Hot answers tagged health
13
Yes, it's uncomfortable.
No, it's not a concern.
My personal experience (having traveled many thousands of km/miles in the summertime as a child) is that high temperatures while driving is not a serious concern. When you don't have A/C, then your best defense against heat is to be smart:
Passengers will be thirsty.
Bring lots of drinking water, but avoid ...
12
As you say, a C section is major abdominal surgery, with all the risks that entails. I don't want to worry you, as it is a common procedure, but recovery is typically a lot harder than a traditional delivery.
Forget about hard work, you may not even be able to lift your baby, or drive, or carry shopping bags etc.
So be aware that these things could ...
12
As the husband of a woman who went in expecting to give birth naturally but ended up having a C-section, I think I can answer this. The mentality, some internally-driven, some external, is that a vaginal birth is the "right" way to give birth; women have given birth this way throughout the 50,000-odd years of recorded history and for hundreds of thousands of ...
11
The US EPA recommends keeping young children from freshly painted rooms.
I would look into paints that off-gas fewer chemicals if I were to paint around a baby or young toddler. You can find several. Here is a list of five and here is a Consumer Reports comparison.
Purely anecdotally my mother threw me into a backpack to paint our home when I was a ...
11
This pamphlet, put out by the South Carolina Department of Health, suggests it is safe at one month. You should avoid large crowds, but the fresh air and stimulation is good for baby. You should probably not allow people to touch your baby's hands (since baby may put them in his mouth). Your greater concern in going outside is the weather - keeping baby ...
11
The guideline I've been given by our pediatricians was to avoid anybody with an easily transmittable disease for the first six weeks. The main reason to stay away from crowds and/or strangers is that you don't really know who in the area is ill or contagious. You don't want somebody to sneeze in your kid's face at any age, really, but a newborn is more ...
9
The usual rule is that pasteurised, hard cheeses (such as Cheddar, Red Leicester etc) are safe, but you should avoid soft cheeses (such as Brie) and avoid all unpasteurised cheeses.
Pasteurisation kills off pretty much everything in a milk product, but soft cheeses can become a breeding ground for bacteria and dangerous moulds very rapidly, whereas hard ...
9
This is the kind of question I wish we had more women on the site to answer. The comment you quoted is in response to my wife's reaction. I will convey her experience as accurately as I can.
The actual procedure was not traumatic at all for her. She was smiling throughout. I kept asking if she was okay, and she would respond that it wasn't her ...
7
First off, some babies don't need to poop everyday, so you don't have to worry on that level, but if she seems uncomfortable you can try a baby yoga move I learned that worked wonders on our little one (six years ago now). Lay her on her back and speak softly and cooingly to her. Gently bend her knees so they are together. Move her knees - holding her lower ...
7
C-Section surgeries have a purpose. They're designed to save babies in distress. As I'm sure you'll agree, babies are not aliens from Ridley Scott's movie. Nature did not design them to jump out of your belly. C-Sections were developed by medical science (as early 2500 years ago) as an emergency procedure where vaginal birth is not progressing well, or ...
7
I think I might actually be the one who left the comment you referred to in your post, so I'll explain a little bit what I meant:
Sometimes it's easy to romanticize labor and delivery--especially if you've never experienced it. I don't know how it is in your country, but here in the US this idea of "birth plans" has gotten perhaps a little out of ...
7
I have never heard that strangers are to be avoided with newborns, and I certainly wouldn't recommend staying inside to avoid them. You need to get out for your own sanity, so get out and go for walks as soon as you can. Exposure to new environments and people is good for babies development, keeping them cooped up indoors and away from social contact is not ...
6
I'm the original poster. Nobody gave an answer that covers what turned out to be the actual cause, so I'm posting this answer to bring closure to this question. Hopefully this will be useful to anybody who is experiencing the same issue with their child.
It turns out that the cause of the breath holding was due to swollen tonsils and adenoids. The enlarged ...
6
Toddlers eat dirt and survive, sure. But infants haven't built up a solid immune system to deal with random dirt, so avoiding unnecessary exposure would be wise.
I'm sorry but I would agree with your wife. The problem is that a kitchen cloth is actually often not very clean because it's often not rinsed well between uses and isn't replaced often enough. ...
6
I would try to get seen by a neurologist. My daughter has seizures and a lot of people, even relatively trained people like special ed teachers or school nurses, don't realize that's what they are. Seizures are basically the brain misfiring, so there isn't a consistent way they manifest. Sometimes she gets the full shaking, but often she just spaces out ...
