Just Call Me Dad

I don’t pretend to be an expert on food. To be honest, I’m not even very knowledgeable about the topic of food. Sure, I’m a pretty good cook, and I have some ideas about what food is good for us and what food is bad for us. However, I don’t know enough to keep me from being in the 66% of people who are currently overweight.

A few weeks ago, Nick and I went to Wal-Mart in the afternoon and we bought a three pack of Reese Peanut Butter Cups. We each had one, and the third cup stayed in my coat pocket. That night when it was time for a bedtime snack, I offered him the third peanut butter cup. My wife made it clear that this was not an appropriate snack. Of course, when I actually thought about it, I also knew that this was not a healthy snack. However, habit and convenience led me to not think about it.

I think that most of us know about food, but we don’t spend a lot of time actually thinking about food or the food that we eat. Of course, as adults, we have every right to eat whatever we want and live with the consequences of that. However, my concern was that I was teaching Nick some poor eating habits, and that did not sit well with me. I reached out to a Nutritionist with a list of questions, and that will be the subject of a coming blog post. In the meantime, I came across an excellent video from TED 2010. In it, Jamie Oliver (of Food Network fame) talks about childhood obesity and the way that we feed our kids. It’s about 20 minutes long, and really made me think about how I feed my son, and also about how I feed myself. I hope that you enjoy it.

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The medical journal The Lancet has retracted the controversial 1998 study which first suggested a link between the MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) vaccine and Autism.

I hardly think that this will quiet the controversy, but it is an interesting development. Here is a link to the story on CNN.com:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/02/lancet.retraction.autism/index.html

The story at CNN has some interesting related articles and a video, but I am also copying the story here for you to read.

The Following Is From CNN.com:

(CNN) — The medical journal The Lancet on Tuesday retracted a controversial 1998 paper that linked the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism.
The study subsequently had been discredited, and last week, the lead author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, was found to have acted unethically in conducting the research.
The General Medical Council, which oversees doctors in Britain, said that “there was a biased selection of patients in The Lancet paper” and that his “conduct in this regard was dishonest and irresponsible.”

The panel found that Wakefield subjected some children in the study to various invasive medical procedures such as colonoscopies and MRI scans. He also paid children for blood samples for research purposes at his son’s birthday party, an act that “showed a callous disregard” for the “distress and pain” of the children, the panel said.
Following the council’s findings last week, The Lancet retracted the study and released this statement.

“It has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al. are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation. In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were ‘consecutively referred’ and that investigations were ‘approved’ by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record.”

Dr. Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, said he reviewed the GMC report regarding Wakefield’s conduct. “It’s the most appalling catalog and litany of some the most terrible behavior in any research and is therefore very clear that it has to be retracted,” he said.
CNN was unable to reach Wakefield for a comment.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention praised The Lancet’s retraction, saying, “It builds on the overwhelming body of research by the world’s leading scientists that concludes there is no link between MMR vaccine and autism. We want to remind parents that vaccines are very safe and effective and they save lives. Parents who have questions about the safety of vaccines should talk to their pediatrician or their child’s health care provider.”

Since its publication, Wakefield’s study has attracted many critics who argued that the work had been so flawed it should not be regarded as scientific. Wakefield theorized that the measles vaccine caused gastrointestinal problems and that those GI problems led to autism. In his view, the virus used in the vaccine grew in the intestinal tract, leading the bowel to become porous because of inflammation. Then material seeped from the bowel into the blood, Wakefield’s theory said, affecting the nervous system and causing autism. But subsequent research has been unable to duplicate Wakefield’s findings.

A September 2008 study replicated key parts of Wakefield’s original paper and found no evidence that the vaccine had a connection to either autism or GI disorders. The study, conducted at Columbia University, Massachusetts General Hospital and the CDC, also found no relationship between the timing of the vaccine and children getting GI disorders or autism.
The Wakefield study has been a key piece of evidence cited by parents who do not vaccinate their children. “The story became credible because it was published in The Lancet,” Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, said Tuesday. “It was in The Lancet, and we really rely on these medical journals.”

