Book Review: What Your Pediatrician Doesn’t Know Can Hurt Your Child

What Your Pediatrician Doesn’t Know Can Hurt Your Child by Susan Markel

I got a free copy of this book to review.  I was excited to see what it said as I have had mixed experiences with pediatricians.

I knew that I would love this book when I read this on page 3

Given that many doctors either don’t know these things or choose not to address them as alternatives, it follows that you as a parent may need to begin questioning the advice that you’re getting from your pediatrician.  You’ve probably already been told something by a doctor that betrays your own intuition.   Rather then adhering unquestionably to a doctors authority, question it – after all, you’re paying for the service.  You have an absolute right to know why you’re being asked to do something that relates to your child’s health as well as how your doctor’s recommendations and decisions may affect each other.  Parents who question are taking active responsibility for their child’s health.

This is what I try to teach pregnant moms to do with their care providers!  Take responsibility, gather information, ask questions!  So it only follows that they should continue to do so after they have their babies!  I will say that I really enjoyed this book and would feel very comfortable encouraging all pregnant and new moms to read it (even more experienced moms would benefit too!)  I would say read the first chapter when pregnant!

I love that the first chapter addressed choices parents have immediately after birth.  I cover most of these topics in my Hypnobabies Childbirth Hypnosis Classes and love that it is included in this book.  It is so important for parents to know that they have choices about these routine things done to most babies after birth.  So many are not needed for every baby!

The book covers a nice variety of topics from:

• ADHD to fevers
• Breastfeeding to vaccinations
• Carrying babies to nutrition
• and many more.

Each chapter had good down to earth information that can help parents make choices and trust their intuition.  For instance in the ear infection chapter it talks about ear tubes and explains how it isn’t always the best choice.  I wish I had this book so I would have had more questions to ask before agreeing to schedule Thing 2 for this surgery.

The only thing I felt this book was missing was a appendix with more resources.  For instance the breastfeeding section is nice and helps explain why moms should ideally breastfeed and how many pediatricians are not trained to support nursing moms.  But then doesn’t give further resources.  So if a mom is struggling with breastfeeding, she will have to find other resources on her own.  While it is relatively “easy” to do this in the internet age, I think it would have been great if there were 2 or 3 good recommendations of books or websites either in the chapter or in an appendix.

Overall I think this is a great book and helps fill a need for supporting parents in questioning their care providers and getting satisfying answers regarding their child’s care.  Just as I tell my pregnant moms, if you don’t like your care provider then change!  With my first son I had many concerns about Thing 1 and my pediatrician blew them off.  When I finally changed care providers when he was 9 months old the new Pediatrician listened to me and saw what I was saying and helped me to get the help he needed.   If I had read this book I think I would have changed care providers much sooner.

You can get a copy of What Your Pediatrician Doesn’t Know Can Hurt Your Child: A More Natural Approach to Parenting at Amazon.