Two tidbits from my Pediatric Urgent Care Clinic:

• Mom comes in with sick baby who has been vomitting after breast feeding. We see the child, he looks okay, and pediatrician reassures mom that baby will be getting better soon. Main thing to do is keep the baby hydrated. Perhaps smaller, more frequent feeding will help; Pedialyte might work as well. Instantly, mom wants Pedialyte. Pediatrician again reassures mom: mother’s breast milk is fine. Mom again, “No, I want the Pedialyte.” Me: How did we get to the point that we trust Pedialyte (which actually has too much sugar to be of the right concentrations) over evolution? Have we made the human body and breast so potentially pathologic that we’d rather use some man-made concoction?
• The effect of the nuclear family: my attending today said one of the biggest reasons she hated private pediatric practice was “4am calls for Tylenol dosing from rich parents. They don’t have close ties to grandparents or aunts or uncles, so they rely on the pediatrician for common ‘raising your child basics’ information.” I’ve often thought this is also why all the “X for Dummies” and “Idiot’s Guide to Y” have become so popular: often these are subjects that used to be passed down through generations and oral tradition. Now we opt to pay for the same advice from strangers, albeit experts in their field. (On one hand, maybe this nips some bad parenting styles in the bud. On the other, seems like an awful waste of often good, comforting information.)

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