Singer, the mother of a child with autism, added, “That study did a lot of harm. People became afraid of vaccinations — this is the Wakefield legacy — this unscientifically grounded fear of vaccinations that result in children dying from vaccine-preventable diseases.”

Retractions are rare in medical journals and usually occur as a result of fraud or plagiarism, said Marcia Angell, a former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. “It is a major event when there is a retraction like this,” she said. “It sounds like there was a misleading design of the study … patients not randomly chosen. There were ethical violations.”

William Schaffner, professor and chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, described the journal’s level of action as “unprecedented.”

“Since Wakefield’s study came out, some 20 other studies have come out, and each one of these studies, done by different researchers, in different populations and in different countries has denied the associations between vaccines and autism,” he said. “… Scientifically, this story is over.”

Schaffner added, “This series of events is damning and should refocus all of us in the field to find better methods of diagnosis and treatments.” The Lancet came under criticism for the initial publication of the paper 12 years ago.

Calling the Lancet’s retraction “exceptionally disingenuous,” Dr. Paul Offit, author of “Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure,” said the medical journal has much to be embarrassed about over the matter.

“The science in that paper was never that good enough to warrant publication,” he said. “And it did a lot of harm. …

“The mere publishing of this paper created something that will never fully go way — the false notion that MMR caused autism,” said Offit, the chief of division of infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The retraction did little to change the opinion of Rebecca Estepp, a spokeswoman for Talk About Curing Autism. Estepp said her son has autism and bowel problems. She said she remains convinced he had a vaccine reaction and that Wakefield’s research helped doctors identify how to help her son. “I guess the GMC can say whatever they want to say for the rest of their existence, but I know that my son got better because of Dr. Wakefield,” she said.

Cases in which U.S. families have sued alleging a vaccine-autism link have had mixed outcomes. In 2007, a U.S. federal program intended to compensate victims of injuries caused by vaccines concluded that a 9-year-old girl’s underlying illness had predisposed her to symptoms of autism and was “significantly aggravated” by the vaccinations. Two years later, three different American families sought compensation from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, but the panel ruled that they had not presented sufficient evidence to prove that the vaccines caused autism in their children.
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Stork Craft & Fisher Price Recall 2.1 Million Cribs

I’ve got a few comments and extra information about this recall, but first, in case you haven’t heard about this yet, here is the link to the actual recall.

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml10/10046.html

Note that this recall affects all of North America.

Getting through to Stork Craft has been almost impossible this week. However, I did manage to find a link to the Stork Craft blog that not only seems to work, but also provides the information that concerned parents need to get.

http://storkcraft.blogspot.com/2009/11/stork-craft-recall-information.html

The company has also issued a YouTube interview with the President of Stork Craft. You can view it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EuCV8f1ndc

Stork Craft has also posted a YouTube video showing how to install the recall kit. You can view it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2RUXYmipmU&feature=related

You should also note that this is not the first time Stork Craft has had a recall on these cribs. I covered the last recall here:

http://justcallmedad.com/2009/01/important-storkcraft-crib-recall/

While the repair kit has been approved by Canadian and US officials, one US official, Inez Tenenbaum, head of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, suggested on NBC’s Today show that “It is made of plastic, so if you can afford another crib that does not have a drop-side, or even if you can’t afford it, there are many charities in communities that can provide you with a new crib. That really is the safest way to handle this situation.”

This is the crib that we have; we have inspected it and have found everything to be in good working order. Nick is still sleeping in it for the time being.

Depending on the age of your child, you have a few options.
1. Replace the crib with a new crib.
2. Repair the crib as per the recall.
3. Replace the crib with a toddler bed.

Parenting is never easy, is it?

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Let me start out this post by saying two things:

1. I am not a doctor, just a concerned parent. This post represents only my opinion, and you should do your own research and consult your own experts before making a decision.

2. I live in Canada. This may seem insignificant, but my readers that live in the United States have many more, and in my opinion better, options available to them.

