For such a small part of the body, ears have a powerful impact. Raise your hand if you’ve spent a long night with a toddler who wakes up suddenly with an earache, and his pain kept him, and you, and other family members up for most of the rest of the night. Earaches often start suddenly, but they’re also masters of surprise. Many children develop colds, sneeze their way through a week of symptoms, and then seem to be on the mend. Until a fever develops late in the week, and an ear starts to hurt right about the time[Read more...]
In every conversation about viruses, bacteria and infections, there is one message that remains clear: proper preventive hygiene is the best way to help prevent the virus from spreading. What do we mean when we say preventative hygiene? We’re talking about any personal practice that helps to stop germs from spreading. This goes for your standard cold, flu, or any other viral illness too. Stopping the spread of germs doesn’t have to be difficult, but it does require practice and consistency. Here are the top four things you and your family can do to prevent the transmission of infections: Wash your[Read more...]
** PLEASE NOTE: While we encourage comments and discussion on all of our articles, please understand that we cannot consult or diagnose patients online. If you are concerned about the health of your child or yourself, please visit your local physician. ** There’s a reason why everyone’s paying attention to the respiratory virus that’s moving across the USA and into Canada this month. Enterovirus D68 is different. It starts as a common cold. And for some previously healthy infants, toddlers and children, it progresses to severe respiratory distress treated in the intensive care unit. This virus has been around since the early 1960s,[Read more...]
How do you build a family? After the delivery of your baby, as you look at your child for the first time, where do you go from there? The details of our family life — address, menus, toys, activities — are part of what makes family life. Yet living on the same street, or attending the same soccer games and buying the same toys at Christmas definitely does not make one family the same as another. How well do you understand your child? How well do you communicate together? Is it easy to connect? Our communication and connections as family[Read more...]
Sleep hygiene is a term used to describe a variety of good sleeping habits. These habits are essential in having normal and quality sleep ensuring full daytime alertness. Common sleeping problems, like insomnia, are often caused by bad sleeping habits. We often see toddlers, children and teens with sleep problems at Quinte Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. They come to us with complaints of feeling tired in the morning. Some have mild developmental delays, or poor concentration at school, or slipping grades, or grumpy behaviour, impatience and “behaviour problems.” Here is a list of simple sleep habits that can help to[Read more...]
