by Tom Ulrich on May 14, 2012
Feeling "a little" pinch is a small price to pay for good healthcare. But we can do more to reduce the discomfort. (UNICEF Sverige/Flickr)
I remember distinctly both of my boys’ 4-month-old well visits. Mostly because of the shots: all four of them.
Neither boy was particularly happy about being poked that much (though the shiny Band-Aids afterward did help a little).
My wife and I would have loved to help ease the pain of the shots, but we didn’t have any idea how. Frankly, I don’t know that, in the moment, it crossed our minds that there was something we could do, and it wasn’t something we thought to ask our pediatrician about. I mean, it was just a little bit of pain, right?
The problem, though, is that those little bits of pain add up. “Millions of injections are given to children around the world every year,” says Neil Schechter, MD, a pain specialist in Boston Children’s Hospital’s Anesthesia Department. Schechter recently published an article in Pediatrics where he commented that while we’ve come a long way in the last 50 years in understanding and addressing pain in children—especially after surgery or due to chronic illness—pain in the pediatric office hasn’t received the same level of attention.
“The pain from shots and other minor procedures in a pediatrician’s office doesn’t have the same poignancy as pain in an inpatient setting,” he says, “but it is still pain. And if we want to encourage patients’ and families’ cooperation and participation in routine healthcare, we want to keep pain to a minimum.” Full story »
by Tripp Underwood on June 27, 2010
This week on Thrive:
Is Lady Gaga too much for kids? Michael Rich, MD, MPH, is Children’s media expert. This week he talks about music videos’ influence on kids, specifically Lady Gaga. With catchy choruses and an infectious sound, her music is widely popular, even with younger children, but the thinly-veiled sexuality in her lyrics and videos has some parents concerned.
Working parents, please join the discussion! Claire McCarthy, MD, wrote a Thrive post defending working mothers, in response to a study from the UK linking busy schedules to increased rates of childhood obesity. The post generated a lot of discussion and several readers chimed in with some great advice for raising healthy kids while working full-time. What do you think? Here’s one reader’s reaction:
“Thanks Claire for your well-thought out, well-articulated comments. As a FT working Mom, I agree that there are so many factors that can contribute to our children’s health (or lack of). It’s easier to take one correlation and create a scapegoat rather than take a look at all of the contributors. The societal contributions, especially, often seem too daunting or even impossible to change, so we focus on the scapegoats. We all need to take the appropriate amount of responsibility (no more for those already swimming in Mommy guilt and no less for government officials who don’t provide enough funding for all schools to have healthy options and plenty of exercise) and each do our part.” -Michele
Full story »
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on March 20, 2010
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on March 6, 2010
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on February 20, 2010
by Claire McCarthy on January 28, 2010
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on January 9, 2010
by Matt Cyr on December 15, 2009
In case you missed it, the CDC today recalled 800,000 H1N1 vaccine doses meant for children, age 6 months to nearly 3 years old because they lost some of their strength after being released to the public. The good news is that there are no risks to any child who was vaccinated and you don’t need to get your child re-vaccinated if he or she got doses from the recalled batch; it just may be that your child isn’t quite as protected from H1N1 as you originally thought.
Check out the CDC’s Q&A on the topic.
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It’s that time of year when we think about immunizations. That’s because every January the 
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