Health ‘Facts' You May Have Wrong

I meet too many parents who are following outdated (and potentially dangerous) guidelines. Are you one of them?

- Dr. David L. Hill

I’M MARRIED and I have four kids, ages 13 to 17, so I’m used to being told I’m wrong. I wish I could say it stops at my paediatric office, but in medicine we are constantly learning new things—which means, of course, that some of the old things were incorrect. For example, last year a major study suggested that babies who were exposed to peanuts were actually less likely to develop peanut allergies than kids who waited until they were 5 to eat foods containing them. I’m still pulling outdated handouts from my exam rooms!

Every day in my office I talk about child health and safety, and I often hear parents repeat obsolete, sometimes dangerous, advice that they may have heard. (Full disclosure: Sometimes they heard it from me, when their older child was a baby.)

Do you know your myths from your facts? Check out the common misconceptions below and find out.

THE MYTH

Walkers help babies learn to walk.

A few years ago, I was watching the Super Bowl when a commercial came on that made me want to scream: It showed a baby in a walker zooming all over the place, to illustrate some point about financial services. Paediatricians don’t think babies should ever be in walkers (even when trading stocks!), for two reasons. First, the best data show that compared with children without walkers, those who use them are slower to sit, crawl, and walk on their own. Second—and even more important—babies in walkers could easily walk to a staircase and fall right down the steps.

Some newer walkers are designed to limit the risk of falls because they have brakes (so they can be used in a stationary position) and are too wide to fit through doorways (making it harder to access the stairs). But their wheels can still provide children access to swimming pools, bathtubs, poisonous medications, and cords attached to hot irons.