The patient was a seven-year-old boy, who came to see me with his mom. She said that he complained of sore throat two days prior and was “spitting up” the “phlegm”. She denied any fever, cough or vomiting up food. She was concerned that her son was not able to eat or drink anything for past two days. The boy was seen on the previous day by a different doctor who examined him and took a throat swab, which showed no strep. During our conversation the boy was sitting on the exam table with a paper cup constantly spitting his saliva in it. He was not coughing [Continue reading…]
Parents often ask questions about their babies stool. So let’s discuss what is normal and what’s not.
Color. The stool is usually yellow in a breast-fed baby, greenish in a formula-fed one. When to worry? If you see blood, especially a lot of it. What to do? See your pediatrician.
Expected Frequency. Can be up to ten times a day in a breast-fed newborn; passing of the stool by a newborn is a sign of a good food intake. Babies should have at least one stool a day. There may be occasional healthy infant (not a newborn) that may have one stool in five days; this child is not constipated [Continue reading…]
A joke goes: “Mothers of teenagers know why some animals eat their young.” But all the jokes apart, raising a teenager can be a stressful and psychologically draining experience. I know it first hand. I am in no way an expert on this matter, just want to share some thoughts.
In some way having a child between the age of 12 and 16 is alike to having a newborn. They keep you up at night, you are worried for their well-being at every moment and you feel exhausted. The difference between taking care of a baby and raising a teen is that with newborns, though they are fragile creatures, a lot is in your power to [Continue reading…]
A 20 month old boy presented in my office with a chief complaint of refusing to fall asleep in his crib. The parents said that whenever they put him in his bed and try to leave the room, he starts screaming until he works himself up to the point of vomiting. They heard many different suggestions from family, friends and their former pediatrician on how to handle the situation, and tried them all: from taking their child out of the crib after every sound he made to not coming into his room and letting him cry. Neither approach worked. By the time they they came to my office, their son was spending every night in their bed and the parents [Continue reading…]
It’s the second year in a row that Anna Strumba MD, a West Bloomfield/ Novi pediatrician and lactation consultant, has been recognized as one of America’s Most Compassionate Doctors. The award is based on patients’ reviews. “While physicians generally receive positive feedback from their patients, only a select few receive praise about the compassion that accompanied their care… Of the nation’s 720,000 active physicians, less than 3% were accorded this honor by their patients in 2011,” Vitals.com, who tabulates this award, says.
When a man becomes a father, he may feel lost and awkward about the task of caring for the baby. As much as he wants to be useful, the new dad does not know where to start and what to do. Considering that a new mom may not feel very upbeat and energetic after delivery and may be in pain or just sleep deprived and emotional, the first two weeks may be tough for the whole family. So what can dads do to make it easier for everyone in the family, including themselves?
The first and most important task is to take good care of your wife. Make sure she [Continue reading…]
Over the past two weeks I have noticed unusually frequent cases of pneumonia among children coming to my practice. Pneumonia has to be promptly treated with antibiotics: a recent study showed that in critically ill children with pneumonia, delays of even a few hours to treatment with the correct antibiotic increase risk for severe complications [1].
What is pneumonia and when should you suspect it? Pneumonia is an infection in the lung (or both lungs). It usually starts acutely with high fever and cough. Children with pneumonia look sick, they have decreased energy and appetite, they may vomit from cough and their breathing is fast and labored. Also pneumonia happens more often in kids who have history of asthma, since their [Continue reading…]
You are expecting a baby. Congratulations! This is such a special time in your life. You may have researched a wealth of books and online resources about what to expect after baby’s arrival. You probably feel more and more excited, and anxious, as you get closer to the due date.
I am always happy to meet expectant mothers or couples coming to my office for a first interview. The fact that you took the time to come and meet me shows that you truly care about the future baby. I will highlight some practical points that may be important to you in the first weeks after birth:
Your baby will be seen by a pediatrician who will come to the hospital [Continue reading…]
We started displaying ads on this site. Running a website costs money, all coming from my family’s budget. I am not reimbursed for these expenses by my employer or anybody else. One way to offset the costs is to display paid ads on the site, so the ads are here to stay.
Hopefully, those ads promote legitimate, quality products of interest to you. The ads are “context sensitive” and should be generally relevant to the topics I cover in my posts (kids health, breastfeeding, parenting, family, etc.) and to the audience of this site (to you, new and [Continue reading…]
One may wonder, “why would a doctor want to become a lactation consultant?” In my work as a pediatrician I frequently have to take care of the babies that are breastfed. In fact, in most situations that means to take care of both: baby and mother. For the baby to be growing and thriving, the mother has to know how to latch and nurse in [Continue reading…]
