Children's Health

The doctor sticking his scope in your daughter’s ear and seeing a pink eardrum when the child is sick does not mean a bacterial ear infection is present. If they do not do a tympanogram (a tool that measures fluid levels in the ear), the exam is not accurate. Most doctors have the tympanogram in their office, and they may skip it to simplify and shorten the visit if they think that their exam was good enough. I would ask for one. Remember, most ear infections are mostly viral and do not require treatment. They will clear on their own.

It is reasonable to follow his fever over the next few days and see if he is improving without the antibiotic. It is okay to have a decreased food input for a few days, as long as enough fluid is consumed. You should never give him Tylenol to bring it down. The only reason to use a medication on a child is if his pain and discomfort is so severe that he cannot sleep at night (acetaminophen is not the appropriate medication). Following the fever will help decide if he is improving or not.

Taking antibiotics over and over is responsible for increased likelihood of more ear infections in the future. As I described in my book, Disease Proof Your Child, it is the treatment of early life ear infections with antibiotics that increase the risk of serious bacterial otitis media in children.

So, the answer to your question is to have your child eat perfectly, not good, but perfectly. Try to avoid antibiotics as much as possible and only if the infection is severe and has a persistent high fever. Recovery can be achieved with superior nutrition in the vast majority of cases. It sounds like your well-meaning physician is not following the new guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics. That means if he does not have a persistent high fever for a few days or persistent pain, you should hold off on treatment.

You are the parent, and you are responsible for your child’s health! You are in full control of the meals that are provided and the examples that you set. The bottom line is that you can have a major impact on his future health and protect him from developing serious childhood illnesses, autoimmune diseases, emotional and learning disorders, and even later life cancer, all by the food choices in your home. Your goal should be to instill healthy habits in your child so that he grows up at a healthy weight, enjoys healthful foods and exercise, and holds on to these habits as an adult. All of the science and the basic how-tos are addressed in my book, Disease Proof Your Child.

It is junk food. I guess most mothers give their kids soda, apple juice, and all types of sweet liquids that are not healthful. Liquid sweets are obesity and diabetes promoting, and when given to children, starts them on the road to dangerous eating habits and bad health. So I have no idea why you would want to feed an infant or toddler junk food. The only liquids safe for a nine month old are breast milk and water; anything else is detrimental to their health and promotes childhood obesity.

I do recommend baby vitamin D drops too. You don’t want to take the chance because the vitamin D level is so important for their normal development, and it is not adequately passed in the breast milk if the mother is low or borderline. If the mother’s Vitamin D level is normal (I would suggest above 40 in this instance), then studies do show that the child gets enough without supplementing. So, I guess if you are really certain your blood levels are excellent, you can forgo the baby drops.

La Leche league can be very helpful. Sometimes it is just a matter of repositioning the baby or other things to help. In the meantime, a Nutritarian diet with about 4 oz. of seeds and nuts a day plus the DHA-EPA supplement works great to produce plenty of great tasting milk.

I would not worry about it because even the little bit of breast milk he is getting will be supplying valuable immunoglobulins and other beneficial factors. So, just keep encouraging him to nurse by nursing him when he is hungry instead of giving him food first. Use a breast pump once a day if you have to in order to stimulate milk production.

The key to preventing allergies is to introduce all the new foods that the mother is eating while nursing is continued. It is stopping nursing and then introducing new foods that increases the risk of allergies. That means, if you hold off until one year of age to introduce nuts after you have stopped nursing, you will be increasing the risk of nut allergy. The best thing to do is to introduce new foods early, not late, and make sure that you and the baby eat them together and the nursing continues well after all the new foods have been introduced. I strongly recommend that nursing be continued for 18 months.

It is best not to introduce honey to a young child at all. It is dangerous before a year but still an unhealthy substance that just fosters a desire for sweets. Peanut butter can be introduced at one year as long as you are eating it first and breast feeding is continued.

Yes, I have treated such patients, and I believe they have benefited from optimal nutrition.

The same things that maximize intelligence and health in all children will benefit autistic children. They have the same human needs and respond positively to positive influences and negatively to negative influences (except more so). This includes prolonged breast feeding, excellent nutrition with good fatty acid balance, physical closeness, and emotional consistency; these things will allow them to reach their potential. Our focus is not merely on superior nutrient intake but also nutrient comprehensiveness to assure no borderline deficiencies are present. Consider the addition of our folic acid-free multi to assure adequacy in zinc, iodine, K2, B12, Vitamin D and many food-based phytonutrients. Unfortunately, there is lots of alternative nonsense out there too that preys on this group.