pediatric housecalls Robert R. Jarrett M.D. M.B.A. FAAP

Showing posts from: Wellness

Immunization v. Vaccination: A Story of Gullibility, Fear, Despicable Avarice and Scams – Part 2

We’re (by that I mean I and I’m dragging you along with me) trying to make sense of and understand this mess we’re in about immunization; and I’m telling you of how a colleague decided to deliberately immerse himself in the vaccine-hater cottage industry to try and understand how otherwise seemingly rational parents make decisions which are clearly not in the best interest of their children.
Read more →

Immunization v. Vaccination: A Story of Gullibility, Fear, Despicable Avarice and Scams

If you’re like me, all this hysteria about immunizations is a bit hard to comprehend let alone understand. My very early memories concerning health were about friends and classmates becoming crippled and dying of polio and mumps and measles and whooping cough!

I remember taking cans around to collect “pennies by the inch” and news stories about children all over the nation sending dimes to the president and the “children’s March of Dimes.” Why were we so fearful, so troubled, so united, so focused? Were we all stupid? Deluded? Conned? Was it all a myth?
Read more →

Yoga For Children and Stress Reduction

One of several “most interesting” aspects of medical school for my graduating class was had in the psychiatry department when they taught us the science behind and techniques for hypnosis; or, as I’ve heard others refer to it: selective relaxation or meditation. This article is not about yoga per-se but about its usefulness in aiding meditation or relaxation.

I’ve been asked about and used clinical hypnosis (markedly different than “stage hypnosis”) on a few selective patients with uniformly favorable results; I’ve taught a whole lot more patients the techniques of selective relaxation.
Read more →

Meditation For Kids and Time-Outs

I had a friend post an article on his blog about how to cope with tinnitus. He’s not a medical person but has intimate knowledge of the problem from the standpoint of what actually works, and he discussed how meditation helps him.

I communicated with him a little about it and told him that I’d been working on a post about meditation for this blog for about two years. Actually, it’s been sitting in the “possibles” pen for that long, awaiting a bump into production.
Read more →

Safe Sleep For Infants: SIDS & SUIDs

The slogan “Back to Sleep” which revolutionized infant sleep methods has been changed to “Safe To Sleep” to broaden its scope and bring other causes of sleep-related infant death “into the fold” for research. Perhaps you already knew that, the slogan has been registered as a trademark of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Read more →

Puberty: Psychological Stages

I’m sure that Dr. James Tanner didn’t have any idea what would come of it when he took the post that was being offered him by the British Government to continue the Harpenden Orphanage research study in 1948.
Read more→

Body Odor

Puberty changes everything for a child and body odors are one of them. A day’s activity for a 6 year old still may enable them to skip a night in the tub now and then; an adolescent… not so much.

Hormonal changes alter the content of perspiration in addition to making it more copious – a breeding ground for the bacteria causing odors. Simple things like bathing every night and wearing only cotton underwear as opposed to silk or synthetics may be all that’s needed for them to skip taunts by their “friends.”

Puberty: Tanner Stages – Boys

Boys and puberty – what a topic. We’re told that only two people in the history of planet earth got to skip puberty, so it’s obviously a phenomenon which has been afflicting earth children since … forever.

We’re still trying to figure it out, but the task was made much easier around 1948 when Dr. James M. Tanner, a British pediatric endocrinologist trained in the U.S., was asked to Read more→

Puberty: Tanner Stages – Girls

The original study of childhood growth and maturity done by Dr. Tanner at the Harpenden orphanage in England during WWII has been replicated and verified many times since then.
Read more→

Puberty: Tanner Stages and Growth

Pretty much the second question you field from a parent during your pediatric clerkship in medical school (right after “what’s this yukky looking rash”) is: “Do you think (insert name here) is growing well enough?” or, some equivalent question.
Read more→

: