to place your baby in the bassinet or crib to avoid sudden infant death syndrome. SIDS is the leading cause of death among babies age 1 month to 1 year. According to the National Institutes of Health, most of these unexplained deaths occur between the ages of 2 and 4 months.

The exact cause is not known, but experts believe that the how a baby sleeps can play a big role in preventing a baby from dying. Having the baby sleep on his or her back is the No. 1 recommendation. Keeping the baby's bed free of anything that might suffocate him or her is also very important, which is why the American Academy of Pediatrics has the following guideline:

"Keep soft objects and loose bedding out of the crib: Soft objects such as pillows, quilts, comforters, sheepskins, stuffed toys, and other soft objects should be kept out of an infant's sleeping environment." The group also says that if bumper pads are used, they should be “thin, firm, well secured, and not pillow-like.” Further, the academy says, “loose bedding such as blankets and sheets may be hazardous."

Now a new study finds that would-be parents are getting a mixed message, at least from some ads and photos in popular magazines. According to this study, researchers looked at nearly 400 pictures in 28 popular magazines. Among photos that were used in advertising and articles, researchers found only 36 pictures depicting children in a safe sleeping position.

Most of the images pictured infant sleep environments that did not reflect AAP guidelines to prevent SIDS.

It reminded me of some of the images I saw surfing the Web as I was looking to outfit my baby’s nursery and put things on my registry for my shower.

I saw bedding sets with thick bumpers and blankets, which was confusing to me because I thought the only thing that's supposed to be in my baby's bed is the firm mattress, a sheet and him. My confusion seems to mirror what the researchers of this new study found. They found that "messages in the media are inconsistent with health care messages, create confusion and misinformation...and may lead inadvertently to unsafe practices."

Have you seen images of babies wrapped in blankets and/or placed in super-soft bedding? Would images like this influence how you put your baby to sleep?

Editor's Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.

By Andrea Kane
CNNhealth.com Producer

Pssst: Come here… A bit closer. I have a confession to make: One of my daughters has L-I-C-E. And it is driving me crazy, because it just will not go away, no matter how much I cut, comb and nitpick her hair. And I’ve been doing a lot of nitpicking lately – at times, I feel like a mama chimp grooming her child (minus popping the “prize” into my mouth). My daughter gets cranky having to sit there for an hour (especially when I pull an individual hair strand to remove an egg - aka: nit - that is cemented on) and I get cranky, too.

According to the CDC, there are an estimated 6 million to 12 million head lice infestations each year in the U.S. among children 3 to 11 years old. Lice are usually transmitted through direct head-to-head contact. Less commonly, they can be passed on via a hat, comb, pillow or other personal object (contrary to our worst fears, lice don’t dive-bomb from one person’s head to another’s). Cleanliness and socioeconomic status have little to do with getting head lice, although race may have an impact; African-Americans are less likely to get them.

Aside from being icky and itchy, head lice are not known to transmit disease (although hard scratching can cause a secondary infection). That said, you don’t want them hanging around.

Our “ordeal” started in mid-May when I stopped by the school nurse’s office for her to have a look-see because her two best friends had it (that, and she was scratching an awful lot). “You see right there - those are nits,” she said, pointing to what looked like a bitty grain of salt on the hair shaft.

The nurse instructed me to shampoo my daughter’s with an over-the-counter pediculicide (lice-killing) shampoo, then comb out all the nits because OTC shampoos do not kill all the eggs (only the heavy-duty, super-toxic, prescription shampoo does). The third step (after shampooing and nitpicking) is to delouse personal objects.

At the drug store, the choices were many: popular OTC shampoos (with either pyrethrins – derived from chrysanthemums - or their synthetic cousin permethrin), homeopathic treatments (that promise to kill lice without harsh chemicals), gels to help with the nitpicking– even an electric comb that electrocutes the lice.

I ended up buying the store brand, partially because it offered the most shampoo at the cheapest price (the shampoos are expensive and we are - except for my husband - a household of long, curly-haired females, so we needed quantity, especially since we didn’t want to skimp). I slathered it on my daughter’s hair, waited 10 minutes, then rinsed and, with a fine-toothed comb, I combed… and combed… and combed, trying to get all of the nits out. Have I mentioned that she has long curly hair? A lot of it? A thick underbrush of it? Well, it took a long time to through it all. Except that I didn’t get it all: We both grew impatient before I was done.

Then, I threw all of her bedding into the wash, boiled all the combs and hairclips, and quarantined her stuffed animals and brushes. And for good measure, my husband and I shampooed our hair and washed our linens (as luck would have it, there had been a thunderstorm the night before and we played musical beds). I also checked her sister’s hair: Nothing! Mom 1, lice 1.

The next day, the lice were gone. And for a few glorious days, I thought we had dodged a bullet.

With most of the OTC shampoos, you have to retreat between seven and 10 days after the initial treatment, when the eggs that the shampoo failed to kill the first time finally hatch and repopulate the hair - but before the nymphs can grow into adults capable of reproducing. The life cycle of lice is about three weeks.

