While the panel overwhelmingly said the products haven't been proven to work in children 11 and younger, the panel, by a vote of 15 to 7, stopped short of recommending the products not be used at all in older children.

Amy Celento-Stamateris, the patient representative on the panel, said if there were no children's cold and cough products on the market, "there are many people who will administer (adult) products to their children because they work for them and I'd be very concerned."

The advice has left many parents wondering what to do when their kids are suffering from stuffy noses, sniffles or hacking coughs.

"You've got to take it seriously. I want to be cautious," says Alison Schwartz, a 36-year-old mom who lives in Sacramento, Calif. "But on the other hand, it's really hard with a child - especially a kid under 6 - to watch him up all night coughing, with a cold or the flu, and not be able to give him something to give him a little relief, just so he can get some sleep."

Like many parents, Schwartz argues that the over-the-counter cold medicines have always seemed to work for her son, 3-year-old Owen.

The FDA meeting came just a week after several manufacturers pulled sales of nonprescription cold drugs targeted at children under 2. The move followed questions by the FDA and other health groups over a number of reported deaths linked to the remedies in recent years. The deaths occurred when parents gave their children accidental overdoses.

It's troubling news for many parents who now aren't sure how to best care for a child with a cold.

"The rate of overweight babies has increased quite dramatically in 0- to 6-year-olds over a 20-year period," Dr. Matthew Gillman said.

Gillman was part of the study that looked at more than 120,000 children under 6 in Massachusetts.

"What was most surprising about our study is that we found the rate of among youngest children -- our infants -- was rising over this time," he said.

According to the study, overweight babies between birth to 6-months-old increased by 74 percent. Researchers said that translates into babies becoming overweight adults. It's an increase of 60 percent.

Although they did not have fertility problems, the woman and her partner created embryos by IVF. This allowed doctors to remove a cell and test it for the cancer gene, so only unaffected embryos were transferred to her womb.

The couple are the first to take advantage of a relaxation in the rules governing embryo screening.

When the technique was developed in 1989 it was allowed only for genes that always cause disease, such as those for cystic fibrosis. However, it was approved last year for the eye cancer, which affects only 90 per cent of those who inherit a mutated gene.

The pregnancy will increase controversy over the procedure, which the Government’s fertility watchdog authorised on Wednesday for genes that confer an 80 per cent lifetime risk of breast and bowel cancer.

Meltzoff and colleague Rechele Brooks have found that this skill first appears at 10 to 11 months, and is not only an important marker of a baby's emotional and social growth, but can predict later language development. In their study, babies who weren't proficient at gaze-following by their first birthday had much less advanced-language skills at 2. Meltzoff says this helps explain why language occurs more slowly in blind children, as well as children of depressed mothers, who tend not to interact as much with their babies.

The report, by the Environmental Working Group, is based on tests of 10 samples of umbilical-cord blood taken by the American Red Cross. They found an average of 287 contaminants in the blood, including mercury, fire retardants, pesticides and the Teflon chemical PFOA.

"These 10 newborn babies . . . were born polluted," said Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.), who spoke at a news conference about the findings yesterday.

"If ever we had proof that our nation's pollution laws aren't working, it's reading the list of industrial chemicals in the bodies of babies who have not yet lived outside the womb," Slaughter said.

It is the blood supply that bathed and nourished every cell of the baby while her organs and systems formed. It satisfied her hunger. The cord blood is an echo of the polluted lake within. It is tangible evidence that, after the cord is cut, the industrial chemicals that the mother was exposed to are now coursing through her baby's veins as the little one first greets the world.