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  • Are you concerned about your picky eater?

    I was asked the other day, “How do I get my 5-year-old to eat more than the five foods she eats?” Can you relate to this? Is your child a picky eater? Do you struggle with getting him to eat his vegetables? Do you worry she is not eating enough?

  • EpilepsyU presents a Q & A webinar on "epilepsy and children" with Dr. Davis

    This week, EpilepsyU, a part of the Epilepsy Association of Central Florida, hosted a Q & A webinar on “epilepsy and children” featuring Dr. Ron Davis, Pediatric Neurologist and Co-Director of Pediatric Epilepsy for the Level 4 Epilepsy Center at Arnold Palmer Hospital.

  • Sugary drinks linked to weight gain in kids

    Soda, sports drinks, and 100% fruit juice. These drinks-of-choice raise a red flag in the world of nutrition and health. All three beverages are loaded with sugar, and when consumed in an excess amount, are shown to cause an increase in weight gain among kids.

  • Forget about warts- frogs can make you (and your kids) sick!

    I don’t know about you, but I’m just not into frogs, lizards, snakes or any other creepy, crawly, slimy creature. I am still haunted by memories of my cousins (very mischievous boys!) chasing me with a frog in their hands as I ran for dear life. I’m not sure what I thought would happen if they caught me, but I sure didn’t want to find out.

  • Eye screenings recommended for young children

    An eye patch is commonly used for one of two reasons in young kids. One, your child is impersonating Johnny Depp and playing “pirate for the day”. Or two, the patch is being used to treat a condition known as “amblyopia”, also known as “lazy-eye”. Amblyopia is a condition that is easily preventable, which is why pediatricians are now urging eye screening for children as young as 1 year of age.

    What is amblyopia?

    Amblyopia occurs when the brain is not using one eye because it doesn’t see as well as the other eye. This condition only occurs in children and if left untreated, can result in permanent loss of vision. Amblyopia is the most common cause of vision problems in children, affecting 2 – 4% of the US population and is preventable.

    If it's easily preventable, then why is it so common?

    Good question. Currently, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) only recommends testing children for amblyopia between the ages of 3 and 5, stating there is insufficient evidence to recommend testing for younger children. However, a recent study published in the journal Pediatrics shows otherwise.

    The Study

    The goal of this study was to help provide the USPSTF with the evidence needed to include toddlers in their recommendations. Data was collected from a photoscreening program called “Iowa KidSight”, a program that has been offering photoscreening to children as young as 6 months of age since 2000. Over 200,000 screenings of children’s eyes were conducted from May 2000 to April 2011. Of the children screened, the youngest were 6 months old and the oldest were between 7 and 8 years old. Researchers used the data collected by this program (over 11 years worth of data) to compare screening results of young children with that of preschool-aged children.

  • Gun Safety: What You Need to Know to Keep Your Child Safe

    In light of the Newtown, Connecticut tragedy, a common safety topic that has been discussed in the news, amongst ourselves, and between patients and their pediatrician is how a family can keep their children safe from guns. Research and statistics tell us that the best way to reduce the chance that a child is hurt or killed from a gun is to simply not have a gun in the home. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the safest home for a child is a home without a gun.

  • What it means if your child fails his/her newborn hearing screening part 2

    In our previous post, we discussed the newborn hearing screening. Now let’s discuss what a failed hearing screening means and what will usually follow. In general, there are two types of hearing loss: sensorineural and conductive. Conductive hearing loss occurs when there is a break in the conduction of sound between the outside world and the end of the stapes or 3rd hearing bone. The second type of hearing loss is sensorineural, or nerve-related. This can occur within the cochlea or anywhere along the path of the cochlear/auditory nerve and remainder of the pathways from the cochlea to the brain.

    Conductive hearing loss

    Conductive hearing loss is easy to understand: something is blocking the sound from getting into the inner ear. There are several things that can cause conductive hearing loss which results in a failed newborn hearing screening. The most common of these is fluid in the ear canal or middle ear. The middle ear space is filled with fluid in general up until delivery. As the baby is delivered, the movement through the birth canal helps push the fluid out of the middle ear space. When this does not happen effectively, fluid can remain in the middle ear space and cause a conductive hearing loss and a failed newborn screening. This usually goes away after a short time, but it can persist for 4-6 months and may necessitate a procedure to drain the fluid from the ears.

  • Do your kids need a multivitamin?

    It’s hard not to agonize over what our kids eat. There are days when I meticulously pack a healthy lunch for my preschooler, and she comes home having eaten everything EXCEPT the fruits and vegetables. And sometimes, we’ll sit at the dinner table, and she’s not interested in a single bite. This is pretty normal toddler behavior, but it tends to make moms crazy. We worry that they’re not getting enough nutrients, enough good stuff to keep their growing bodies healthy, so it makes sense to ask the question: do they need a multivitamin?

  • Talking to your kids about pedestrian safety

    We’ve all heard them before. And if you’re a parent, admit it. You’ve probably said them at least a few times by now:

  • School is in session. Are you ready?

    Every summer seems to bring it’s own challenges: keeping the kids busy, finding the right camps and activities for them, and hopefully having a little family fun - all within two months! Even though the summers are busy, they bring us all a breather from homework, science projects, making lunches, teacher conferences, after school practices, reading every night (oh, wait, we were supposed to do that all summer, too, right?!). And suddenly, here we are, it’s mid August and whether we are ready or not, it’s time to jump into another school year.