Sofia Espinosa age 6 We all want our children to be healthy—which is my main concern as an integrative family physician—right? But we also want our children to thrive. We want them to feel good about themselves without having inflated egos. We want them to feel confident and competent and have good self-esteem. We want them to be kind. We adults want that too, don’t we? Good health, a good sense of self, competence in our jobs, compassion towards others? So far so good. But imagine you’re only three feet three inches tall. You talk, but not always in a way others can understand. You have very strong ideas about the world but very little experience in it. When you try to drink water from a cup, you spill half all over yourself. When you want to climb the outside of the staircase (one of my daughter’s favorite activity), you get intercepted. When you leave the house in nothing but your birthday suit to tow your little red wagon down the sidewalk, your mom freaks out. ...

Last week we were talking about toxins to avoid when you’re trying to conceive . This week we’ve got another toxin on the docket. The toxin is acetaminophen, the main ingredient in Tylenol (known as paracetamol in Europe). No doctor should ever recommend Tylenol again. Not to pregnant women. Not to newborns. Not to small children. “But my doctor says Tylenol is safe.” I am a doctor myself and a nice southern girl. I don’t like to criticize other doctors but I’ll be honest with you: your doctor does not know what he does not know. Tylenol has not been shown to be safe for children. If your doctor would spend just half an hour reviewing the peer-reviewed medical literature about Tylenol, your doctor will realize it has not been proven safe. Acetaminophen may very well be a main trigger for certain childhood neurological disorders, including autism, as well as childhood asthma . Just ask a team of research scientists and medical doctors from Duke and Harvard Universities whose...

In general, most parents are worried about ear infections in kids.  There are inner, middle, and outer ear infections and this blog is referring to mostly middle ear infections. Most middle ear infections are viral and will resolve themselves but that doesn't help the worried parent watching their child suffer in pain.  So I will tell you the tricks used by many parents to avoid the need to see the doctor. During summer time with swimming pools, the outer ear or swimmer's ear infection is more common.  Just tug on the ear and if it hurts, it is probably swimmer's ear.  You can use colloidal silver ear drops or mullein garlic ear drops and that can often do the trick.  Best is to do prevention with a little alcohol in the ear after swimming to dry up the ear. If that is not the issue and they are complaining of pain, then it may be a middle ear infection.  With my kids, I would do the wet sock trick http://bastyr.edu/news/health-tips/2009/11/dive-fe...

Fever is totally normal with illness and is the body's way of healing the body.  It should not be suppressed as that slows healing by stopping the action of fever which is the body’s natural response to sending the little healing factors.  I would reserve use of ibuprofen (not tylenol-longer story there) for when they are miserable and you can’t get them comfortable by other means.  Ibuprofen is not recommended under 6 months of age.  Don’t even put tylenol in your house. Reasons to worry about fever where you should go to the ER:   *Fever in an infant under 2 months of age.   Fever is 100.4 rectally *Fever with mental status changes.  Most kids get sleepy with fever and want to sleep more but this refers to strange behavior or strange eye or limb movements.   *Fever with seizure- febrile seizures alone are not dangerous generally but the first time, you need to be checked out and to make a plan with a doctor. *Fever over 105 ...

So when my kids get fever and congestion, and I make sure they don't have anything dangerous of course, I like to treat with as little medicine as possible. I admit that I don't typically worry too much but easy for me to say right? First of all, I do not use acetaminophen or ibuprofen for fever and never aspirin in a kid.  I must digress a little here...  Fever is a natural process that shows the body is doing its job.  Acetaminophen and ibuprofen stops or slows down that process. I could do a whole complicated blog on this one but trying to keep it simple.  I swear my kids got better faster when I learned this!  If your child is under 3 months of age, be sure to see your doctor right away. Babies can be tricky recognizing signs of serious illness.  Depending on the doctor, you may not want to treat the fever in your infant prior to seeing the doctor so they can verify it prior to doing potentially more extensive evaluations. My favorite treatment is t...