Dr. Barry Hainer discusses what a parent and a child can expect during a well-child visit.
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What happens during a well-child visit? Dr. Barry Hainer: Typically in a well-child visit a number of activities occur. Some monitoring of child’s growth and development are important component so measurements are taking and compared to how the child has been growing previously and how they compare it to a large population of children of the same age. What we refer too is developmental milestone that look for how they are speaking, talking, walking, how soon they can ride a tricycle you know those kinds of activities a physical examination is done to look for any abnormalities that might not otherwise be obvious in there growth or development parameters. And we provide parent as during well-child this is what we call anticipatory guidance. Now that’s your child is 12 months and beginning to crawl and stand and pull to standing and pressing while holding onto things you need to make sure that dangerous household chemical are apply out of reach, you are going to have safety cabinets that would be anticipatory guidance for a 12 month old. How can I prepare my child for a doctor’s visit? Dr. Barry Hainer: A preparing your child for a visit to the Doctor and part depends on there age of course. With young infants there is not much preparation that you can offer but is they get into there toddler age. I think it’s important to set the stage for a positive experience and I like to recommend books that parents can read to there children about visits to the doctor that provide are realistic and a positive review of the experience that they are going to have. They have these books for visiting the dentist and to the other health professionals as well. Even for younger children as well as for toddlers and children who are pre-school and school age an important component of preparing them for the visit is your attitude as a parent, as to what they can expect. Children are very skill that reading the emotions of there parents. If they detect to tension, stress, worry to your anxiety and you that they are going to anticipate that something bad or something frightening or something worries on maybe affecting them as well. So, it’s hard not to worry if your child is quite sick or ill that’s understandable but if they’re coming for a preventable well-child exam even if you have some worries that you want the doctor to discuss with your child. If you project the positive attitudes towards the visits I think your child will pick up on them and tend to be more open to in event that will necessarily be a traumatic one for them.
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