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When to take your child to hospital

The decision to take your child to hospital is difficult and this post attempts to help the parent who is unsure. Those symptoms such as cough, fever, or vomiting are common but occasionally may herald the onset of a more serious condition.

Dummies, Pacifiers et al

Pacifiers (aka dummies) are fantastic in some irritable infants. They are effective, endorsed by paediatric bodies around the World, and do exactly what they say - pacify. So use them. But they are designed for infants - which is a shame…

Flu vaccine – available from 6 months

'Had a touch of the flu' doesn't seem to get much sympathy. The problem with flu is that, it sounds boring and is used interchangeably with 'cold'. But true influenza is nothing to be (ahem), sneezed at. Every year several hundred children under…

Obstructive Sleep Apnoea

Imagine shoving a marshmallow up one nostril, all the way back as far as it goes. Then repeat other side. Now place another in the back of your throat, beside the uvula (dangly bit), and another on the other side. Now try and sleep, eat,…

Early Dental Caries

Continuing the theme of oral hygiene, this is a photo of a 3yo girl’s upper incisors I recently saw. Lifting the lip revealed a dental caries disaster. Raising infants and toddlers is a balancing act of making the right choices but keeping…

The problem with too much milk.

Two year old Eva, apprehensive, pale,  heart racing, shallow breathing, sat on her Mother’s lap. Having stopped crying, she watched fascinated as the blood seeped into the syringe. Not the rich full bodied merlot, more weak watery, translucent…

When a parent has cancer

Last year, Child Health was part of the Tour De Cure. Each day we visited a different school and chatted to students. One question was always asked. Who knows someone with cancer?  Hands shot up every time. However at one school an 8yo…

Online guidelines for kids

Parenting used to be a string of one liners, for example ‘kids should be seen and not heard’... or..‘If the wind changes your face will stay that way”. Okay, that last one was a bit weird. But one that should be dragged from the archives…

Antibiotics – the good and bad

Here at the offices of Childhealth we want to become famous. Not in a skimpy outfit Miley Cyrus way, more a Nobel Science kind of way. So we have scattered old petri dishes around accidentally spilling stuff into them. You see this is how Alex…

Night-time fever assault

Aged 4, middle of the night and I was not well. The lights came on, something was stuck under my tongue, and then I was plunged into a cool bath. As a kid this was abduction followed by waterboarding. Childhood memory filed under nightmare.…

Should kids wear helmets in footy ?

Watching an U15 AFL game on a sunny autumnal afternoon a pre pubertal lad who was about 4ft tall captured the attention. Throwing himself into the fray, without regard for his safety, he reminded me of a teddy bear caught in a pillow fight.…