Preventive Health Care For Children which you need to know
Many parents wonder about the need for periodic well-baby or well-child exminations. This program of medical encounters provides your child with health screenings and preventive care. Additionally, it aids the parent in carrying ot the very important responsibility of maintaining their child’s health.
During the periodic well-baby or whell-child exams the doctor will review your child’s growth progress by comparing his/her height and weight with measurements from previous visits and with standart growth charts. The doctor usually performs a thorough physical exam. This exam includes observation to acces your child’s developmental progression in comparasion with previous visits against standars for his/her age. The doctor should explain the findings to you so that you may be reassured of your child’s health status. The older child should be specifically reassured of his/her physical normalcy.
Most significantly, these periodic examninations should review your child’s health history, deal with your particular concerns, and also introduce you to additional aspects of parenting. The doctor will be interested in many adpects of your child’s health history including eating, sleeping, elimination, crying, and other behaviour. One way of explaining these to the doctor is to try to give a simple organized explanation of the routine day. At these visits you as parents should try to develop a communicative relationship with your child’s doctor. The doctor too should be striving for this type of interaction. The resulting confidence in each other is extremely helpful in dealing with the many minor and few major health crises that make up the average.
The frequency of these visits should be variable, based on your skills and your child’s health. First-time parents may require frequent encounters with the child’s doctor for guidance in rearing. Usually an infant is seen monthly during the first six months, then every other month during the second six months. The doctor may want to see your child two to four times yearly during the second and third year, with annual visits threreafter.