Common sense, air conditioning and readily available drinking water have greatly reduced the incidence of heat-related illness in infants and children. But don’t let your vigil down. Cases do still occur, generally due to lack of forethought, and sometimes with horrific results.
Here is what you must know:
1. The younger the child, the more susceptible to [...]

Posted in Outdoor Recreation, Prevention, Safe & Healthy Travel, Sun Comments Off
Tags: acclimatization, air conditioning, air temperature, baby carriers, children, Dehydration, drinking water, fluids, healthy, heat index, heat-related illness, HI, hot weather, Infants, national weather service, obesity, perspiration, Prevention, relative humidity

All children should learn to swim, and learn to do so at an early age. But there is no consensus as to the optimum age to start; guidelines vary from six months to four years. In addition, there are health issues to consider regarding placing infants in public pools. 
Here is what you should know: 

Teaching young [...]

Posted in Outdoor Recreation Comments Off
Tags: AAP, babies, children, children swimming, chlorine, drowning, flotation devices, indoor pools, Infants, outdoor pools, public pools, swim, swimming lessons

• Infants are the only items on an aircraft that need not be battened down for takeoff, turbulence and landing.  In case of severe turbulence or survivable crashes, an unrestrained 20-pound (9 kilos) infant sitting on your lap effectively and instantaneously becomes a 300-pound weight  (136 kilos) that you cannot restrain. Such infants have hit the ceiling of [...]

Posted in Air Travel, Outdoor Recreation, Safe & Healthy Travel, Travel No Comments »
Tags: aviation safety, CARES, child air safety, child airplane safety, Child Aviation Restraint System, child restraint system, child restraint systems, CRS, in-flight safety, Infants

For many people one of the biggest fear of flying is sitting next to a screaming child, says the New York Times,  “Please Refrain from Tantrums Aboard,” (November 14.)
According to the article, some travelers are doing some fussing of their own. They’re calling for airlines to implement child-free flights, designate “family-only” sections, or provide seat [...]

Posted in Air Travel, Safe & Healthy Travel Comments Off
Tags: Air Travel, airlines, antihistamines, child-free flights, children, children flying, crying, ear pain, family only flights, flying, flying with kids, infant sleeping patterns, Infants, kids, why infants cry in flight

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 literature to [...]

Posted in Air Travel, Outdoor Recreation, Prevention, Safe & Healthy Travel No Comments »
Tags: Air Travel, Ear infections, ear problems, ear problems air travel, flight, Infants, pediatric travel advice, safe to travel, travel safety, young children

Hi Readers. This is a first for our website, a posting by someone other than myself. This posting is by Chris Van Tilburg, MD, author of Introducing Your Kids to Outdoor Adventure (Stackpole, 2005). 
The question I get most often regarding adventuring with kids is, is it safe?  When people read in magazines about my [...]

Posted in Outdoor Recreation, Safe & Healthy Travel No Comments »
Tags: adventuring, backpack, biking, breast-feed, camping, child-carry backpack, Chris Van Tilburg, Columbia River, exploring outdoors, Health, hiking, Infants, kids, nutrition, Oregon, safety, skiing, Vancouver Island, young children

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 myth – [...]

Posted in Destinations, Prevention, Travel No Comments »
Tags: Air Travel, air travel with infants, air travelers, Diarrhea, feeding infants, in flight dehydration, in-flight comfort, infant feeding, infant health, Infants, Kids Travel Doc, kids travel doctor, sweating, Vomiting

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 over [...]

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Tags: car seats, infant car seats, Infants, Kids Travel Doc

To sedate or not to sedate infants for air travel, that is an oft-raised question. Is it truly nobler to spurn sedatives, risk an unruly child, and bravely suffer the heartaches of stares and scorn of outraged fellow passengers?  Or is it more virtuous to sedate infants, perchance they’ll sleep, and endure the thousand humiliations [...]

Posted in Safe & Healthy Travel No Comments »
Tags: Airplane, Infants, Jet lag

Swimming: The source of many illnesses
Most kids’ favorite summer activity is swimming, no matter if it’s splashing in a small backyard pool, or on the beach of a five-star resort. But the reality is that no fun activity is totally safe and healthy. For information on water safety, see TenTips: Waterfront. For avoiding illnesses from [...]

Posted in Outdoor Recreation No Comments »
Tags: Diarrhea, Infants, Intestinal illnesses, Respiratory infections, Skin conditions, Sun exposure