From Editor’s desk

On behalf of the Editorial Team, wish you all Happy New Year 2024!!

Wadia Journal continues its journey in the new year with enthusiasm and commitment towards excellence in quality of articles published. In the current issue, we have three original articles, one review, one case series, three case reports, three clinical images, and one brief communication. We do hope that these articles are academically stimulating to the readers.

Palliative care in neonatal services is not well organized in many units across the world. The need to improve the quality of end-of-life care, instituting pain relief, empowering parents in decision-making, and family support through bereavement are often less addressed in intensive care settings. The interesting web-based survey by Srijan et al.^[1] in this issue brings forth the perspectives of facilitators and barriers to neonatal palliative care. Palliative care education and training needs to be imparted to all healthcare personnel.

Childhood tuberculosis (TB) is a staggering problem in India. Shah et al.^[2] in their article Osteoarticular tuberculosis in infants: A diagnostic and management challenge describe osteoarticular TB in infants, an alarming aspect of TB. This brings forth the changing epidemiology and severity of TB in children and infants. The case report by Mansi Manwar et al.^[3] further enlightens the need to look for underlying genetic susceptibility to atypical, extrapulmonary, and disseminated TB.

In India, more than 500,000 babies are born with birth defects and spina bifida is one of the common defects accounting for 2–3 cases/1000 live births. The excellent review article Fetal Surgery for Spina Bifida-An Upcoming Standard of Care by Sheena et al.^[4] highlights the new management perspective.

Although Covid-19 infection was seen less in children during the pandemic, the long-term health consequences in terms of nutrition, immunization, and behavioral issues are being noticed now. Dr. Ayushi Vora^[5] writes about a decrease in the number of underweight/malnutrition in children in the post pandemic period. They attribute it to improved health during lockdown with a decrease in gastrointestinal and/or respiratory illnesses as well as availability of more home-made food provided under supervision.

We have endeavored to bring in interesting, relevant, and good-quality articles. We are happy that this journal is scaling up further in readership and citations.

We look forward to your comments and suggestions and welcome submission of your research work to the forthcoming issues of our journal.

On behalf of the Editorial Team, we would like to thank our colleagues, staff members, editorial board, advisors, reviewers, authors, and reader groups for the support received.

Happy reading!!