Dr. Zibners.com

How to know if your child's illness or injury is really an emergency

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Update: Week of February 8

This Week’s Hot Topic
So as you can see, being a mother of 2 infants who are less than 4 months apart in age has hindered my ability to sit down and write to you. Last week I was juggling plans to take my older daughter to her final adoption hearing in Florida with making sure my new baby would be taken care of home in New York. As much as I hated leaving my little one, I desperately wanted to make sure that Eva was stuck with us forever. So I guess it is just the beginning of feeling perpetually torn between the needs of two different little people. But whatever their needs are during the day, they’re both asleep at the moment, which means I have time to talk about Myth #2: A kid needs to be kept awake after hitting his head.

If I believed everything I saw on TV, I’d expect people to wake up with perfect makeup, know that babies are swapped almost daily to hide their true identities and believe that people really turn into black panthers when possessed by evil spirits. Fortunately, I don’t believe any of that and I also don’t believe very much “TV medicine.” However, for those of you who do, you might have bought into dramatic moments when a head-injured patient is told to “just stay with me, man,” as if falling asleep after hitting your noggin meant certain death. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t.

Keeping your child awake after he bonks his head isn’t going to prevent him from having a more serious brain injury or any complications. What is will do, however, is make him irritable and cranky. Then when you come to the ER, I can’t tell whether your little one is fussy and unhappy because of a head injury or because he missed his nap. So go ahead and let little Titus fall asleep after a tumble. If he seems to be sleeping much longer than usual or at an inappropriate time of day, it might be worth a call to your pediatrician. And if it makes you feel better to poke him every few hours during the night to make sure he is arousable, go ahead although it’s probably not necessary.

All that aside, if your kid hits his head and is knocked out or has a seizure, you’ll want to call your doctor. A kid who is crying and throws up once right after the injury is probably just upset, but if he has more episodes of vomiting, give your doc a call. As always, if you are worried, don’t hesitate to reach out to your pediatrician’s office.

Tales of The Truly Exciting
I had a fun day yesterday at the Rachael Ray studios taping a couple segments. I’ll let you know when I find out the air date but it’s probably going to be early March. Everyone was so incredibly nice there and Rachael was as “girl-next-door” as she seems on tv.

Dr. Lara Zibners, Feb 11, 2010

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