The Canadian government, like most other governments, has locked up the market on the swine flu vaccine. This means that if you want to get it, you will probably have to get it from a government clinic or vaccination program. This also means that the vast majority of the vaccines on the market today will have been chosen by the government in order to protect the widest cross section of people. Any pandemic prevention program is a numbers game; save the lives of the most number of people possible.

It is in that last sentence that things go from theory to reality for most parents, especially those that live in Canada. You see, the Canadian government has chosen two vaccines to distribute amongst its citizens. One is adjuvanted, one is non-adjuvanted. An adjuvant is a chemical substance that is added to a vaccine to quote “make it more effective” endquote. While that sounds like a good thing, it is a little misleading. See, the efficacy of the adjuvanted vaccine is around 98%, while the efficacy of the non-adjuvanted vaccine is about 95%. That hardly seems like a difference that makes it worth adding extra chemicals to a drug. In reality, an adjuvant does one other thing: it allows the drug manufacturer to use less anti-viral ingredients in the vaccine. Anti-virals are the ingredient that makes the vaccine work, and they are also the ingredient that is in very short supply. By adding an adjuvant to a drug, the manufacturer uses up less of the precious anti-viral ingredient and therefore increases the number of vaccines available to inoculate people. Thus, more people are able to get vaccinated.

At first glance, this seems like a great thing; more people get protected, and the world becomes safer, even for those who are not vaccinated. What’s the problem? Depending on where you live and what your government believes there is either no problem, or some very large concerns are raised. In much of Europe, adjuvants have been used for years. The adjuvant used in the Canadian vaccine is called AS03, and adults in Europe have been taking it or a variant of it for over a decade with very few side effects.

Notice two things: In Europe, and Adults.

In the United States, according to my research, the FDA currently has no approved vaccinations that contain adjuvants, despite their track record in Europe and approval by the World Health Organization. Why? Also, there has been very little data on their use in children. According to the drug information sheet, for children 6 months to 35 months “No clinical data are available for influenza vaccines with AS03 in this age group.”

Wait, did I read that right? There is no history of this drug being used in children from 6 months to 3 years old? Yes, that is correct. In effect, this vaccination program is going to be a very large clinical trial for the safety of adjuvants in children. Sounds creepy to me.

But, didn’t I just say that there are two vaccines, and adjuvanted version, and a non-adjuvanted version? Why not just request the non-adjuvanted version? Interesting. See, in addition to there being no research on the safety of this adjuvant in children under three, there is also no research into the safety of the adjuvant in pregnant women. So, even though the government claims that the adjuvant is safe for pregnant women, they also say that the preferred vaccine for pregnant women is the non-adjuvanted version. Because of this, the end-user does not get to choose the vaccine they receive. To me, that sounds like talking out both sides of your mouth.

Both versions of the drug available in Canada also contain Thimersol.

In the US, you have many other options, including Thimersol free versions, if you can find them, as well as a live-virus version that is inhaled into the nose as a mist.

I placed a phone call to my local health district, and was told that I could request the non-adjuvanted version, but that the decision on which version to give would ultimately be made by the person in charge of the clinic based on demand. There would be no guarantees.

What is a parent to do?

First of all, I’m not a Thimersol conspiracy believer. The drug (which acts as a preservative) is believed by many people to be a trigger for Autism, a disorder with whom any parent is well-versed in this day and age. The problem is, Thimersol was removed from almost every vaccine given to kids in 2001, and the rates of Autism continue to rise. This leads me to think that there is no Thimersol-Autism connection, and the vast majority of doctors agree with this. In my mind, there is no worry here.

Now I need to deal with the issue of adjuvants. There is a lot of talk about these chemicals on the internet, some of it correct, some of it sort of correct, and even more that is wildly wrong. The most glaring example of this is the claim that the adjuvant used in an anthrax vaccine is the cause of Gulf-War Syndrome. All of the actual research that I could find says that this is wrong, and that there was no adjuvant used in that vaccine. Other conspiracy options on the net include the adjuvant being used to sterilize our children for population control to the adjuvant causing a whole host of neurological disorders. I did not however, find any conspiracies relating to a zombie apocalypse, which is a good thing. Unless, of course, the lack of zombie conspiracies is actually a conspiracy in itself?