But before we could get halfway to retreatment time, they were back. So I cut off six inches of my daughter’s hair and we tried another brand of OTC shampoo; this one did not work at all (lice can become resistant to a particular pediculicide). So I went back to the first shampoo and I bought the electric comb (which was pretty cool and did electrocute some lice, but apparently not all). When that failed, I tried the homeopathic shampoo that works by dehydrating the lice and their eggs (this one you have to leave on for at least an hour, instead of 10 minutes). At the time of each treatment, we washed linens, boiled hair accessories all over again. The stuffed animals never made it out of quarantine.

But still the lice returned.

After about a month, at wits end, I called my pediatrician’s office. The nurse on call told me I could try the prescription shampoo (did I detect hesitation in her voice or was that me projecting?) or I could try one more “weird” treatment. Since I wasn’t particularly excited about the prospect of using poison so close to my child’s growing brain, I chose the latter. She recommended “Dippity-do.” Yup: The pink or green hair gel popular in the ’50s and ’60s. (It now comes in other colors too.)

But, she warned, I’d have to wrap my daughter’s hair in plastic wrap and a shower cap and leave it on for 12 hours. Similar to other home remedies - like mayonnaise and olive oil - the idea is to smother the lice in a thick coat of glop. The advantage of Dippity-do over the oily foodstuff is that it is much easier to wash out of hair (and doesn’t stink like unrefrigerated mayonnaise).

If this doesn’t work, I’ll be tempted to pull out the big guns: No, not the prescription shampoo but the electric razor – and give my daughter a buzz cut.

Have you or a family member had lice? How did you finally defeat it? Did using harsh chemicals on a small child worry you?

Editor's Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.

By Jennifer Pifer-Bixler
CNN Senior Medical Producer

Attention all mommies and daddies-to-be. Apparently there is a test you can now buy at the drug store that will predict the gender of your baby. Since Sanjay reported on the test Tuesday it's been a hot topic around the newsroom. Sanjay's producer even called and asked whether I wanted to take the test.

You see, I am having a baby in October. We haven't found out the gender. At least not yet.

At first, I was all for finding out if little TBD (that's what I call the baby) was a girl or a boy. The Type A producer in me wants to plan, plan, plan. How should we decorate the nursery? Should we save all the princess costumes and Hannah Montana gear? (Before you get the wrong idea, I should mention we already have a 5-year-old daughter.) Finally – and most importantly – as my belly expands and I begin to feel TBD flutter around, I want to give the baby a name, an identity. It would help me bond with TBD.

But now, I am having second thoughts. One of my friends is due in June and she doesn't want to find out her baby's gender before it’s born. A colleague who had her son a few months ago did the same thing. One of my editors feels so strongly about this that she begged me to reconsider. Twice. "It's one of the few surprises left in life!" she says with great passion.

Maybe it is the pregnancy hormones, but now I feel conflicted. I even put the question to my Facebook friends. Should I find out or should I wait? The next ultrasound is right around the corner. What do you think?

Editor's Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.

By Shahreen Abedin
CNN Medical Senior Producer

Leading up to Mother’s Day this year, I suspected my husband was planning something, but I had no idea it would be by far, one of the biggest parenting challenges I would face to date.

On Tuesday the weekend before, Daddy came home and announced he and I were going on a special night on the town on Friday, complete with fancy dinner, Star Trek movie (I don’t mind admitting I’m a fan), and … an overnight hotel stay in the city, sans the munchkin.

It was to be our first time leaving him alone the entire night, and while I appreciated the thoughtfulness of my hubby’s planning, I was immediately gripped by the anxiety of letting go. We had just gotten the hang of leaving our 18-month old son with a sitter on weekend nights, but never for the whole night. I told my husband that I needed a couple of days to think about it.

The plan was that our nanny, whom we all completely love and trust, would take the little man to her home in the afternoon, and he’d stay there overnight. On paper, it was a great arrangement. She has a dog which I knew he’d love, an amazing park in her neighborhood, and although she’s not family, she loves him to pieces and we had no doubt in our minds that he would be well-cared for and have a fun time.

However, my biggest fear had not yet been addressed: He’s never been to his nanny’s house before, and he was going to wake up in a room where he’s never awoken and wonder if his parents have given him up for good. He’s not really talking yet – just a smattering of words and phrases – so how will they know if he’s anxious or scared out of his mind and just can’t say so?

I knew that sooner or later, this day would come. We would need to let the baby stay elsewhere overnight so we could have some much-needed parental down-time. Focus on our relationship as husband and wife, and put the mommy-daddy show on the backburner. I went to my trusty “What to Expect the Toddler Years” book, and felt better when I read that waiting till he was older would not necessarily guarantee it’d be easier (and in fact could be worse), and that toddlers can only learn to be ok with separation when they experience it firsthand. Cognitively, I knew that it would ultimately be good for him because the time away would be good for me, and that usually it’s the parent who has more of a problem with separation than the child.

