‘Safety’ Category
We’re On Fire
I unpacked my suitcase today. But here’s the thing: I didn’t go anywhere, and never have I been more relieved to have stayed put. This year, as many in the past, has been fraught with its share of natural disasters — hurricanes in the east and south, earthquakes, volcanoes, and fires. Fires have hit California […]
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To The Future Harvey Weinsteins of the World
The other day, my teen daughter earned her second degree black belt. She’s been going to her dojo for ten years now, so we’ve certainly gotten a sense of the school’s goals and philosophies in training even the youngest of martial artists. What I love about the dojo is its emphasis on respect for oneself […]
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We are swimming in muddy waters
Guess what! Now it’s ok to eat peanuts or tree nuts during pregnancy! A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association documented that eating nut products during pregnancy actually does not increase an unborn child’s eventual risk of developing nut allergies. Guess what! All plastic products for infants and children no longer […]
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One Less Nut in LALA Land
The day after Jane Brody’s article in the New York Times came out, describing how surprisingly common it is for children to choke on objects, be they toys or food, I’m in the operating room with a toddler’s who’s choked on a cashew. Wait, he’s not even a toddler. He’s a BABY. By some arbitrary […]
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The worst parents in the world, or mixed messages?
The other day, I asked a tearful mom to kiss her boy goodbye before we wheeled him off to the operating room. And we didn’t have time for a long goodbye. He was three-years-old, her ‘one and only’. Just days before, he had choked while eating popcorn, seemed okay right afterwards, but his nagging cough […]
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Pool Safety: It’s Not Just about Watching The Kids
Even though the summer season is coming to a close, just the other day we were reminded of yet another concern about pool safety: pool drains. The music star Usher’s son was pulled to the bottom of his home pool by the suction power of a faulty drain cover. Even if this 5-year-old had been […]
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Breathing Issues in Your Newborn
Anyone who has ever been in a delivery room, be they parent, birthing coach, doctor, or nurse, awaits the same thing: a newborn baby’s first cry. “WAAAAAAAAAAA!!!” and everybody cheers. But did you know that a baby cannot breathe through his wide-open mouth, except when he cries? That’s right, a newborn baby must breathe through […]
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The Cockroach in His Ear
“You did what??” I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about some of the most amazing medical cases I’ve seen and surgeries I’ve done—to make kids breathe better, to save their lives, to better their lives, or to ward off infections. But when I told him, as an aside, in order to […]
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Informed Dissent
Just when we thought the controversy of immunization had reached its height, there is yet a new twist being brought to the California legislature. While many parents with school-aged children have been documenting their refusal to have their children immunized with signed waivers brought to school officials, there is now a plan afoot to mandate […]
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Are we nuts over vaccines?
By Nina Shapiro, MD Author of “Take a Deep Breath: Clear the Air for the Health of Your Child” “Nut-free”, “Peanut-free”, and the latest and greatest: “Nut sensitive”. The rage in preschools and elementary schools across the country is to protect our nut-challenged children from nut exposure, even if it means not exposing them to […]
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