Even though I love a good conspiracy, I don’t believe that the government is going to knowingly sterilize an entire generation of people. However, I still don’t like the idea of my son being used as a test mule for the government or a drug company.

My available options were as follows:

1. Drive to the US for the nasal mist version.

2. Give my son the adjuvant-free version.

3. Give my son the dose and version reccomended by the government.

I strongly considered option #1. If I lived in the US, this would be my choice. However, the odds of being able to find it in the states near me, coupled with the fact that they probably wouldn’t give it to my son because we were from out of state meant that I had to let it go. My preferred choice was #2. I would gladly trade 3% in effectiveness for the reliability of a known vaccine (the swine flu vaccine anti-viral is created the same way that the seasonal flu anti-viral is created). However, I also decided that, if no other option was available, that I would allow him to get the adjuvant version.

In the end, we trekked to the swine flu vaccination clinic, stated outright that we wished for the non-adjuvant vaccine, and were promptly denied. There was only enough for pregnant women, period. Nick got the adjuvant version.

My decision process basically revolved around two factors. I did not believe that the government (and more importantly, doctors) would knowingly put an entire generation at risk, and also because I did not want Nick to get the swine flu. I have relatives in the medical field, and all of their stories are about how terrible this disease is. I know that there are a lot of anecdotal stories about the swine flu being milder than the regular flu, but in my experience many of these people are not being tested to determine whether they actually have swine flu or the seasonal flu. Doctors are treating everyone as if they have the swine flu to be cautious, but are not testing due to cost. The stories of confirmed swine flu cases I have heard all involve hospitals, very high fevers, and a lot of pain. In addition, the swine flu seems to be affecting younger children more, probably because they have been exposed to fewer viruses over their lives, while older people are more likely to already have some form of protection from the disease.

This was not an easy decision, and I know many will think me foolish for making the decision that I did. At last study, over 50% of people in Canada were not planning on taking the vaccine. I ultimately decided, based on Nick’s previous lack of reactions to vaccines and a (I can’t believe I’m saying this)  trust in the government experts, that my son would be safer taking the vaccine than not taking it.

Whatever you decide to do, please make sure that you thoroughly investigate all of your sources of information. There is a lot of great information out there, but there is also a lot of wildly inaccurate information floating around. Good luck to all of you in whatever you choose.

 Drug Data Sheet:

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/prodpharma/legislation/interimorders-arretesurgence/prodinfo-vaccin-eng.php

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Nick loves Thomas and Friends, as I’m sure most two year olds do. The small, rugged trains are painted in bright colors, have strong magnets, and a world of television, clothing, and Internet promotion to keep the kids coming back for more. Obviously a huge marketing success, Thomas can also be used to teach our children about many things.

COLORS

One of the best things about the Thomas and Friends trains are the wide variety of colors that the engines and trucks are painted. No real life railroad would paint their locomotives red, blue, green, black, orange, purple, and brown, but it sure helps our kids learn about colors. As you play, ask your kids questions about colors like:

Nick, which engine is blue?

Nicholas, what color is Gordon?

NUMBERS

I’m sure many corporate fleets could learn something about the simple method that Sir Topham-Hat uses to keep his group of engines organized. There is no way that the local company my neighbor works for is so big that his truck deserves to have UNIT # 465C painted on the side of it. The Sodor Train Company keeps things simple: Thomas is #1, Percy is #6, Gordon is #4. This is great for learning numbers and counting. As you play, ask your kids questions like:

Nicholas, which engine is #6?

Nick, do you see the number 2 on any of these engines?

As a child grows older, you could even use the trains to teach addition and subtraction. Imagine making a long train, counting all of the cars together, and then removing two cars from the end of the train.

How many cars are left?

Or, try addition:

If Percy is pulling two mail trucks, and picks up one milk truck, how many trucks is Percy pulling now?