I knew all this, and I knew that we had even done all the right things leading up to this point: we started out only leaving him at home for a short while with a sitter, then we’d be gone for longer periods at home, and now we can even take him over to someone else’s house for an evening and he has still been just fine, no meltdowns. Timing-wise, he wasn’t going through any dramatic processes like potty-training or weaning from the bottle, so we were good on that front too.

Armed with all this knowledge, I finally agreed to the arrangement. I was proud of myself for getting to this point mentally and emotionally, and I was finally starting to get really excited about the fun night out with my man, just like old times before this life of sleep deprivation, sticky hands, and crayon on the carpet.

As my son waved happily at me, blowing his sweet little good-bye kisses my way, I did cry, as hard as I tried to hold it. When the door shut, I totally bawled for a good two minutes. These were tears partly from the of fear I felt welling up again inside me, but also tears of sadness from knowing that parenting - although joy-filled for most of the ride - is also a life-long process of grieving over letting go of your child, step by step.

Our toddler ended up having a great time, by the way. And so did we, I’m proud to say. Now we’re preparing to take longer trips away from him. So I’m looking for some advice on what’s helped you get through this whole ‘letting them go overnight’ thing – any tricks that helped ease the process, any traditions that have made the experience fun and relatively painless for you and your child? I need all the help – and reassurance! – I can get.

Editor's Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.

By Val Willingham
CNN Medical Producer

A year and a half ago, I wrote a blog about my daughter when she chose to spend Thanksgiving with a new boyfriend instead of her own family. To say the least, I was pretty upset. It was the first holiday she had been away from home and I went on and on about her decision and how - I felt - her brain just wasn't making the right choices.  I received an enormous  response to that blog– many of the responses came from college students who said I needed to "get a life." Other people, mostly parents, felt I needed to let her go.

A few weeks ago, my wonderful daughter graduated from college. It was a proud moment. Not only for her, but for her father and me. We had journeyed with her as she navigated her collegiate life for four years. It was up and down: changes in courses, majors, roommates and boyfriends. But she made it through, and with very few scars.

When she left home four years ago to attend Syracuse University, I thought it would be a difficult time for me because of separation anxiety and empty nest syndrome. But knowing she was in a campus environment made it easier. Certainly if there were problems, her roommates would call. If I couldn't find her, I could always dial her boyfriend or the dorm's resident assistant. She was never really alone.

But now that she's graduated, that's going to change. Because she is an independent soul and has no intentions of staying close to home, she'll be moving to a different city, where she'll set up a new life, with new friends, and new experiences. And that's freakin' me out.

According to Dr. Charles Raison, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine and CNNhealth.com’s mental health expert, the end of college signifies the end of my daughter's "childhood". And because she's my only child, letting go is even more difficult. But if I want to have a healthy relationship with her, letting her live her own life - with little intervention - is necessary.

But it is going to be tough.

No longer will I be able to call her just to check up on her. No more prying, inquiring about grades, friends, activities, etc. Sure, I can ask how she is, but if you think kids are closed-mouth in high school and college, just wait until they strike out on their own. I had a friend whose married daughter called her one day and told her that after five years of bliss she and her husband, my friend's son-in-law, had gotten a divorce. No note, no phone call to mom, until after the ink on the divorce papers was dry and ex-hubby was sent packing. What a shocker for my friend.

Psychologists will also tell you, it's all about control. And I am losing it. Even though she's head strong, our daughter has always listened to us. She may not have done what we asked all the time, but she listened; mostly out of love and respect for her parents. But we also held the purse strings: we paid for her phone, her car insurance, her tuition. Now, as a college grad - hopefully an employed grad - my husband and I will no longer have the financial upper hand. We will now be on a level playing field with her and that's going to take some getting use to. Now if she wants to fly to Paris for the weekend with a new beau, I can't put my foot down. That's her call, not mine - and it's driving me crazy.

Many family counselors point out, no matter how wonderful kids turn out, they never live up to their parents’ expectations. In college you hope they'll make the correct decisions and get it right. My child did, but not the way I thought she would. Did she chose the career path I thought she'd take? No. Did she end up with the boy I liked best? Ah, hardly. Is she pursuing the dreams I dreamed for her? Yes and no.

Child psychologists will say there comes a time when parents need to let go of their dreams for their children and live with the decisions their children make for themselves. That's the biggest part of letting go. And that's not so easy, either. It takes time. Parents can't look back and think “what if…” or “how come...” They need to embrace their children's accomplishments, their children's dreams, and move forward with them, all the while giving them love and support as they venture into a new phase of their lives. Once parents do this, they acknowledge their offspring as adults, not just as their sons or daughters. That's when parents can say they have finally let go.

So congratulations to my lovely daughter and all the young adults who have graduated this year! Here's to their happiness. May they be true to themselves and always have the support of a loving family.

Do you have a child who is graduating from college or high school? Are they going out on their own, joining the service, getting married? How are you adjusting to the idea? We'd like to hear from you.

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