Backpacks here. Backpacks there. Backpacks practically everywhere. Kids of all ages wear them – and, increasingly, so do adults. Toddlers wear them for the sake of wearing them, often empty and sometimes in the shape of cartoon characters. Older kids use them for books and sporting equipment and when hiking and traveling. For high school […]
Air travel/children/hot beverages/aisle seats/injuries
October 3, 2010 by
Skip your hot tea and coffee when flying with young children – and hope that passengers in adjacent seats do the same. Every year hundreds of passengers, many of them children, are burned by such beverages spilling on them. The combination of hot drinks, crowding, turbulence, and children is a formula for an accident waiting […]
Air Travel/Breast feeding/Infant death
September 11, 2010 by
Recently a four-week old infant died on a flight from Washington to Kuwait. The probable cause was the mother accidentally smothered the baby when the mother fell asleep while nursing her infant. This tragic event does not mean that nursing is unsafe during air travel. As far as is known this is the first time […]
Infants and Young Children/Air Travel/Ear Problems
September 2, 2010 by
Ask pediatricians whether infants and young children can travel by air with ear infections and the likely answer is, no, they cannot. Ask pediatricians if they have ever seen a child with serious ear issues resulting from air travel and the likely answer is, no, they have not. There is virtually nothing in the medical […]
Children/Swimmer’s ear
August 23, 2010 by
When children complain of ear discomfort in the summertime, chances are that they have swimmer’s ear, a condition important for you, the parent, to recognize. Early treatment can save you from a few days of having a very unhappy child on your hands and, perhaps, from having to seek medical care and all the hassle […]
Air travel/infants and children/ importance of vaccination
August 1, 2010 by
Are your children’s vaccinations up-to-date before traveling by air? According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in the past year alone there were more than 3,000 known airline passengers traveling while ill with a contagious disease. 1. The aircraft cabin environment abets the spread of disease-causing microorganisms. Infected passengers cough up, sneeze out […]
Infants/air travel/in-flight comfort/feeding – Just the facts!
July 3, 2010 by
Facts about infants/air travel/in-flight comfort/feeding: (This is an update of an earlier posting – but bears repeating). Check the top twenty entries on Google regarding infants/air travel/feeding or air travel/infants/health. Nineteen say that you must give infants lots of fluids to prevent them from becoming dehydrated. One entry says that in flight dehydration is a […]
Health Alert: Infants/Car Seats/Hazardous Away from Cars
June 16, 2010 by
Infant cars seats – when infants are aboard – belong strapped into the back seat of cars where they prevent injuries and save lives. They do NOT belong on beds, couches, chairs or kitchen counters, says the American Academy of Pediatrics. Car seats are not totally stable when standing alone. Sometimes they are accidentally tipped […]
Children/Outdoors/Poison Ivy
June 9, 2010 by
Mother Nature provides us with an infinite array of wonders. But it seems that she also possesses a mischievous streak, perhaps to remind us that “natural” is not synonymous with “beneficial,” as many people like to think. Poison ivy is a case in point. It affects countless millions of Americans each year. Here what you […]
