These are more important than the gross motor milestones in assessing the development of a child because these milestones require fine co-ordination and use of the small muscles (e.g. of hand) to perform intricate and delicate tasks like eating, holding small objects etc. In gross motor milestones, big muscles like those of trunk, hips etc. are used.
Continue reading Child Care: Fine Motor Milestone Development
KEY POINTS
❖ Breast-feeding: In the initial 4 months, the baby requires only milk (not even water). There is a fine balance by nature between the production of milk and its demand by the baby. More is the milk required by the baby, more it sucks, which is the most potent stimulus for more milk production. So more is the demand, more is the supply.
Some useful advice and facts regarding breast-feeds are given below.
1. Express some milk from the breast before feeding. It makes the areolar area soft and compressible for the baby.
Continue reading Child Care: Useful Advice and Facts Regarding Breast Feeding
In the majority of cases it is due to viral infection of the intestines. Benign and self-limiting, it again doesn’t require anything else but electral or ORS solution to make up for the fluid losses in diarrhea stools (i.e. to prevent the child from going into dehydration). Most of the diarrheas will correct themselves spontaneously in 2-3 days and in fact giving “over vigorous” therapy like antibiotics etc. may worsen the diarrhea because the antibiotics kill the “good” bacteria in the intestines.
Continue reading Child Care: Treatment for Diarrhea in Children
School readiness involves a physical, social and emotional capacity to cope up with an alien environment. The demands are many. The child should have bladder and bowel control, should be able to overcome stranger anxiety and be away from his mother at least for some time. He should have a fair expression of language, both receptive and expressive.
Continue reading Child Care: When to Start Schooling for Your Child?
SHOULD A CHILD BE GIVEN HOMEWORK?
Much homework should not be given to the child. The child already is in school from 8 o’clock to 3 o’clock. He gets up at 6 o’clock to reach school by 8 o’clock. On top of it, when he reaches home by 4 P.M., the thought uppermost in his mind is that he has to complete his homework. In fact, the school timings of a child are roughly equal to office timings of a government employee. When such employees reach home, they are usually tired and stressed out. Do they have to do any homework?
Any drug which has caused reaction earlier, even in a mild form, must not be repeated.
Sources of infection are many and some patients react not only to specific drugs but also react to particular type of food stuff, environs, scents, odours, drinks and eatables, oils, meats, milk and milk products, poultry and sea products, colours, chemicals, persons, situations etc. A doctor generally has hardly any time to think of and apply his mind on such vital aspects. Let us not blame the doctors who are pravailed upon by the patients to re-lieve them of their agony within the shortest possible time.
Once a renowned physician told the author that a patient will talk about his most disturbing and dominant symptom ahead of all the other symptoms and, if a physican is able to manage that most disturbing complaint of headache or abdominal pain or for that matter any other pain, most of his sympathetic pains will also disappear as soon as the most prominent symptom gets dispelled. To achieve this end, he should be given some palliative to overcome the immediate problem, rest of the complaints can be discerned and treated subsequently. An experienced doctor can easily decide about seat and cause of the pain, and then, it shouldn’t be difficult for him to manage the crisis stage.
Continue reading Modern Medicine: Managing Emergent/Crisis Situations
It simply means air in the tissues which manifests its appearance after attacks of asthma, whooping cough and bronchitis. Particular class of persons are its victims who have to fill their lungs up with air; for instance flute, sexophone, clarinet, trombone and other musical instrument(s) users, goldsmiths, people working in glass factories etc. The patient has to inhale and exhale in a quick succession (alternatively) when lungs and air apparatus have no rest or relaxation.
Nasal Blockade and Cough
Blockade of either or both the nasal passages causes breathing problems, especially when the child has to breathe through his mouth. If there is cough also, it will make even mouth-breathing difficult. IF cough is stingy and tenacious, he won’t be able to cough up the sputum and, thus, feel choked. When all these problems combine, the child feels gagged, suffocated and tired To cure these complications, insert a drop of saline water in each nostril or use Nasivion paediatric nasal drops. Give 2.5 ml (1/4 TSP) of Tyxlax syrup after an interval of 4-6 hours.