What you should have on hand for your baby’s most common illnesses.

by Sharon Oosthoek
Toronto mother Armi Armesto is cautious about giving over-the-counter drugs to her baby and pre-schooler. “I don’t want to over medicate,” she says. “That’s my number one fear.”

Armesto was paying attention last fall when concerns over the safety of non-prescription cough and cold medicines for children made headlines. At the time, Health Canada reported “life-threatening adverse events, including unintentional overdose” in children under the age of two who had been given these medicines.

“I only give (three-year-old) Skyler something if he’s suffering and I wouldn’t give (two-month-old) Emma anything. She’s too young,” says Armesto.

Vancouver public health nurse Radhika Bhagat wholeheartedly agrees. “The younger they are, the more cautious we are of giving them anything other than mother’s milk or formula,” she says, pointing out that nearly all drug safety studies are done on adults, not children and certainly not infants.

In fact, the Canadian Paediatric Society recommends not giving over-the-counter drugs to children under the age of three, unless your doctor recommends it.

The only exceptions, says Dr. Michael Rieder, chair of the society’s drug therapy committee and a paediatric pharmacologist with the University of Western Ontario, are two medications used for fever and mild to moderate pain – acetaminophen and ibuprofen.

cabinet must-haves
PAIN RELIEVERS Acetaminophen is the active ingredient in various name brands, including Tylenol, Tempra and Panadol. It acts on the part of the brain that controls temperature and the body’s pain threshold. Ibuprofen, found in Advil and Motrin, works by blocking the production of prostaglandin, a hormone-like substance linked to inflammation which can cause pain. The CPS recommends parents use these drugs only for pain or fever greater than 38.5°C. But if your baby is under six months, it suggests consulting a doctor before trying any medication. Do not give children products with acetylsalicylic acid (such as Aspirin) as it has been associated with Reyes syndrome, a sickness that can cause brain and liver damage.

good to-haves
DIAPER RASH CREAM Dr. Rieder recommends a simple barrier cream such as petroleum jelly. For babies with eczema, parents can also use a cream that contains 0.5 per cent hydrocortisone, a steroid hormone used to treat inflammation.
ANTIHISTAMINE Dr. Rieder says if you need to use an antihistamine to ease allergy symptoms (itching), a liquid is preferable to allow for much more accurate dosing.
ANTIOBIOTIC OINTMENT These topical creams help keep minor wounds or stitches from developing infection. If your baby is allergic to any antibiotic you should avoid using drugs of the same class (e.g., if she is allergic to one sulphonamide, avoid all sulphonamides). If in doubt, ask your physician or pharmacist.
SALINE DROPS Salt-water drops help soften mucus and can be helpful for babies whose stuffy nose makes feeding and breathing difficult. Use drops that contain saline only, says Dr. Leigh Anne Newhook, a paediatrician with Janeway Children’s Health and Rehabilitation Centre in St. John’s. She recommends following up with a hand-held nasal aspirator to suck out the mucus.
ELECTROLYTE SOLUTION Dr. Newhook also also recommends new parents have an oral rehydration solution on hand in case of gastroenteritis, in order to prevent dehydration due to excessive vomiting or diarrhea.

not nessecary
GAS RELIEVERS These products, including those meant for colic, simply don’t make a difference. “Nothing works for colic,” says Dr. Rieder. “The only thing that works for colic is time.”
TEETHING GELS If your baby is in pain because of teething, ibuprofen and acetaminophen are still your best bets. Some moms also swear by camilia drops as a homeopathic atlernative.

Sharon Oosthoek is a freelance writer who vividly recalls anxious phone calls to her doctor about medicating her babies

Now’s the time to get your teen on track for back to school

By Sharon Oosthoek
It’s a typical school morning at Maria D’alessandro’s Woodbridge, Ont. home, as her three boys communicate in grunts while she tries to herd them out the door on time.
“They drag their knuckles down the stairs. They’re troglodytes. They haven’t evolved yet,” laughs D’alessandro.
Mornings and teens have never really mixed, but now that summer is over, many will be battling to revert to their school-year sleep schedule. So how do you get your child on track while preserving your sanity?
D’alessandro’s strategy for Mark, 19, Robert, 16 and Daniel, 12, can be summed up in one word: routine. “Kids need routine. They will deny it. They’ll say, ‘I can go to bed when I want. I can get up.’ Yeah, right,” she says.

MORE THAN JUST TIRED
According to adolescent sleep experts and psychologists, D’alessandro knows what she’s talking about.
“Parents have a lot of wisdom intuitively about how to deal with this and we don’t always trust our instincts,” says Delta, B.C., psychologist Judith Bertoia, who counsels many adolescents and their families.
A good first step to morning calm, suggests Bertoia, is to rule out health problems such as depression, mono, side effects from prescription drugs, or less often, abuse of street drugs. Consider also whether your teen is having academic or social problems that make him less than enthusiastic about getting up for school. “Why would they want to get up to go to a bad experience?” asks Bertoia. If your teen can get up at 5 a.m. for hockey practice, but not at 7 a.m. for school, you may want to investigate.
Next take a look at family dynamics—are you as a parent stressed about your job, commute or finances, and are you communicating this stress to your children, making them less cooperative? “Nothing helps a bad mood like sharing it with someone else,” she notes. But more than anything else, advises Bertoia, figure out if your teen is sleep-deprived.

NIGHT OWLS
Dr. Manisha Witmans, a pediatric sleep expert at Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton, heartily agrees, pointing out that sleep patterns change at adolescence.
Teens get sleepy later and don’t wake as early as they did as young children. While doctors don’t know exactly why this happens, they suspect it’s linked to the growth spurt and hormonal changes associated with puberty. Relative to younger children, sleep onset in adolescents is delayed by one to two hours, says Dr. Witmans. There’s even a related medical phenomenon known as delayed sleep phase syndrome. Symptoms include difficulty falling asleep at night, difficulty getting up in the morning, and a resulting negative impact on well-being and ability to function during waking hours. While common, it doesn’t affect every teen.

On average, teens need a total of eight and a half hours of sleep a night, a number few manage to achieve, according to a recent study. Last year, researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. surveyed 2,201 high school students, and found that more than half got less than 8.5 hours on a typical weeknight. More than half of the students surveyed reported being “really sleepy” between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m.

GETTING MORE ZZZ’S
Parents can help their teens by encouraging regular bedtimes, physical activity during the day, no TV, cell phones or computers late at night, limiting caffeine, and insisting that part-time jobs end early in the evening, advises Dr. Witmans. “Kids shouldn’t be working till 10 or 11 at night,” she says.
And while your teen may make up sleep debt on the weekends, she shouldn’t sleep in too late. Some negotiation is acceptable for bedtimes and wake-up times, but adolescents still need guidelines on the best amount of shut-eye.
In fact, it takes about 16 hours of wakefulness for the body to ready itself for sleep. And 16 hours after noon is not 11 p.m.

Sharon Oosthoek is a Toronto-based freelance journalist whose two young sons are practicing to be teens.

Great things happen when kids decide to do something about the environment.

by Sharon Oosthoek

Two years ago, a group of grade three students marched into principal Mike Quinn’s office at Bird’s Hill School in Winnipeg with a plan for planting a tree on a busy road beside their playground. It was just after Earth Day and their teacher had read them a book about how trees sequester exhaust from cars.

“Well, it got the kids asking why we didn’t have more trees in the playground,” recalls Quinn. So the class sent emissaries to ask if they could sell popcorn to raise money to buy a Manitoba spruce.

“I couldn’t believe it. They were coming in and selling their (idea). And it was a good pitch. They spoke very well,” he says.

Now in grade five, the students remain stewards of the environment, taking care of their tree and all the others that have been planted in the schoolyard since that day. Their enthusiasm infected other students, parents and teachers and the whole school community is involved in helping naturalize the property.

“We water the trees and take care of them,” says 11-year-old Ryley Lindgren, one of the students who launched the naturalization project. “I think most kids are like me – they would like a clean, non-polluted environment.”

As Quinn points out: “Adults can do anything they want, but if the children don’t buy into it, it goes nowhere.”

Any parent or educator will tell you, children in this age group are coming into their own as people with broader social consciences and can get really passionate about issues. It’s a good time to make them aware of the environment.

As students across the country prepare to celebrate Earth Day, we bring you this list of real-life green initiatives you can pass along to your parent council, your passionate preteen or her teachers:

Have students plan a playground with native plants, rocks, logs and other natural features. At West Richmond Education Centre in Evanston, NS, a survey showed that students who stayed inside at recess were pining for a big rock to climb on, trees and shrubs for hide-and-seek, and an outdoor classroom. So teachers applied for funds from the Evergreen Foundation, a Toronto-based charity that helps fund and plan naturalized urban areas, and began bringing that vision to life. “Now the kids go outside and play,” says principal Ann Whalley. “This is a huge thing for me. I want them out in the fresh air.”

