Juice for Babies? Experts Say It’s Not a Good Idea
The Medicine Cabinet: Ask the Harvard Experts Q: I just heard that children younger than 12 months of age should not get juice. I always thought natural juice was healthy. Why the change? A: Like you, many people think of juice as a healthy drink, something that should be part of a child’s diet. But […]
Why We Shouldn’t Demonize Formula Feeding
Harvard Health Blog Breast is best. We pediatricians say this all the time, because it’s true. Breast milk was uniquely designed for human babies, and many studies have shown its health benefits. In our quest to increase breastfeeding rates, which are not as high as we want them to be here in the U.S., we […]
How we can all help protect babies with immunizations
Harvard Health Blog When you are pregnant, what you hear from people around you makes a difference. You want to do the right thing for your child; if someone you trust gives you advice, you listen. That’s why we need to be sure that pregnant women get good advice. In a study published in the […]
Every new parent should take CPR classes
I was seeing a newborn the other day, and the parents had a great idea. Their baby had spit up, and they were concerned about how to clear his airway. When we discussed how to hold the baby to clear the airway they had the great idea of having a CPR “teaching party” for a […]
Dealing with a baby’s first cold
With the “sick season” upon us, I’m starting to see more babies with cold symptoms and their concerned parents are wondering what then can do to help their precious bundle of joy. In pediatrics, we often say “children are not little adults” but in the case of the common cold, they really are. They have […]
Can you use homeopathic products to relieve your child’s illness?
The Kid’s Doctor By Sue Hubbard, M.D. I am sitting here writing this while sucking on a honey-lemon throat lozenge and drinking hot tea, as it is certainly cough and cold season and unfortunately I woke up with a scratchy throat. I am trying to drink enough tea to drown it out. While I am […]
The Kid’s Doctor: How to calm a fussy infant
So you are home from the hospital with your newborn baby and suddenly realize that the babies you see on TV never cry, but your newborn is not reading the same script. All babies have some fussy times, and this is especially true of a newborn in the first few months of life. While a […]
Breastfeeding gets a lift from advocacy, education campaigns
The Kid’s Doctor An editorial concerning breastfeeding was published last year in The New York Times. It was written by Courtney Jung, who is a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, and it was quite interesting to me as she wrote that “the moral fervor surrounding breast-feeding (sic) continues unabated, with a […]
Late-term births may offer future cognitive benefits
When mothers deliver later, babies are more likely to have physical problems, but they also are likely to have cognitive benefits down the road, suggests provocative new Northwestern University research published in JAMA Pediatrics. It is well known that continuing a pregnancy beyond 40 weeks can increase the risk of physical disabilities for the child, […]
Treatment is crucial for women with postpartum depression
Mayo Clinic Q&A DEAR MAYO CLINIC: What causes postpartum depression, and is it possible to have it immediately after giving birth? Are some women more likely to have postpartum depression than others, and at what point does it require treatment? My sister does not seem like herself after having her baby a month ago, but […]
Breast milk can protect preemies
Source: John Hopkins Medicine The immune-boosting properties of breast milk have long been known. Now a team of scientists led by Johns Hopkins pediatric surgeon-in-chief David Hackam, M.D., Ph.D., says experiments in mice reveal how breast milk works to ward off the development of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a devastating intestinal disorder that affects 12 percent […]