PHYSICS

 Alright, two is a little young to be thinking about my child becoming the next star student at MIT, but the fact is that the laws of physics control the way the world around us works. The sooner that our kids become familiar with these concepts, the sooner that they can move on to other things. Nick’s eyes light up when one train magically picks another up off the floor, or pushes another train down the track just by bringing them close to each other. Many people don’t know this, but the trains have opposite poles on each of their magnets. This means that the train cars and engines all have to be facing in the same direction in order for them to couple to each other. Place them in the wrong direction and the forces of magnetism actually repel the two cars. It’s amazing to watch my son place two cars together, realize one is backwards, and turn it around so that they both click together.

MANUAL DEXTERITY

 Those little wooden train tracks have connectors that are not much larger than many puzzle pieces. It requires a fairly high degree of dexterity to assemble a track.

IMAGINATION

Think about the considerable imaginative play that is required to create a story in your child’s mind and act it out on a set of wooden rails. Also consider the significant understanding of the world that a 2 year old needs in order to lay 10 pieces of track into a complete circuit so that he or she can drive a train completely around it. It requires a clear vision of what the end product looks like, and an understanding of cause and effect to place one piece in one way and knowing that the next piece has to go a certain way or the track will never work out. The individual pieces of train tracks are really an open ended game for kids; kind of like Grand Theft Auto 4 but without the shoot-outs (and drugs and prostitutes).

The best part? I like Thomas too. The toys are fun and simple, and I love playing trains with my son. Keep an eye on this blog for some other train news as Nick’s birthday approaches.

Interested in picking up some Thomas and Friends toys? Check out Amazon.com for a complete selection.

We have used Baby Tylenol since Nick was an infant to treat his fevers and other pain. One complaint that I always had, especially once he got older, was the dosing device included with the medicine. Baby Tylenol comes with a small 1.0 ml eyedropper dispenser that is not entirely easy to use. In addition, as Nick grew, his dose grew to be larger than 1ml, meaning that we would have to go through the entire procedure twice. This is not easy to do with a crying baby. Also, I don’t really think the act of putting a used dropper back into the bottle of medicine is the safest thing to do; after all, if your child is sick, there are likely to be germs on the dropper.

My solution has been to collect the syringes from the various antibiotics that Nick has been on and use them. These syringes have excellent markings on them for volume, and are easy to take apart and clean. Also, because you can squirt them out pretty quickly, it’s easy to give the medicine to the baby. The problem with this is that the syringe doesn’t fit into the bottle of Tylenol, so I end up spilling when loading the syringe. I asked and looked at all the pharmacies nearby, and could not find a narrower syringe.

Well, last week Nick was having a really hard time with some tooth pain. He had 4 teeth coming in all at once, and he would cry especially hard near bed time. Giving him Baby Tylenol at bed time really helped, but it wore off, and he was waking up at 1am to cry again. Frustrated, we bought a bottle of Baby Advil which was supposed to be effective for 8 hours.

When I opened the box of Baby Advil I was rewarded with a wonderful sight – a 3.0ml syringe narrow enough to fit into the bottle! Yeah! Unfortunately, the syringe is marked only at 1.0ml, 1.4ml, and 3.0ml, but since these are the recommended dosages it’s not really a problem. To make things even better, the Baby Advil allowed Nick to sleep the entire night without waking up in pain.

So kudos to you Advil for thinking about how your medicine is actually used and designing a dispenser that makes it easy. I won’t be buying Baby Tylenol again.

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This story has three parts.

Part 1

On Friday night I read an article about how to discipline kids (unfortunately, I can’t seem to find the article again, but if I do, I will post a link for you). To summarize, the author suggested that parents need to learn the difference between a BEHAVIOUR PROBLEM, and a SITUATIONAL PROBLEM. This difference might seem trivial – if your child is misbehaving, your child is misbehaving, right? Well, perhaps not. The author went on to say that if we learn to file our child’s behaviour under the correct title, we can learn to deal with the situation better. Interesting.

Part 2

Saturday afternoon Nick and I went to run a few errands. The last errand was a visit to Staples to pick up a new thumbdrive. In Staples, Nick saw a Thomas the Tank Engine calendar for sale (with big Thomas pictures on the cover). He had to have it. I said no, and he had a cry; nothing too serious, but a cry nonetheless.

