Back to School and Your Child's Yearly Well-Child Visit

Summer break is nearing it's end, making this a great time to schedule your child's yearly pediatric well-child visit before it's time to head back to school!

Doctor Visits

Regardless of your child's age, an annual well-child exam with your pediatrician is a good idea to add on the to-dos of your "back-to-school" checklist.

Scheduling preventative (vs urgent) yearly pediatrician exams before the school year starts is a convenient way to put the wellness exam on your family's schedule before the hectic year begins. 

Annual wellness exams can be important during your child's transitional years because vital changes take place in your child's physiology and this type of check in with your pediatrician or family doctor is also an opportunity for wellness guidance and advice. 

Depending on your child's age, an annual exam may entail blood pressure and heart monitoring as well as testing for diabetes, cholesterol and anemia. A pediatric vision screening may also be part of the annual check up. Pediatricians also like to use the annual visit to discuss nutrition and exercise and review your child's immunization records.

Continuity of care with your child's physician is truly an invaluable asset because having a long-term history gives the physician an awareness of your child's development progress and it's also helpful for preventing chronic diseases from emerging. 

Back-to-school check-ups are often the only visit most children have with their pediatrician annually. Having the opportunity to have a thorough physical exam is also a good time to address emotional and social concerns. As your child grows older, these questions may become more important as the adolescent years can be emotionally challenging for many kids because of peer and societal influences - drinking, smoking, drugs, depression and sexual activity are big teenage topics.

In summary, establishing a connection with your child's physician will be an invaluable asset as your child passes through years of physical and emotional development. Finding the time for balancing school life with social activities, extracurricular pursuits, and home life can be quite a challenge for kids. All the more reason to set aside time every year for your child to foster a relationship to see the pediatrician. 

Here's to your child's full potential!

Gingerbread House Daycare

Parents, How Much Do You Know About Antibiotics?

There's an effort by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help make sure that we use antibiotics wisely. In the U.S. 1 in 5 of children visits to health care practitioners result in a prescription of antibiotics. This amounts to over 50 million prescriptions annually! Of which 10 million are for respiratory illnesses that antibiotics aren't helpful for. 

Antibiotics are of course very important and life saving when they are needed, however, their use does not come without risks including the killing off of natural bacteria that grow in our bodies and that we rely upon for forging a healthy immune system to fight off disease and infections. Antibiotic resistance is another concern of indiscriminate prescribing. 

Here's a helpful quick quiz published in Harvard Health Publications to help families make informed decisions about antibiotic use. 

Take this quick quiz to check your antibiotic smarts

Question: (True or false) Any time the doctor says your child has an ear infection, you should leave the office with a prescription for antibiotics.

Answer: False. Turns out that most ear infections get better without antibiotics. In some circumstances, such as in young infants, severe infections, or children with immune system problems, antibiotics are necessary. But for most healthy children, all that is really needed is some acetaminophen or ibuprofen for pain, some time, and some TLC.

Question:  Which of the following set of symptoms means your child has sinusitis?

A. A cough for a week, with fever at the beginning and not since

B. Green nasal discharge and cough for four days, fever to 101

C. Both of the above

D. None of the above

Answer: D. The common cold, caused by a virus, can give you cough, fever, and green nasal discharge — and antibiotics are not only unnecessary, they won’t do a thing. Antibiotics should only be considered if:

• There is nasal congestion and cough, preferably with fever, that has lasted for 10 days or more (it still may be a cold, your doctor needs to examine and be sure)
• There is new fever, congestion, and cough after a cold seemed to be getting better
• There is high fever (103 F or more) and severe congestion and cough for three days

Question: Your child has a bad sore throat and fever. You take your child to the doctor, who says that the throat is very red and has pus, but doesn’t find anything else that worries her. What should happen?

A. You should get antibiotics, because pus means there must be a bacteria

B. You should get a strep test and antibiotics

C. You should get a strep test, but no antibiotics unless the rapid strep test or culture comes back positive.

Answer: C. Turns out that pus doesn’t necessarily mean there are bacteria. Some of the nastiest throat infections are caused by viruses — which, again, antibiotics don’t treat.

Question: (True or False) Since sometimes colds can lead to ear infections or sinusitis or pneumonia, it’s a good idea to take an antibiotic to prevent that from happening.

Answer: False. While it’s really understandable to want to “be on the safe side” and ward off a bacterial infection, most colds don’t lead to bacterial infections — and if you are in touch with your doctor, you should be able to pick up the signs of anything that needs to be treated by antibiotics.

To learn more about smart use of antibiotics, check out these resources from the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Prenatal Vitamins May Make Your Children Cleverer

A new study led by a research team at Harvard University has reported that taking multivitamins during pregnancy can "add the equivalent of up to a full year of schooling to a child's cognitive abilities." 

The results also found that early life factors including a nurturing environment was very important for a child's intellectual development including educational achievement and fine motor dexterity. 

The multivitamins studied contained iron, folic acid, retinol, vitamin D, vitamin E, ascorbic acid, vitamin B, niacin, zinc, copper, selenium and iodine. Maternal supplementation aided children's procedural memory by an additional 1/2 year of schooling and for anemic mothers, the effect equalled one year of extra schooling. 

In conclusion, the most impactful factors on a child's cognitive ability that trump biological factors include: nurturing home environment, parental happiness, parental education, socio-economic status. 

The research was published in the journal The Lancet Global Health.