6
Having actually experienced an emergency c-section and it's recovery myself, I cannot imagine anyone choosing a c-section when they have another option. That said I am so grateful for the existence of the modern c-section, because when a child goes into fetal distress, a mother needs to deliver immediately due to pre-eclampsia, etc. then a c-section is ...
5
A hormonal implant is generally not recommended for breastfeeding women, specifically in the first six weeks. I've only found mixed studies in terms of impact on breastfeeding women (inconclusive study, need further study, impact on immunoglobulin. Studies are non-existent when the use is before 6 weeks post-partum.
One thing to know is that the steroid ...
5
In my experience, interrupting a nursing session near the beginning to administer the medicine and then resuming the nursing session is what worked best for bad tasting medications like antibiotics.
Starting to nurse may help put her a relaxed state to start, that's why I say, start there, rather than medicine then nursing. But if you wait till later in ...
5
Normally, I tend to tell dads to listen to their wife's instinct because my mommy instinct has never steered me wrong.
However....
When you're dealing with borderline hypochondria, it's a delicate balancing act of responding when your child is legitimately ill and not over-reacting to every little cut/scrape/cold/imagined infection. I know. My mom and ...
5
Dollars to donuts he's picking up this concern from his mother. Not an exact analogy, but our 4 yr old daughter was exhibiting negative talk ("I had a bad day. I had bad dreams. I'm not happy.") and trying to get out of going to school. AFter talking with her and her teachers, and determining the problem wasn't school, we had an epiphany: her father is a ...
5
Both of my children were born tongue tied. My eldest had the tie cut after several months of age, and my youngest had it cut within a few hours of birth. While it may not be directly applicable to you, I was told it would bleed a little but not a lot, and while it's healing my children would be grumpy as it would sting. I saw my youngest getting his tie cut ...
5
Our daughter got her glasses around her first birthday. The biggest issue at first is the glasses are uncomfortable and they will keep taking them off. At one year old, all we could do was keep putting them back on over and over and over. At three, you probably have more options, like the same incentives you used for potty training.
At any rate, the ...
4
If your thermometer takes 60-90 seconds, it's definitely time to consider a new thermometer! There is a wide variation in times that oral/rectal thermometers take to read. You can get quick read oral/rectal digital thermometers that will read the temperature in as little as 8 seconds. Old fashioned mercury ones are quite slow comparatively.
The American ...
4
Your best solution bar none if the microwave is actually dirty:
Clean the microwave first
Take along some kitchen wipes and give it a good scrub before you use it.
In terms of fumes - microwaves typically have a fan to move air out anyway, and if not, just open the door for a while.
This would be far better than wrapping the food in something that could ...
4
Can you mix it with her formula or breastmilk? I don't know if that's possible--clearly if you're nursing and not using bottles then you can't do this, but it's a suggestion.
If it's just a cold, then maybe you can back off the oral meds and switch to other medication. Use a saline solution and nasal sucker to suction out her nose, keep the humidifier ...
4
Hopefully you'll never need to use such a thing, but it is a good idea. I would think all the regular things in terms of bandages and stuff would be a good plan, plus something to reduce pain and fever (e.g. Tylenol in the US or Paracetamol in Germany) AND when the baby begins eating solid foods, Benadryl (liquid) in case of a serious allergic reaction. A ...
4
The younger the child is, the more impact you'll be able to have. A 10-year-old could be more heavily influenced by his parents, while a 20-year-old may already consider himself an adult capable of making his own decisions.
It's important that he understands the dangers of his behavior - this discussion needs to happen, and it might have the most impact ...
4
At 20, its going to be difficult. He's got the independence and rights of adult, although few 20 year olds have the wisdom to use that responsibly (I know I didn't!).
Realistically, you can't expect to convince a 20 year old to stop doing something they've decided to do. I think the best you can work towards is making sure he knows all of the downsides.
...
4
In the US, the Consumer Product Safety Commission keeps track of toys that have been recalled (or are recommended for recall) based on things like lead in paint, choking hazards, etc. Not sure how useful this would be in your country but I'm betting there is a lot of overlap with childrens' toys between our two countries. :)
We personally choose toys based ...
4
If he's scratching them in his sleep then it must be painful or uncomfortable. Asking a 2 year old not to touch something that itches is not worth it, they don't have the self-control.
Try treating the wounds with an anesthetic salve, it will deaden the itch. Ask a pharmacist to recommend one that's OK for kids.
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