Your doctor?

Mcsweets · May 2014

DH and I have a family Dr. we see, and when our twins were born we just continued with the same family doctor. They were born at 30w, and spent 45 days in the NICU, no health problems other than reflux for DD.

Our doctor is absolutely great, and she seems to be thorough with checking them and making sure they're growing ok, etc. She used to have 60% kids in her practice (many of them preemies) so she has a lot of experience in that - but is not an official pediatrician.

There have been a few times we've seen her that I've felt that maybe her information is "outdated" - the most recent one being that she told us to add rice into DD's bottle to thicken it. So, my question is - how many of you use your regular family doctor vs how many use a pediatrician?

While we love her and would feel horrible taking them away from her - she absolutely loves the babies. I just wonder if we should be seeing someone more specialized.

rslhmg · May 2014

I'm not sure the reasoning for thickening your los bottle, but we were told to do the same thing by the nicu because DD1 had reflux. We had to change to oatmeal per her regular pedi because rice made her extra spitty. Shes almost 2 now so its possible its changed, but that particular advice isnt outdated, or has very recently changed. Not sure what other advice is in question, but hopefully that helps you out

carrotcake06 · May 2014

We use a pedi, but I use that particular practice bc it's associated w a top 5 in the entire nation children's hospital, not bc I agree w the parenting advice.

There are a bunch of things my pedi says that seem "outdated" - I just smile and nod and do my own thing. But when one of the twins needed an outpatient procedure, I was happy that I had a pediatric surgeon at a great children's hospital to do it.

babybean82 · May 2014

I voted ss because I haven't picked a Dr yet, originally when i was planning to have a healthy full term baby I was going to use my family Dr that i see, but now i have a preemie with a heart condition and i want someone more specialized. I really wish our neonatologist could continue to be his Dr when we go home but that isn't possible.

Missi576 · May 2014

I thought the rice to the bottle was outdated as well. It is only outdated as a way to get them to sleep longer and not seem so hungry. On that advice, it is outdated and considered a bad idea. As a way to help with reflux (i.e. heavier food has a harder time coming back up) it is completely up to date. My pediatrician said this and I was shocked.. until I talked to the neonatologist.

Good luck!

scubagirl81 · May 2014

Missi576 said:

I thought the rice to the bottle was outdated as well. It is only outdated as a way to get them to sleep longer and not seem so hungry. On that advice, it is outdated and considered a bad idea. As a way to help with reflux (i.e. heavier food has a harder time coming back up) it is completely up to date. My pediatrician said this and I was shocked.. until I talked to the neonatologist.

Good luck!

This was my understanding as well. There are other options if you don't want to use rice cereal (check out the reflux rebels website), but we went with rice because it's quick and easy. Our dr (we see a family practitioner as well) said that it doesn't always help, but it was something we could try to hopefully avoid needing meds. It definitely helps DS keep his food down, but we did have to put him on Zantac as well.

Our hospital also does NICU follow up visits, and so I figured if our dr missed something, they would catch it there, but they didn't find anything abnormal when we went a few weeks ago for our 6 month follow up. We can self-refer to early intervention, too, if we ever thought that was something we needed as well. We were lucky that DS was relatively close to term (almost 35 weeks) and healthy, so we don't have a lot of things that need tracked or specialty care. If he was earlier or was in the NICU as anything other than a feeder/grower, then I would probably take him somewhere else. I did ask before we were discharged, and we were told that a family dr would likely be fine, obviously depending on the skill of the dr, how used to seeing babies they are, etc.

Mcsweets · May 2014

@Missi576 - thanks for your experience! We go back for the "follow up" with the specialist tomorrow so I'm curious what he says (2 months ago when we first went he was VERY against rice, only in extreme circumstances).

PS -I looovvveee your siggy pic - the dresses are adorable. When was little I loved loved loved silk. I would only wear PJs that were silk and slept with a little silk blankey

Mcsweets · May 2014

Its interesting so many of you used rice - I'll let you know what the gastro peds specialist says tomorrow!!! He's always been very anti-rice.

KTZ17 · May 2014

Personally I trust a pedi with DD over a family practitioner cause babies & children are a pedi's speciality. I don't know how well a family practitioner would keep up with baby related things.

punky917 · May 2014

I would definitely feel much more comfortable with a pedi.We were also told to use rice cereal, but DS was also on Prevacid to help with reflux. I honestly don't think the rice cereal worked and stopped it.

nblondheim · May 2014

We use a pediatrician and I was also told to possibly add cereal to the bottles but it was because lo was eating about the highest amount she could and we were told it may be needed to help her feel full. Long story short, we never did it as I chose not to and lo is fine. I know it's outdated but our pedi comes highly recommended and living in a small town we don't have many options. Good luck!

Mcsweets · May 2014

Just an update for everyone...we saw the gastro specialist today and he said not to add the rice cereal. He said her weight for her length is actually really good, but he is going to reweigh her in a month just to be sure. He said the rice is just empty calories, and if we're going to thicken it at all, he'd rather do it with formula because it has vitamins and other nutrients in it.

He also said the rice will not help her spitting up, and to just buy more towels

Mcsweets · May 2014

@BostonKisses2 - thats what I was thinking too, and we love our Dr. She is really great.

Your doctor?

Your doctor? 49 votes

Re: Your doctor?

Choose Another Board

Search Boards