What Your Pediatrician Doesn’t Know Can Hurt Your Child

“I want my baby to thrive.” Can it be as simple and easy as nature intends? Not every doctor integrates nature’s wisdom in their standard recommendations, so this book can be your supportive guide. Your choices and decisions are restored to their rightful, healthiest place in honoring yourself, your intuition, and your baby’s true needs. This is crucial for giving your family and your baby its best first steps towards thriving. What Your Pediatrician Doesn’t Know Can Hurt Your Child; A More Natural Approach to Parenting takes an in-depth look at the choices that are sometimes missing, as they have been removed in the sterile procedures and interferences of history, habit and some hospitals.  Knowing what these choices are and the reasons behind them makes your decisions as a parent more optimally grounded in confidence and facts.

Author Pediatrician Dr. Susan Markel points out that too often babies and parents are subject to the opinions of authorities, pseudo-science, and trends that are not in the baby’s or their family’s best interest. She reminds us of the natural strength of bonding at birth and other innately simple practices and healthy patterns you may feel naturally called to embrace. Here is an ally in your unfolding adventure as a new parent, and a professional viewpoint that is at once refreshing and regenerative.

From birth to doctor’s visits, you are in charge

In What Your Pediatrician Doesn’t Know Can Hurt Your Child, parents learn the variety of issues that are present with the birth of their baby. This preparation has lifelong implications and benefits in bonding, health, and orientation for your baby. Did you know this? “There is absolutely no reason why a healthy baby should be separated from you. Mothers who give birth in a hospital can request that all newborn procedures occur at their bedside…A baby has a need to feel safe and secure through close human contact.” From the moment your baby is born they are best kept in your arms, or with loved ones, comforted by the closeness.

Skin-to-skin contact while breast-feeding often is optimal for the many reasons detailed, from remedying jaundice to establishing healthy microflora in the baby’s intestines for a strong immune system. “When infants are breast-fed, lactoferrin brings about a dramatic increase in “good” micro-organisms in the intestine – such as bifidus—and keeps “bad” bacteria to a minimum.  One bottle of formula is all it takes to alter the establishment of this healthy bacteria.” Monitor your baby’s intake, as formula and sugar water may be given if you are not clear in your instructions, and your wishes may even be ignored when the baby is out of your sight in the nursery.

Did you also consider this? The silence a baby is born into has a profound effect on their wellbeing, allowing them to adjust peacefully. The soft sounds and gentle comfort of being in the womb are normal to a newborn.  It makes sense to consider how to make their birth environment soothing, and nurturing, not bright, loud, and shocking.

Sound advice: “While your pediatrician is likely competent in issues of illness, injury, and emergency care, he might not be as well-versed in breast-feeding, co-sleeping, natural remedies, and behavioral issues. An enlightened pediatrician knows when to prescribe medicine, and more importantly, when not to.” Something as simple as delaying the clamping of the umbilical cord, can achieve a 40% increase in natural blood volume, including platelets and other clotting factors.

The chapter called Maintaining Health begins by quoting Meryl Streep: “It’s bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children’s health than the pediatrician.” Easy steps to health: enjoy some sun for Vitamin D, avoid cow’s milk at all costs, and listen to your baby’s cues, so you can meet their needs immediately, building a bond of trust and relaxation. There is a root cause to any concern, and health is often reflective of whether or not our core functions and systems are supported optimally. What is optimal can be simple, and often is. Doing nothing is sometimes the most powerful choice, allowing nature to take its course of healing naturally, slowly, and completely. Subtle healing remedies can be more effective and avoid harmful side effects.

Holistic natural remedies are compared to medical intervention with their damaging extreme side effects, and these important questions are answered in What Your Pediatrician Doesn’t Know Can Hurt Your Child.

• Just how beneficial is breastfeeding to a child, and to the world?
• What is attachment parenting and how can it help a child and a family?
• Can babies benefit from watching educational television and videos?
• What are the proper ways to respond when a child is having a tantrum?
• What can a vegetarian diet mean for a child’s health?
• How unhealthy is cow’s, and other animals’ milk for a child?
• What do co-sleeping and babywearing do for the mother-child bond?

“A mother’s instincts are worth more than a medical degree.”

Links: Dr. Susan Markel, MD ~ www.AttachmentParentingDoctor.com

Dr. Susan Markel, MD is a board certified pediatrician who has a private consultative practice specializing in attachment parenting and child health. A graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, Dr. Markel became a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics in 1981, and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in 1997. She is also a medical associate at Attachment Parenting International.

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2011/11/16/delayed.cord.clamping.protects.newborn.babies.iron.deficiency

Delayed cord clamping protects newborn babies from iron deficiency

Published: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 – 05:38 in Health & Medicine

Waiting for at least three minutes before clamping the umbilical cord in healthy newborns improves their iron levels at four months, according to research published online in the British Medical Journal (bmj.com).