Better Health: Smart Health Commentary Better Health (TM): smart health commentary

Latest Posts

Five Tips To Protect The Most Sensitive Skin

Baby skin is sun-sensitive.

Everyone wishes they had baby skin. It feels so soft and smooth; it’s perfectly adapted to induce us adults to want to clean their diaper, no matter how many times they dirty them. Like their big eyes and cute noses, baby skin is part of the whole package of being adorable. But like their eyes, their skin, however beautiful, is immature. Baby skin is thinner, has less natural moisturizers and has fewer pigment cells, making it more vulnerable to the environment than adult skin.

This is important especially in summer. How often do you see babies running around on the beach with just a diaper on? Although they seem indestructable, they are more vulnerable than the adult holding the pail and shovel.

Studies have shown that up to 83% of babies get sunburned their first year of life. This is our fault, not theirs. Sunburns at an early age can increase the risk for melanoma skin cancer on the trunk later in life. Sun exposure is also a poor way to get vitamin D for infants because most will get far more damaging sun than they need to make vitamin D — we adults tend to over cook them.

Here are five tips to keep your baby safe this summer: Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Dermatology Blog*

Important reminders for parents of newborns

A big part of pediatrics is what we call “anticipatory guidance” and preventive medicine.  This is where we get to impart our wisdom on parents, particularly the vulnerable, first-time ones.  For them, everything is new, exciting and, yes, anxiety provoking.  We hope that we can teach and guide them to raise medically and psychologically healthy children.  One of the first and most important things we can do is stress the importance of immunizing children on time.  I know – I have talked about this ad nauseum!!  But that is because when newborns, children and, yes, adults, are not adequately immunized, they are at risk of developing serious illnesses.  As you may recall, I blogged a couple of months ago about the haemophilus influenzae outbreak in Minnesota, where several children became ill and one died.  Well, guess what?  Now there are cases of measles in my hometown, Rockville.  It appears that an unimmunized adult contracted it and has infected several others, including an 8 month old child who is too young to have received the routine immunization.
But, believe it or not, I am not blogging about immunizations today.  It appears that this is just an example of what happens years after a successful plan has been implemented.  Because we don’t see many of these infections anymore, we aren’t routinely reminded of the importance of preventing them.   We seem to have forgotten that the reason we don’t see many of these deadly infections is precisely because children have been vaccinated.  So … the vaccination rate drops, and as the vaccine rate drops, the risk of contracting one of these illnesses rises.  I can guarantee that if we had an epidemic of measles here, with kids dying, parents would be lining up to ensure their kids were adequately immunized.
Well … it’s the same with ALWAYS putting your infant to bed on the back.  Multiple studies have demonstrated a significant increase in the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) with placing your infant stomach-side down to sleep.  My recollection from when this recommendation first came out is that almost all parents put their infants on their backs to sleep.  Now, however, more and more parents are telling me that they are putting their infants on their stomachs to sleep because they sleep better.  Or, they are watched by a grandparent during the day, who puts them to sleep on their stomachs.  Well … it is even worse to put an infant on its stomach sometimes rather than always (not that I am EVER recommending stomach sleeping).
A study published in this month’s journal, Pediatrics, evaluated 333 infants in Germany over a 3 year period.  As noted in previous studies, those who were placed prone to sleep were at greater risk of dying from SIDS, particularly those who were not used to sleeping prone.  Other factors which increased the risk of SIDS were covers, sleeping at a friend or relative’s house, and sleeping in a living room.  The only factor which decreased the risk of SIDS was the use of a pacifier at night.   With such compelling evidence which supports many other studies on SIDS risk factors, there is no reason to place our infants on their stomachs to sleep – ever.    This includes when they are with any caretaker, including grandparents, nannies, and other relatives.
So let’s not become complacent about treatments that work.  Continue to immunize.  Continue to place infants on their backs to sleep.

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

Read more »

How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

Read more »

See all interviews »

Latest Cartoon

See all cartoons »

Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

Read more »

The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

Read more »

Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

Read more »

See all book reviews »

Commented - Most Popular Articles