Home > Media > Books > Robert H. Pantell, James F. Fries, Donald M. Vickery - Taking Care of Your Child: A Parent's Illustrated Guide to Complete Medical Care
Robert H. Pantell, James F. Fries, Donald M. Vickery - Taking Care of Your Child: A Parent's Illustrated Guide to Complete Medical Care
biscuitfarmer's Full Review: Robert H. Pantell, James F. Fries, Donald M. Vicke...
Being that my wife is military, we get a great wealth of resources for our son, Jordan. One such resource is a great guide called Taking Care of Your Child, a parent's illustrated guide to complete medical care.
Description
Taking care of your child is a book that was developed to help you as a parent make appropriate decisions for your child. It starts in the beginning of pregnancy and discusses things such as exercise, diet, sex, travel, testing, medicine, things of that nature and it moves all the way through the child's life with standard medical problems that you may encounter, issues that your child may have, and pretty much anything else you could think of.
Navigation
The book is extremely easy to use. Just look through the Chapter List and it will point you to the correct chapter that you are looking for. It even has complete diagrams that help you to self diagnose your child for some very common problems. This will help to avoid unwanted trips to the hospital if you don't have to. It could also give you a great starting ground for a problem that you think your child has.
Everything in the book is listed in the back by topic as well, so if you know exactly what you're looking for, just check it out in the back and it will guide you to the topic of your choice.
Content
A Child is Coming
This section talks about with great detail different things that you need to know about pregnancy and the upcoming months. It is a great guide to help you know if you are feeling like you should, if things are progressing like they should, and gives you a good starting point towards knowing what's happening not just physically, but mentally as well. It talks about different aspects of your pregnancy regarding staying healthy during and after, different screening tests that you can do while pregnant, classes that are available and how to go about finding them, and different medicines that you are able to take during your pregnancy.
The Big Event
This section is one of my favorite sections, because I wasn't totally prepared for what was going to happen before reading this book. I had no idea about so many different things, that reading this book really help to reassure me that everything would be alright.
In this section it talks about the different stages of labor, the medications that they give you, and what happens if they have to induce labor. They talk about different delivery room procedures as well, so that you can be prepared and knowledgeable if the worse happens.
Other things that are important for your child that you need to know are some of the decisions that you have to make and they include those in this section as well. Things like circumcision, which obviously is almost a have to do thing these days.
It pretty much just tells you what to expect while in the hospital and what to expect just after the child is born. Very information section and really helped me as a new father truly understand what was about to happen and what decisions I needed to make along with my wife prior to the birth of our child.
Your First Concerns
Are you going to breastfeed? It talks about everything you need to know in order to make an informed decision about breastfeeding and using formula. It also goes into great detail about all of the different parts of your childs body that are important to watch during the early weeks after birth.
Growth and Development
I found this section to be truly amazing as it talked about things I didn't even think about. It talks about the child's growth and how that can be affected by their diet early on. Things like weight are also discussed and how to maintain a healthy balance for your young child.
Other different things that I plan to use are the different methods in which you can help your child learn. Things that you can do to make them that much smarter and to give them the edge when they get into school.
Probably the most important part of this section was the part on toilet training. While I'm not at this stage, I decided that it's important to have a full understanding of the complete picture. I am already starting to think ahead about how I can help my newborn along in the toilet training arena. That's definitely going to be one of the primary goals of my parenting. This diaper thing has got to end!
Personality and Behavior
This was really intriguing, how things could affect your child's behavior and overall personality. They say that what you do with your child and what they learn as a baby has a huge impact on what they will be like as an adult. The book really goes into detail on how you can ensure that your child doesn't produce certain undesirable traits and develops into a more productive, well mannered child.
Other things that it helps with are bed wetting, which apparently is a pretty major problem with young children and talks about ways to help control the problem from the beginning so that it doesn't become a continued issue. Other things like thumb sucking and holding their breath to get their way are addressed and things that you can do in order to avoid these undesired behaviors are discussed.
