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...