Pediatricians and the clinicians who care for children writing on KevinMD about child health: childhood illness, development, vaccines and the parents who refuse them, breastfeeding and the pressure around it, childhood obesity, prevention, and the realities of caring for young patients and their families. Most contributors are pediatricians. For a maintained record of what pediatricians have said about children's health since 2004, from fever and sleep through obesity, abuse, teenagers, and Medicaid, see Children's health: what pediatricians say, in their own words. For what physicians have said about vaccines and vaccine hesitancy, from the autism claim through measles, exemptions, and federal policy, see Vaccines: what physicians say, in their own words. For what child psychiatrists and pediatricians have said about children's and teens' mental health, see Mental health: what psychiatrists and physicians say, in their own words. For what pediatricians have said about breastfeeding and postpartum care, see Women's health: what physicians say, in their own words.
In my early days as a pediatrician, I felt a little bit at a loss when parents asked specific parenting questions. Of course, I could offer them advice and refer resources, but it was as a physician unaware of the nuances of parenting.
For example:
The tactile temperature
A thermometer gives one measurement, not a range. When parents respond, “Yes, at least 102-degrees,” I was initially puzzled. The clarification, “I could feel it. …
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How becoming a parent changed me as a pediatrician
Mental illness might be smarter than us. It seems to have figured out how to get around asking for our permission and instead to beg for forgiveness once damage to function and health already has been done.
That’s the only way to explain the following: it takes not five weeks or three months but 11 years for someone who exhibits signs of mental illness to first seek help for that disorder. That is, if they …
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No more excuses for mental health: Technology offers new hope for intervening early
Speeding through town, I had just dropped off a kid at football practice. I raced back to the church to drop off another kid, then drove quickly to a soccer practice for a third. At about 7:00, I start to lose my cool. I’m used to my husband being late. But tonight I was frustrated. I sat in the parking lot with two babies, strapped in their seatbelts, fidgeting and …
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My spouse is your doctor. And there’s no one else I’d rather share him with.
I met David on the internet. It was to become on of the closest, most intense relationships of my life. For you see, a few months before he crossed my path his daughter finished the same protocol for the same type of brain tumor that my daughter just had started. They had successfully traversed the waters that to me were completely unknown — and frankly terrifying. On the pediatric brain tumor listserv, …
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Everyone needs someone to be a safe harbor
Whether to circumcise a newborn male child is not the simple, binary “yes/no” question it appears to be. Rather, the choice is affected by an astonishing array of issues: religion, culture, health and hygiene, sexually transmitted infections, expense, pain and medical recommendations. Some cite ethical concerns regarding usurpation of a child’s free choice. Others claim an equivalency between neonatal male circumcision and the practice of female genital mutilation.
As a practicing …
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An emergency physician makes the case for circumcision
We had no choice in becoming the “crazy” family that left a hospital against medical advice. Our four-day-old daughter was completely helpless, her condition deteriorating and the staff was ignoring our concerns. I carefully turned off the blue lights, removed her from the isolette, placed her in a car seat and eloped from the pediatrics unit.
As a hospitalist, I constantly obsess over medical errors. The majority are more subtle than …
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How I saved my daughter from a medical error
A recent article and accompanying commentary in the journal Pediatrics describe what we currently know about children who have died from influenza over the past decade or more. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has collected information about this since the 2003-2004 influenza season. In that first report, there were 153 deaths. Since then there have been at least 100 influenza deaths annually among children. Several characteristics have not changed. …
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Influenza in children: reducing the death rate
As he sat in the driver’s seat and started to whistle that dreaded Willie Nelson song, my heart started racing, and my world started to spin. While most kids may be annoyed hearing their father whistling that toneless noise, terror started seeping into my very bones. I knew what that sound meant and it was no Pavlovian response, but rather a foretelling of the horror coming. Simply put, it meant …
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What happens to the kids of child abuse when they grow up?
My son is 16 months old, and I’ve never told his pediatrician I’m a doctor.
More than a decade after becoming an MD, I still struggle with the “reveal” of my identity as a physician when a family member or I am a patient. On one hand, I want the treating doctor to know my background to allow for a more sophisticated (but not too sophisticated!) conversation. On the other hand, …
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How do you tell your child’s doctor that you’re a physician?
There is so much out there about vaccines — endless opinions and recommendations from doctors, experts, friends, family, celebrities, politicians — it can be challenging to identify who to trust and what to believe. Every parent’s only goal is to protect his or her child as best as they can. One of the most frequently asked questions is: “There are so many more vaccines than when I was a kid, …
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The data is in: Vaccines don’t “overload” children’s immune systems
Our local media, in an effort to raise awareness and increase vaccination rates, devoted a lot of time to the unusually harsh flu outbreak this winter. While well intended, the stories about children getting morbidly ill inadvertently led to a flood of families coming to our emergency room and urgent care centers fearful that their child would be next to get very ill or die.
On one of my recent Friday …
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How squeaky brakes reminded this doctor of the joys of primary care
Suffering from headaches? Drink more water.
Feeling tired? Drink more water.
Fighting the flu? Drink more water.
Trying to lose weight? Drink more water.
As pediatricians, we advise our patients to “drink more water” all the time — a recommendation that sounds so simple, yet so often under-recognized. In fact, more than half of American children do not drink enough water and one-fourth do not drink any water on a …
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Tap water: an undervalued and overlooked key to health
The National School Walkout is planned for March 14, 2018 at 10 a.m. and will last 17 minutes in honor of the 17 students and staff members killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Valentine’s Day. The heart of the nation has seemed to shift overnight regarding the debate on guns, but this change has been almost two decades in the making. United and Delta Airlines …
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This pediatrician supports the National School Walkout. Here’s why you should, too.
When preparations are underway for vaccinations to take place, my household becomes a war zone.
The thought of an impending vaccine, to my boys, resembles the actual possibility of a weapons attack. It is, in essence, a weapon. It’s a needle that comes your way and invades the comfort of your normally undisturbed skin surface. But it also serves a purpose — much like the police department does — to protect …
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I believe in vaccinations. And do my kids know it.
I have a colleague who is a pediatrician in private practice in the suburbs. He has a great practice and loves his patients. One day, he walked in 15 minutes late to a 7:00 a.m. meeting we both attend. “Moms are calling early today.” Parents in his practice have learned to bypass their elaborate phone triage system. They have learned that if you press “1” for emergency, an actual doctor …
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Are patients using social media to attack physicians?
I was a four-year-old kid when I was about to begin my first day of school. I was born and raised 20 kilometers away from the big city in a small rural area with minimal essential amenities — schools, roads, and hospitals. Like all other kids, it was a momentous occasion for me to start my first day of school, and I remember how exciting it was.
As I started to …
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A patient becomes a medical student
In past years, the opioid crisis has become a topic of interest among the adult population. More recently, attention has grown surrounding the pediatric population, as well. In fact, the topic was included in the State of the Union address given by President Trump just a few weeks ago. He vowed to end the crisis and named it a “public health emergency.”
When discussing true addiction, …
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The opioid crisis hits children