How to punish your child, deal with behavioral issues, helping with developing friendships with other children their age, and putting in place ethics before they start to attend school.
I have found a lot of these things if parents just knew them before they got this far, would be a huge help in avoiding children from being overly shy, not sharing, and things of that nature. I've learned quite a bit from this chapter.
Today's Family
Deals with adoption, divorce, and remarriage. Things such as disasters and death are also discussed. This is a very important chapter that I think every parent should read before something bad happens and you have to struggle with the issue.
School Days
Helps to prepare parents for what to expect when their children start school. How to get them on the path to studying well and thinking first. Discusses different learning problems and how to address them if they are noticed. There are also different tests that you can do to find out if you child may have a certain difficulty or learning disorder.
Working with your doctor
This is an important guide to helping parents choose who they want to help care for their children. Rather than just picking a doctor out of the phone book, this goes into great detail in what you should look for and ask for when choosing a doctor for your child.
There are other things that it talks about as well, such as different screening tests that are recommended for your children to make sure that they don't have growing concerns, such as diabetes.
It also goes into detail about different surgeries that a child may have to endure such as having their tonsils removed and what you can do to help ease them through it all.
Preventative Care
This is probably the best part of the book as it goes through all of the different things that you can do in order to prevent different types of childhood diseases, such as getting shots and things of that nature. It starts to discuss helping your children learn to brush their teeth and how you can encourage such good habits. Other things like allergies and what you need to look for to help your child from getting sick are discussed as well.
Healthy Habits Away from Home
Deals with all of the issues while the child is away from home. It deals with strangers, sports, water safety, household safety, and other things of that nature.
The Home Pharmacy
This section is really cool as it goes into different home remedies that you can use not only for your children, but for yourself. These are tested remedies that actually work with items that you most likely already have in your home. I have been using this section since before Jordan was born and they work really good.
Ear, Nose, and Throat Problems
This section obviously discusses different issues such as sore throat, ear infections, and what you can do to treat them or when you need to take them to a doctor. They have helpful charts to help you diagnose them as well.
Skin Problems
Helps you deal with issues ranging from diaper rash to hair loss and hives. There are quite a few different things in here that aren't just for your children but could be used for yourself or the rest of your family. Things like acne, jock itch, sunburn, those things are most likely going to be tied to the older members of the family and the book does a great job talking about how these get started, how to prevent them, and how to get rid of them.
Childhood Diseases
Talks about different childhood diseases such as chicken pox, mumps, measles, and the like. Tells you what you can do to prevent them, treat them, and how you should help your child through them.
Bones, Muscles, and Joints
Talks about issues such as being bowlegged and have knock knees. I myself was born with bowlegs, so I know all about this subject. These childhood issues need to be addressed early to prevent pain later on in life whether it be physical or mental. This guide really helps to find the problem before it gets too bad to treat.
Chest and Digestive Tract problems
Discusses different issues the child could have with their digestive system and what you can do to prevent them or help them through them.
Urinary Tract and Genitals
Talks about all of the fun things that are generally associated with puberty. Vaginal discharge, menstruation, and swollen scrotums, being some of the topics of discussion, that could be real issues in your family that need to be addressed and having the knowledge is part of the battle.
Adolescent Sexuality
Obviously this talks about how you can talk to your children, what you need to discuss, and how to prevent them from having sex at an early age.
Overview
This book is extremely informative and covers every aspect of child growth, from baby to adult. I have found countless things that I didn't even know about adults and yes, I happen to be one. So, I'm assuming if I don't know so much, there's quite a bit that any parent won't know, no matter how experienced they think that they are.
The best part of the book are the home remedies to keep the children out of the hospital and to keep them healthy more often.
Overall, this book is probably the best I have seen regarding child growth and development through all the issues and problems that you may run into. I haven't seen a more thorough book that covers so many topics so well.
Covers more than 75 common pediatric healthcare problems and symptoms-probable causes, seriousness, and possible at-home treatments. Easy-to-follow de...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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