Jess, like many parents, has been hearing conflicting information about what crying can do to your baby.
She wrote: “So, my husband and I accidentally let our kiddo (5.5 months) cry it out. So of course, I’m spending all sorts of time on Google finding out that I’ve caused long-term damage to my son and he’ll be more likely to get ADHD and …
Letting your infant cry it out: Will it hurt your baby?
I’m going to sound very middle-aged in this post. Whenever I talk about texting and driving I tend to show my age. I don’t know how it happened or when it was that I truly became a grown-up, but when it comes to texting and driving I feel nothing like a sixteen year-old.
Unfortunately, teens are particularly vulnerable in the car. Motor vehicle accidents are the number one killer of teens …
What parents can do to support teen drivers
“My wife gets migraines—really bad ones—and now my daughter seems to be getting them too. She’s only 7! Is she just copying what her mom does? Can a child really start getting migraines?”
Oh, yes they can. Migraine is very much a childhood disorder. About 5% of adults have migraines, and half of them started having their migraines as kids.
As in adults, migraines in children can be severe and debilitating. However, …
Migraine is very much a childhood disorder
Off I go to work a few shifts at a desperately understaffed rural hospital in a state far away. The rental car GPS leads me to the ED address and it’s not there. All that is there is what looks like a small supermarket with a funeral home next door. I see a security guard in the parking lot. He has a lump in his cheek and a badge that says “Sam.” …
Inspired after seeing my 5-year-old patient
She spends hours with them. Literally hours. And, apparently she is not alone.
Lego Friends have captured the heart of my daughter, as well as thousands of other school-aged girls across the country. In fact, the Lego Friends series has been a financial boom to the Lego corporation in just a few months.
The Friends series is essentially pastel colored building sets, ultimately creating items …
Do Lego Friends promote stereotypic gender roles?
In many of our local supermarkets, there is a section of organic produce in addition to produce that is traditionally farmed. For those of us selecting and preparing food for our families, we often wonder what items, if any, we should purchase with the organic label.
When I shop, I typically choose traditionally farmed foods for my family’s meals. There are certain items …
There is little nutritional advantage to organic food
The FDA announced recently that it is approving Plan B for all girls age 15 and up without a prescription.
This is good news for girls in the US of A. The easier the access to contraception, the less likely girls will have an unintended pregnancy.
As many as 80% of pregnancies in teen girls in the United States are unintended. Most pregnancies are …
We want teens to know about emergency contraception
When I first heard of the tragic accidental shooting death of a 2-year old girl by her 5-year old brother, at first I thought it was because some adult left their gun out and was not supervising the children properly.
Not too many things surprise me anymore, but this time I was surprised when I found out that poor supervision was only part of the issue and that the 5-year-old was …
Giving a gun as a gift: How young is too young?
You might think a thing sold by a huge manufacturer of children’s toys and furniture as a “sleeper” would a safe, appropriate place for a baby to sleep. It is, after all, called a “sleeper.” But it is not a safe place for your baby to sleep.
The Fisher Price Newborn Rock ‘n Play Sleeper is a sling-shaped baby holder sort of gizmo, …
Is this Fisher Price sleeper safe for infants?
This is a call to arms to my fellow providers to protect our patients from themselves and our willingness to comply with their requests. We live and practice in a society filled with fear of medications and their side effects. People will not take blood pressure, cholesterol, or diabetic medication because of the side effects they have heard or read about.
However, these same patients will take antibiotics every day of …
Prescribing antibiotics: It’s time to draw a hard line
About half of all children in the United States with an autistic spectrum disorder are diagnosed at age five or older, according to a May 2012 NCHS (National Center for Health Statistics) data brief. However, many parents are suspicious much sooner. As part of autism awareness month, we bring you clues into toddler development that can alert you to a potential issue.
Pediatricians often use a questionnaire called the M-CHAT (Modified …
How to know if your toddler has autism
“Aren’t those decorations looking nice?” asks a soft voice beside me.
Startled, I turn to find a young woman wearing a red-and-white sari. Her head and face are swathed in the folds of the sari, leaving only the large red bindi on her forehead clearly visible.
We’re sitting on a grassy tuft amid a large campus green. All about us stand buildings with signs in both Hindi and English. Atop the central …
My first day at the pediatric oncology clinic
This question was what drove me to graduate school for an MPH degree a few years ago. I was finishing up my family medicine residency at, arguably, one of the top residency programs in the nation. I had been well trained in both medical science and doctor-patient relationship skills. Yet my patients still consistently did not adhere to my advice.
I was not disappointed in my MPH studies. It turns out …
Why don’t our patients do what we tell them?
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Having married parents is good for children. That’s why the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) thinks that same-sex couples should be able to marry.
In a policy statement, that’s exactly what they said. It’s going to put the AAP in the middle of controversy–but it was the right thing to do for children.
There are currently almost 2 million children being raised by gay and lesbian parents in the United States. And …
Same-sex couples should be able to marry: Why the AAP got involved
I visited with 5 charming teenagers last week. Four of them had something in common: These teenagers are texting in the middle of the night, nearly every night.
Texting in the middle of the night is not a new phenomenon. Over 2 years ago, reports on teenagers texting at night began to surface. One study concluded the average teenager sends 34 texts after lights out. Simply based on the conversations I …
The problem of teens texting throughout the night
First, it was the MMR-autism link—that turned out to be a complete fabrication, a fraud invented by a single “researcher” who made up his data. He was taking money from plaintiff’s lawyers, and he was trying to patent his own, competing vaccine. Too bad for the scare and the resulting surge in measles.
Then, the mercury connection. A mercury-containing preservative, thimerosal, …
It’s time to put the vaccine-autism link behind us
Sometimes, when a parent tells me about something that happened with their child, I think (and say, as nicely as I can): Why didn’t they call right away?
And sometimes, when I’m talking to a parent or seeing their child in the office, I think (but don’t say): Why did they call about this?
It can be really hard to know when to call the doctor.
It’s hard because sometimes you plain old …
How to know when to call the doctor
Has anyone else noticed the growing presence of ultimatums in medicine today?
The New England Journal of Medicine published a discussion of the ethics of not hiring smokers. My hospital adopted this policy six months ago, and they are not alone. There is a tobacco blood test that new employees have to pass. If they fail, they can look for a job elsewhere. I do not know the exact details, but …
The rise of ultimatums in medicine: Do they work?
Patricia Wen’s front page story, “Children’s Access to Mental Health Care is Growing,” in which she describes the “co-location” of mental health care services in pediatric practices, brought me back to the summer of 2011 when I attended a meeting of a working group of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (MCAAP.) The task of this working group, a subgroup of the MCAAP task force on mental …
The co-location of mental health care services in pediatric practices
I enthusiastically shared the news of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)’s same-sex marriage endorsement with my medical school classmates yesterday. I even publicly posted the AAP’s article – the sole public posting on my private Facebook page – because to me, the strong endorsement of equal rights by an organization of 60,000 pediatricians seemed enormously important for my colleagues and for our world.
I was disheartened to read the viral …
Let us signal that we accept and support same-sex marriage
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