How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor

Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, renowned pediatrician and author advises parents on home treatment and diagnosis of colds and flus, childhood illnesses, vision and hearing problems, allergies, and more. PLUS, a complete section on picking the right doctor for your child, step-by-step instructions for knowing when to call a doctor, and much more.

All responsible parents and parents-to-be will want to hear the other side of the story when it comes to standard pediatric practices. Dr. Mendelsohn gives a thorough introduction to making INFORMED decisions about your child's health in this consise, down-to-earth manual.

"How to Raise a Healthy Child" does two very important things. First, it gives parents information about common childhood behavior, illnesses and accidents so that they can treat their child at home when possible and can discern when medical help is necessary. Second, it warns parents about questionable practices and attitudes common in the medical community.

It is important for parents to realize, though, that the book is a little dated and that some things have changed for the better (for example, pediatrics does not seem to be as formula-happy as it once was and now favors natural breast feeding). However, some things are as bad as ever or even worse (a respected private hospital near me has close to a 50% C-section rate when research shows that 95% of births are uneventful if allowed to take their natural course).

The greatest benefit of this book is that it will give you the frame of mind needed to make safe judgement calls when a doctor tells you you "must" do such-and-such for your child.

In the end, you may wish to do further research before making final decisions about things like vaccines, which seems to be a very emotional issue for some. For example, one reviewer here referred to the author as "biased" against vaccines but only refuted the least relevant point made in the book, ingnoring several others; this made me wonder whether the reviewer is biased in favor of vaccines. Parents should read various books and articles, pro and con, before making such choices. (By the way, questions about vaccines are mounting in the vetrinary community as well.)

"How to Raise a Healthy Child" ought to be in every parent's library. It can save you heartache and money and can save your child needless (and sometimes dangerous) medical treatment.