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Maryland Babies
Rec your AACo Pedi
I know it's a little early but figured it couldn't hurt to start looking around. I'm not sure where to begin, other than I want a pedi that is very supportive of breastfeeding and won't push formula at the first sign of trouble (No offense to those who FF at all, I am just anticipating supply issues with my PCOS and would like a supportive pediatrician.)
On a related note, did you interview or meet with various pediatricians before deciding on one? A lot of checklists/bumpies say to do this but I have known plenty of moms happy with their choice who didn't. Is it standard practice to meet with a few beforehand?
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Re: Rec your AACo Pedi
We decided to take our daughter to the same doctor DH and I see. She is a doctor of family medicine and her specialty in residency was on maternal and child health. She is also a DO, which I love. The best part about taking DD to our family doctor is that she (the doctor) constantly checks in on DH and I at every well baby and sick appointment.
During our 1 week well child visit she explained to DH all the signs and symptoms of Post-Partum depression and gave DH her personal cell phone number. She told him that if he ever had any concerns to call her right away.
So anyway, if your PCP is a family physician (and you like him/her) you may want to cansider taking your LO to them.
Good luck no matter what you decide!
DS goes to the same pedi that I went to (he was actually there when I was born) and I love him. Dr. Ronald Schneider
2538 Davidsonville Road
Gambrills, MD 21054-2110
(410) 721-0800
His practice is actually attached to his home. I know his family pretty well, his daughter and my sister grew up as friends and he is one of my best friends godfathers. Besides that, he is a great pedi, we loved him growing up. He is very supportive of BFing, but not so much that he is pushy. He has Saturday hours and we have never had a problem getting an appointment right away when John has been sick. I like that he isn't what I call an alarmist doctor, he is very thorough, but without freaking you out with worst case scenarios. Because neither DH or I have any food allergies he gave us the go-ahead to start certain foods like peanut butter and eggs when John was 10 months, which is something I like (I'm of the mind set that if a kid is going to have an allergy they are going to have it, regardless if you wait to give certain foods), His staff is great too, very friendly and accomodating. There isn't a separate sick/well waiting area, but the waiting area is never packed and when John came for his first few visits they took us right back to a room since he was so tiny and it was cold and flu season. He does have an RN that is very experienced that works with him, and they do give you the option if you want to see her or Dr. S when you make an appointment. We didn't interview any others because I knew we wanted to go with him, but I do know that several on here use the Pediatric Group in Annapolis. I just like having one doctor (of course I have a history with him, but that's besides the point) that we see every time.
I don't have a rec since I don't live in the area anymore, but we went with the recommendation of friends and family.
They call our Dr. the baby whisperer. At one of my dr visits the OB asked if I had chosen a ped and I told her who we thought we might go with and she said "what's there to think about?" At that point it was pretty much a given we were going to go with him. We did meet with him and when a toddler showed up in the waiting area and ran over to the Dr. to give him a hug, I knew we were signing up at the end of the visit.
So in short, you might be able to ask your OB who they recommend in the area.
I personally did not go around and meet with them. My pediatrician's office was highly recommended by several of my friends as well as my neighbors. We use Annapolis Pediatrics....they have several different locations and quite a few doctors. I figured if I couldn't find a doc I liked out of all of them, I could always switch practices but it was not necessary, all their docs have been great. DS's primary care doc is actually one of the docs that came around to check on him while in the hospital, we hit it off right away and I knew I wanted to keep seeing her.
I was having some supply issues early on and she told me I could go ahead and give him a bottle of formula to supplement him if he really seemed hungry, but didn't push it on me. More importantly she told me to how to get some extra pumping sessions in to increase my supply, which ultimately worked.
Thanks for much for the info, that helps a lot...Weezie, what's your Dr's name?
Dr. Motter-Mast she is at Greater Baltimore Medical Associates (GBMA) at Hunt Valley. They just changed their name, it was formerly Lamos and Associates.
I just switched from a pedi in AACo to one in Howard Co and she is so amazing that I had to give you her info. She is very accessible (text messages, emails, phone calls), very knowledgeable, more holistic, friendly, thorough, etc. She even came in on a Sunday when Matthew was very sick so that we wouldn't have to go to Urgent Care! I truly love Dr. Beams.
https://www.drbeams.com/
And yes we did interview. I think it is important to get a face to face feel for the person.
ETA: She will even come to your home for the newborn visit
OMG- if we have a 3rd I would totally switch for this reason alone...
We are @ Annapolis Peds. There are a few providers there that I love and there are 2 that I do not care for and do my best to avoid. One provided me with out of date information at DD's 4 month visit- and started pushing the rice cereal. More recently one doctor started pushing me to let DS CIO.
They just switched to electronic record keeping and I don't know how I feel about that- it used to be you could semi-answer a question and move on- but now they feel they have to put you in a box. At DS's 6 month I was asked how much he ate... I said a lot, since at that time he was still EBF and I nurse on demand- they weren't really cool w/ that.
How annoying for two reasons...1) doctors do not receive training on stuff like CIO in medical school and so that is purely personal opinion based and unsolicited. 2) ugh - how frustrating on the form!
We go to Dr. Beams in Columbia/Laurel also and have been super happy with the practice. Unfortuantely, I think they are pretty far from you.
We did interview a couple pediatrians. I think if you are comfortable, you don't have to. Of course there is no rule about it. In the past, DH and I have not had very good luck with doctors in the area and I wanted to make sure we at least met the pediatrician we thought we'd go with beforehand. I feel like if I get sick, I can just switch doctors easily if I don't like mine. But, with a baby, I think there is the need (for me at least) to know that there is someone who you believe in, taking care of your child. I didn't know anything about kids. I couldn't interpret high pitched cry vs. regular cry. As an adult if I'm sick, at least I know how sick I feel and can make decisions based on that.
Long story short... we interviewed peds to make sure we found someone we liked and agreed with before there was a need for immediate care (stressful time). Sorry, this came out kind of rambling!