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Podcast: Portable Practical Pediatrics
Episode:

Interesting Conversations March 2017 (Pedcast)
Category: Kids & family
Duration: 00:00:00
Publish Date: 2017-03-05 20:14:17
Description: Voice Intro Welcome to another edition of Portable Practical Pediatrics. I am your host, Dr. Paul Smolen, a board certified pediatrician. People call me Doc Smo. My patients bring up such interesting topics...so interesting that a few years ago, I started sharing some of them with my blog audience. I have to say that after 35 years of practicing pediatrics I have learned and lived this Doc Smo pearl, "The best doctors listen way more than they talk." With that in mind, I am going to share with some of the interesting things my patients have told me recently. I think you will see that by listening intently, I learn a lot from my patients.   So let's get into the next set of "Interesting Conversations" I've had recently with my patients and their families, shall we? Music Intro Conversation #1- An Antibiotic Substitute Recently, I was doing a checkup of a young man whose parents were from India. The last time I saw this young man before the day of his checkup, he was suffering from a staph skin infection at multiple sites on his body. You know, the usual places, along underwear friction areas, and under his arms. Bacteriologically dirty and damp places. The places germs love. When I last saw him with a staph infection, I had given his mother an antibiotic for him to take and some topical antibiotic ointment that inhibits skin bacteria from growing. You know, typical western medicine stuff. I assumed that his mother had followed my directions and thus cleared his infection since the infection was now gone. I asked his mother, had she given him the antibiotic to him and she said surprisingly, "No". She decided to try a common remedy that is used in her home country of India. The remedy was an inexpensive antiseptic, a form of pine oil that is used to wash the infection away.  Yes, the same pine oil that we clean floors and furniture with. It is called Dettol and she says it is used for everything in India. curing skin infections including those caused by staph aureus, disinfecting cuts and abrasions, as well as cleaning household surfaces such as floors and cabinets.  It even works on acne she told me!  It comes in a cream, a soap form, gels form, cleaning solutions, hand washes, wipes for disinfecting surfaces, and a plaster for putting on wounds. Sounds like we all need to stock up on Dettol in case civilization implodes and we need to fight the microbial world without modern antibiotics. Maybe Dettol could be a solution to the antibiotic resistance crisis that is so quickly neutralizing effectiveness of our current antibiotics. After listening to her, I know I'm going to get some Dettol!     Conversation #2-Eating Placentas Ok, this next topic really took me by surprise. I have never had a mom tell me that she was consuming her baby's placenta before... until recently. I've heard this practice in the animal world, but I have never had a mother tell me she was doing this.  I guess I just wasn't paying close enough attention or asking the right questions.  As I began to read about this practice, I discovered that it is becoming quite fashionable, especially among the rich and famous. Advocates of placenta eating claim it is very good for a new mother's energy and mood as well as being nutritionally rich in many essential nutrients and hormones. I couldn't find a lot of information to justify the practice but that doesn't mean it isn't useful. Many swear it works miracles for new moms. You may be wondering how the placentas are consumed. I know I was curious. Well, the answer to that question is... anyway you can imagine. I think the most common practice is to have the placenta dried and pulverized into capsules but direct consumption of raw or cooked placenta is also an option I understand. Beneficial?  Your guess is as good as mine. In the 21st century, I think if we can't even all agree that vaccines are effective; we are going to have a hard time proving or disproving the benefits of eating placentas.
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