It was now 5:00pm. To try and get him in a good mood before going home I thought I’d take him into the Toy’s R Us across the parking lot. There is a large display of Thomas stuff there, and a table with a train set on it that kids can play with. I thought Nick might like that, and if he was good, I could add a Gordon to the set at home.

The playtime was great; leaving the store was not. Nick melted down. Screaming, kicking, and twisting when I picked him up. I tried for a little while to calm him down, but nothing was working. I ended up carrying him out of the store while he screamed in my ear. It was now 5:30pm – supper time. He calmed down on the drive home, ate supper, and was wonderful for the rest of the evening.

Part 3

Sunday afternoon I had a couple more chores to do with Nick. The first was to buy a new cordless drill at Princess Auto (don’t laugh at the name, the store is AWESOME!). The second task was to pick up a couple of things at The Home Depot.

Princess Auto was excellent. Nick was interested, engaged, and having a good time. The time was 4:40pm.

This is where the moment of learning takes place. As I began to drive towards the big orange box store I recalled the article I had read two days before. Then, I thought about the events at Toy’s R Us. I realized that Nick was likely tired, hungry, and bored when I took him to Toy’s R Us, and that the store, which is designed to stimulate children’s senses, probably pushed him over the edge. I’m sure that playing with the trains didn’t help. Nick was misbehaving, sure, but more importantly, I had placed him in a situation where a 19 month old child was destined to misbehave.

I made a decision. Instead of going to The Home Depot, we went to the playground near our house. We ran around the grass, went down the slide a few dozen times, and then tasted some rocks (hey, he’s 19 months old). It was great fun. Nick enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. We went home, had supper, a bath, and then went to bed. It was the perfect end to a perfect day.

Summary

Obviously, we can’t pass the blame for our children’s behaviour off on other things all the time. Sometimes, screaming because he wants a train and I won’t buy it for him is simply bad behaviour. However, it is possible that, at other times, parents need to take a share of the blame. The trick is knowing the difference. If we think our child is at fault too often we become nagging parents, the kind you see swearing at their kids in the mall. If we assume that external influences are to blame too often, we become the parents who make constant excuses for their kids and never let them take any responsibility for their actions.

As with most things, the key is to find the proper balance.

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Nick has had several ear infections in the past few months; we finally ended up with a referral to an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist) to have him evaluated.

In a way, it was good timing – he was fighting a cold at the time of the appointment, so the Doctor got to see him in a situation ripe for an ear infection.

The Doctor was able to do some really interesting tests. He had a machine that applied pressure to the eardrum and then measured the response; it was also able to tell a little bit about the shape of the eardrum.

The results – Nick’s eardrums were slightly concave, which is normal for a child recovering from an ear infection. Also, his eardrums moved freely and responded to the changing air pressure. What this meant was that: 1) he was getting better, 2) he didn’t have any hearing problems, and 3) there was no need for tubes to be installed in his ears. All great things.

The final advice of the Doctor was not to take Nick to the Doctor every time he has a cold or seems to be tugging at his ears. What he asked us to do was monitor Nick’s temperature; anything over 39C and we should take him to the Doctor, anything less and he should be treated with baby Tylenol.

I don’t think this advice applies to every baby in every situation, and my intention isn’t to advise you NOT to take your baby to the doctor. However, I thought I would share the information in case you were hearing something similar from your doctor, and wanted to know if other parents were being told the same thing.

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About a month ago when Nick was fighting a cold, I posted some tips to help parents deal with sick kids. In that article I mentioned that you shouldn’t give cold medicine to young kids, even if the medicine was intended for them. I also provided some links to articles about that very topic. Interestingly, the debate has popped up in the news again as a group of Pediatricians has called on the FDA to ban children’s cough and cold medicine.

I heard about this on the radio today, and did a little bit of digging. It seems that the FDA has strengthened it’s position a little, but has declined to ban the products outright. You can read more about the story here.

