A St. Louis Children's Hospital Blog
By the time kids come to see me in the ER with depression, things are usually pretty bad. Yet, I see it all the time, just about every shift I work. Sometimes it’s after an intentional drug overdose, other times when they are caught holding a gun to their head. Twice in the past year [...]
Last summer on the way home from the beach, the SUV I bought to keep my kids safe had warning lights showing on the dashboard just as we were about to make the day-long drive home. Here I was, far from home and alone with the kids and my trusty vehicle was acting [...]
This week my husband and I announced our big news: we’re expecting our 5th child in September. “Really?” is the most common reply. Here are some of the other zingers we have heard: “Do you hate money?” “Are you done now?” “Are you crazy?” “Was this planned?” “Don’t you know there are things you can [...]
I read countless books on sleep before my son was born. I was hoping to head off sleep problems by starting on the right track. Everything started out according to plan. Most of the books recommended a common schedule: 1) Eat (usually first 30 minutes of cycle) 2) Play (30 min to 1 ½ hours) [...]
I’m going public today with a secret I’ve kept for a year—my husband and I are homeschooling our children. I never dreamed we would become homeschoolers. I wanted my kids integrated and socialized. I wanted their eyes opened to the realities of the world. I wanted the values we taught at home put to the [...]
Did you know that babies sneeze to clear their noses? I think that’s just cool. It’s also cute – to a point. As they get bigger, this mechanism for shooting snot out becomes more frightening than cute. And when there is more snot than a sneeze can handle, it’s stressful and scary. What do you [...]
There is something absurd about a pre-pubertal girl wearing thong underwear—but I see it all the time. After almost ten years of practice as a pediatrician, I’ve witnessed a decade of kids’ underwear trends and styles. Sexy underwear are appearing on younger and younger girls, from Victoria’s secret satin, to thong, to fluorescent string bikinis. [...]
It’s 5 pm on a Thursday when your 5 year old is crying and saying her ear hurts, and she has a temperature of 100.0. Do you: a) go to Urgent Care now and get this ear infection taken care of so that she can go to school in the morning? b) call your pediatrician’s [...]
If you’ve ever used a tanning bed – even once – you have a 75% increased risk of melanoma. And if you’ve been a tanning salon regular, you have up to a 400% increased risk of melanoma, according to Brundha Balaraman, MD, a dermatologist at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Balaraman sees the tragic [...]
On the morning of Valentine’s Day, as I drove off from dropping my teenage daughter at school, I knew that the evening would be filled with stories of all the fun she’d at school, the little snippets of “he said, she said!” As I was thinking of how much fun the teenage years could be, [...]
