Is This Thing On?
Returning from my heady five days at the AAP National Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans, I am again overwhelmed with excitement at all that we’ve learned about keeping kids healthy. I was also flattered that in a convention with over 8,000 other pediatricians, one person recognized me as the author of “Needles.” It was good to see you too, Dad!
Common Triggers
A lot of the big stories out of the NCE were about preventing childhood injuries. Since accidental injuries are the leading cause of death in children and adolescents this is no surprise, but I worry that people are starting to get tired of all these warnings. Keep children in rear-facing car seats until age 2, don’t let them turn flips on trampolines, make sure they get flu vaccines; what will we tell parents next, not to shoot their kids? Oh, right.
Yes, we led off the NCE with a reiteration of the importance of parents not shooting kids, kids not shooting each other, kids not shooting themselves, and, not to be overlooked, kids not shooting their parents. If these exhortations seem a little self-evident to you, then you are not Florida Governor Rick Scott, who still hopes to make it a criminal offense for pediatricians to even ask families about firearms in their homes. I do see how some gun owners might think storing their weapons safely or keeping them out of homes with kids could pose a threat to American exceptionalism; currently American kids are 8 times more likely to die from gun-inflicted suicide and 10 times more likely to die from unintentional firearm injuries than kids in other developed countries. Just ensuring guns are stored locked and unloaded could cut accidental deaths and suicides by over 70%, potentially costing us our lead.
Blah Blah Blah
With well child visits increasingly dominated by anticipatory guidance, I often wonder if the kids and parents I see in the office really listen to anything I say. Sometimes, just for fun, I’ll slip in a few sentences in Mandarin (I really only know, “I speak very little Mandarin,” and, “May I have a fork?”.) Based on evidence presented at the NCE, it appears I may as well leave the room during these wellness exams and grab a cup of coffee while the families watch Spongebob Squarepants on their iPhones. We learned that most high school football players aren’t worried about concussions, that manufacturers’ warnings do not deter parents from putting children on adult-sized all terrain vehicles, and that Wo hui shuo yi dian dian zhong guo hua. (See, did you even notice?)
For one headline we even teamed up with the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (NASPGHAN) to tout a study demonstrating that warning labels do nothing to keep kids from swallowing high-powered magnets, an increasingly common cause of pediatric injury and death. (I wonder how many gastroenterologists speak Mandarin?) So if no one is heeding our precautions, what did we put out next? That’s right, recommendations to prevent cheerleading injuries. Parents can decide for themselves whether to ignore this advice while I tell them not to let their teens cross the street while texting.
Head Start?
Not all the news out of the NCE was risk-related. Among the most intriguing data presented was evidence that American boys are starting puberty much younger than we had previously thought normal. While researchers try to figure out why this is happening, consumer products companies are already hard at work preparing to exploit this new market. Get ready for Wonder Pets Shaving Cream, Go Diego Go Deodorant, and Yo Gabba Gabba Odor Eaters. I’m sure there will be others. Ni Hao, Kai Lan?
David L. Hill, M.D, FAAP, is vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, NC and is an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets. Dr. Hill is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like A Pro (AAP Publishing 2012).