As you can probably imagine based on my last post, I’ve been doing some research on babies and colds over the past few days. What I’ve found hasn’t really been all that surprising – THERE IS NO CURE. Well, as someone who gets 5 or 6 colds a year, I could have told you that. I did learn a few things however. When I get sick, I generally progress through the following steps over the course of a week or ten days:

1. Think to myself that my throat is sore.
2. Whine to my wife that I am getting sick.
3. Act like a baby for one day at the peak of the cold.
4. Return to the real world with boxes of DayQuil/NyQuil Value Packs (or Tylenol Cold & Sinus!)
5. Gradually get better and then forget I was ever sick.

It has become obvious that Nick isn’t able to follow most of these steps, what with him not being able to talk and everything. So more had to be done.

First, what is the common cold? An infection of your upper respiratory tract. Colds are spread by a wide variety of viruses, and you generally become immune to that virus after beating a cold. Since the viruses are constantly mutating however, it doesn’t really matter, as the same cold virus will never hit you a second time. The common cold is spread by contact, especially by objects such as door handles, telephones, and especially for kids – toys. Once you get the virus on your hands and touch your eyes, ears, mouth, or nose, you have been exposed to the virus, and you get sick. As kids play together, with their runny noses and uncovered coughs, colds are passed around a lot. According to Mayoclinic.com it is not uncommon for kids to get as many as 10 colds in a year – yikes. You can help prevent the spread of colds by washing the child’s hands and toys regularly, especially if he or she has recently had a playdate.

How To Treat The Cold
As I mentioned above, there is no cure. That means there is no medicine that will make the cold go away, or go away faster, so you really are limited to treating the symptoms. There have been many recent studies involving children and cold medicines, and they show that medications aren’t effective in young children, and they often overdose the child which, well isn’t good. Follow these steps instead:

First – Take your child’s temperature regularly, and monitor it often.

Second – Call your Doctor with this information. Even if your child doesn’t seem to be having a fever, call your GP or Pediatrician and let them know the age and weight and details of your child and ask for recommendations. Colds can rapidly turn into ear infections in children, and babies are so small it is never worth taking a chance.

Third – keep wiping their noses regularly. If the mucus is free flowing, it will be easy to remember to do this. Nick starts flailing around as soon as he sees a Kleenex come towards his face, and he usually ends up burying his face in my shoulder, wiping the snot all over my shirt. Mission accomplished. I wipe up my shirt and move on. If the nose is kind of dry and crusty, saline drops are available to help break up the mucus. You can then get a suction bulb to suck up the boogers. My success with the suction bulb is similiar to my success with the Kleenex, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Interestingly, our Doctor wasn’t big on the suction bulb, she suggested that it (the snot) will all come out in the end, and to not worry about it. She also said it does no harm. Most webpages and books seem to like the suction bulb, and you probably have one anyway, so use your parental intuition or your own Doctor’s advice.

Fourth – Keep the baby well hydrated and fed. Because babies are so small they dehydrate really quickly, and it is important to keep fluids in them. Nick really lost his appetite for a day or so, but he really kept sucking back liquids. His appetite returned, and now all is well.

Fifth – Run a vaporizer. If you have one, these things are great for everybody in the family. They moisten the air which helps to clear out the sinuses. If you don’t have one, you can sit in the bathroom (on the floor or on the toilet) while running hot water in the shower. The steam generated by the shower can do the same thing. Don’t actually get in the shower with your baby.

NEVER - apply menthol, campor, peppermint, or any product with these ingredients anywhere on your baby. Studies show they can be harmful.

NEVER - give your baby any medicine not specifically prescribed by a Doctor. This includes any cold medicines labelled for infants. There is no proof that they work, and they are often quite harmful. Here are a few links to convince you not to do this:

No Cold Medicine for Infants or Toddlers

FDA – Recommendations for OTC Cough and Cold Products

Here is a great link to the Mayoclinic.com that talks specifically about babies and colds:

MayoClinic.com – Babies and The Common Cold

Finally, please remember that I am a concerned parent, and not a Doctor or medical professional. Do your own research, use your own parental intuition, and most importantly, contact your own Doctor whenever your baby is sick.