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Home > Portable Practical Pediatrics > Interesting Conversations w/ Parents (Pedcast) May 2017
Podcast: Portable Practical Pediatrics
Episode:

Interesting Conversations w/ Parents (Pedcast) May 2017
Category: Kids & family
Duration: 00:00:00
Publish Date: 2017-05-07 20:26:20
Description: Introduction Doc Smo here. Thanks for joining me today. I was looking at the stats for my blog the other day and noticed something interesting; 3 of the top 7 downloaded pedcasts for 2016 were my interesting conversations series. In other words, parents like to hear what other parents are talking about. And why not... I have interesting and well-informed parents bringing their children to me.  In that vein, here we go with my next edition of the "Interesting Conversation w/ Parents" series. Musical Intro Conversation #1 Dry Drowning  Recently I was talking to a Mom of a 3 year old young man who was lucky enough to have been taken to Disney World. In fact, they had just returned from their trip and his mother told me she had been a nervous wreck the entire trip. When I asked her why, she told me that she feared her children would succumb to "Dry Drowning".  She had lost a lot of sleep watching her children each night, after the kids had spent a lot of time at the many pools at the Disney World Resort. She was convinced that if they choked on water at all in the pool, they might die later that day. Talk about a stressful vacation!  I had to admit to her that not only have I never seen a child have a dry drowning, but also I had never heard of such a thing. Somehow I had missed this topic in medical school and residency. I have seen children develop aspiration pneumonia after a severe choking episode or near drowning in the water.  She said that "dry drowning" is different. She went onto explain to me a dry drowning is when a child seems fine after swimming and having a choking event in the water but a few hours later, the goes to sleep and dies. Since our conversation, I have done a little research and found out that most experts think that not only does a child have to have been in water prior to the dry drowning, but they have to either aspirated water into their lungs or choked enough on swallowed water that their larynx or voice box goes into spasm. When the dry drowning does occur, the choking event is followed within hours by a cough, trouble breathing, drowsiness, and possibly death. It's not just going to sleep and dying like this Mom thought. This very rare event had seemed to ruin this mother's vacation. What a pity. I am not even sure her child had any choking events.  This is exactly why the AAP, has been ambivalent about submersion swim lessons for infants and young children and advocates extremely supervision of young children around water.  Forcing babies and toddlers under water to teach them to hold their breath and float has risks, for me, more risk than there is benefit.   Conversation #2- Ear Buddies  This interesting conversation came up when I was seeing a newborn who had odd shaped ears for the first time in the office. Having floppy ears, or ears that stick widely off a baby's head is not an unusual occurrence. Until recently, I would just file that piece of information away and hope that the baby's ear shape would improve over time. Plastic surgeons have some tricks up their collective sleeves for fixing these odd shaped ears should they persist into childhood. When I started to have this conversation with the parents of this newborn, they chimed in that they had already ordered a pair of "Ear Buddies", a mold that is fitted to a newborn's ear that can make the ear grow in any shape the parent desires. "What, can this really be true; a device that can literally reshape a baby's ear or ears to any shape a parent wants!" No operating room, no anesthesia, no surgeon.  Can this really be true?  Well the short answer is yes. Ear Buddies are made in England and can be ordered on Amazon. They are pliable ear molds that a parent can attach to the back of a child's ears to literally force the ear to grow into the shape of the mold. Apparently, a baby's ear cartilage is so soft that with gentle pressure, it can be encouraged to grow into any shape. I'm putting the Amazon link into this post if you don'...
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