When it's OK to question your pediatrician's advice
Empowered Patient, a regular feature from CNN Medical News correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, helps put you in the driver's seat when it comes to health care. At some point during last month's well-baby checkup for her son Isaac, Kamila McGinnis stopped listening to her pediatrician. Isaac, who turns 3 in June, hasn't shown much interest in toilet training. McGinnis wants him out of diapers and encourages him to use the potty. But, she says, her pediatrician told her to back off. "She said, 'He'll know when it's the right time for him,' that it's important to let him do it on his own," says McGinnis, the mother of three in Timonium, Maryland. "In the back of my mind, I said to myself, 'I disagree.' I felt like my pediatrician was saying she knew more than I did." In many ways, pediatricians do know more than parents. When your doctor says your newborn needs to ride in a rear-facing car seat, don't argue. When he says your 2-month-old with a 105-degree fever needs to get to the doctor's office -- and fast -- you'd better listen. But there are far more areas that are gray and have no science, or not very good science, to back them up, says our panel of pediatric experts. They say that sometimes, this means your pediatrician is giving you his or her opinion, not medical fact. "There are several ways to approach many issues in pediatrics. There isn't one clear-cut way," says Dr. Robert Needlman, co-author of the latest edition of "Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care." "Pediatricians really should make a distinction between what's based on research and what's based on our own particular beliefs." Since pediatricians don't always make that distinction clear, here are examples of five parenting issues where there's plenty of room to disagree with the pediatrician. startclickprintexclude--> Dr. Joyce Zmuda, a pediatrician in private practice in Owings Mills, Maryland, says she tells patients there's lots of "wiggle room" on this issue. "They have to first understand that if they go to their baby in the middle of the night, they're creating an expectation that the parent will always be there when they cry," she says. "But if they understand that and just can't stand to hear the baby crying and want to go to them, that's fine with me. It's a personal decision." startclickprintexclude--> Some pediatricians get very opinionated about the age at which to wean a child off the pacifier. But our experts say as long as it's not interfering with the child's speech, or causing dental problems, it's OK to let a child soothe herself with a pacifier. "There's not a lot of science on this," Shu says. "It's not cut and dried by any means." The bottom line: when you're in the pediatrician's office, you should try to separate medical fact from medical opinion. This isn't always easy. "This is a big deal for mothers and even bigger for new mothers who trust their judgment even less," says Mia Redrick, a "mom coach" and author of "Time for mom-ME." "Often it's hard for mothers to distinguish medical advice from a pediatrician's personal opinion." Needlman offers this advice: If you're not sure if you're getting fact or opinion, ask. "It's a good thing when a parent says 'Really? I don't want to do that,'" he says. "You can challenge your pediatrician along the lines of saying, 'That advice you gave me doesn't feel comfortable to me. Can we talk about some other options?'" |
