It's a fairly massive tome - about 450 pages, but well organized and indexed, and also featuring an alphabetical page-edging tab, so it's easy to find what you're looking for. It features everything from common childhood ailments (colds, flu, hand foot and mouth disease) to common childhood injuries (slivers, cuts, bruises, bee and wasp stings) and more serious and less common conditions and disorders (autism spectrum disorder, Epstein-Barr virus, obstructive sleep apnea). It also addresses anxiety disorders, bullying and cyber-bullying and school phobias and avoidance; this is clearly not your parents' guide to children' health.
There are charts featuring symptoms, treatments and red flags. There are pictures, which are really helpful (if not terribly attractive) when dealing with rashes and stool. There are case studies. There are useful and interesting "Did You Know" blue boxes: "Did you know you can use your child's palm to assess the size of the burn: the inside of your child's palm equals 1% of his body surface area". Did you know that? I totally didn't know that.
This book is extensive, frank, largely reassuring and constructive. I will be giving it to one of my friends with babies, and expecting the companion volume for the teenage years to surface just as my kids hit their twenties. *Rueful sigh*.
3 comments:
I love this reference book! It's now on my list of go-to gifts for new parents. I like that the photos are realistic and fatalistic (Google, I am looking at you!).
Dammit, I missed the window. But that looks amazing. I wish something like this was around when my kids were little. Looks great!
and so much better to reference than Goggle, where ultimately you always leave thinking your chid has a fatal illness. right?
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