Go with a green teacher gift. Sunningdale Public School in Oakville, Ont., boasts one of the largest naturalization projects in the country. Many students chose to give their teachers donations toward the project instead of holiday or end-of-year gifts. “We raised $1,200 the first year,” says parent Karen Brock.

Connect students to the wider world. When they were studying Mount Kilimanjaro, a group of West Richmond students followed along as Nova Scotia climbers scaled the African peak. The climbers were raising money for a food bank, but while they were on the mountain they took time out to chat with students by satellite phone about Tanzania, home to many threatened species.

Start an environmental book club. Also at West Richmond, the age nine to 12 set read Hoot, by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf). It tells the humorous tale of three middle school students who lead a protest to save endangered burrowing owls about to be displaced by the construction of a pancake restaurant. Students then discussed the effect of development on the environment and the importance of maintaining animal habitat.

Explore nature. If you have a nearby woods or wetland, or if your playground is a mini-wilderness, harness students’ natural tendency to be young Marco Polos. At Sunningdale, teacher Maggie Linton leads students on scavenger hunts through the playground. “They have to find a leaf with six points or a type of grass. They ID it and check it off,” she says. Back at the (outdoor) classroom they learn more about the plants.

Chart nature’s progress. Sunningdale’s Linton says middle grade teachers are mulling over a plan to have students record the growth of playground trees. They envision a logbook with student notations of trunk girth, canopy size and changes in bark that can be passed from class to class over the years.

Did you know? Earth Day is the world’s biggest celebration of the environment and is marked every year on April 22. According to Earth Day Canada, which helps educators and others spread the word, more than six million Canadians join the 500 million people in over 180 countries who stage events to address local environmental issues.

A new vaccine can dramatically decrease the risk that your daughter may one day get cervical cancer.

by Sharon Oosthoek
Last fall, Brigitte Leclerc asked her doctor to immunize her daughters with a vaccine that protects against two strains of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) responsible for most cases of cervical cancer.

She knew from painful experience just what was at stake.

Leclerc had surgery in June to remove a tumour in her cervix. So when she learned about the vaccine – marketed under the name Gardasil – there was no question that Cindy, 16 and Nadia, 22, would get it.

“I don’t want a doctor to tell them they might die,” says Leclerc, who lives just outside Montreal. Her operation went well, but she must now wait for tests to see if she needs chemotherapy.

While she waits, Leclerc is lobbying the Quebec government to cover the cost of the vaccine – about $500 for three shots – for pre-teen girls who stand the best chance of benefiting if they’re immunized before they become sexually active. Health Canada approved Gardasil in July, but at press time no provincial health plan covered it.

The cost, and the fact not many people have heard of HPV and its link to cancer, means few parents have considered the vaccine for their daughters.

Health professionals are working hard to change that.

“Parents are going to have a hard time thinking of their nine-year-old daughter as a sexually active person. It’s something parents want to push as far to the back of their minds as possible,” admits Dr. Barbara Romanowski, a University of Alberta expert in infectious diseases.
“But they should view this (vaccine) as a gift to their children to protect them in the future.”

After breast cancer, cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in Canadian women aged 20-44. An estimated 1,400 are diagnosed each year and more than 400 will die from it.

The majority of those cases are caused by HPV, the most common sexually transmitted virus in the world. As many as three-quarters of sexually active men and women have been infected at some point in their lives, but the good news is that majority of them never suffer any ill effect. Most of the 100 strains of HPV cause no symptoms and disappear without treatment.

The problem is with two strains that are responsible for 70 per cent of cases of cervical cancer and another two that cause 90 per cent of ano-genital warts, which can be uncomfortable but do not cause cancer. The vaccine is effective against all four strains.

The manufacturer of Gardasil, Merck-Frost, recommends the vaccine for females between the ages of nine and 26. It says the side effects could include mild pain or swelling at the injection site, or fever. In February, Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommended that Gardasil should ideally be administered to girls aged nine to 13, before the onset of sexual intercourse, and also to all girls and women aged 14 to 26, even if they are already sexually active.

Yet even before the recommendation was made, Dr. Lamont Sweet, Prince Edward Island’s chief medical officer of health, is urging his province to add the vaccine to its list of free, routine immunizations grade six girls receive in school.
“The immunity that it gives for cervical cancer is so important,” he says.

Pap test info box: Pap tests can detect abnormal cells in the cervix before cancer develops. Since Gardasil prevents only the two strains of HPV thought to cause 70 per cent of cases of cervical cancer, regular pap tests are crucial for early detection of the other 30 per cent.
Health Canada recommends women have their first test as soon as they become sexually active. They should be tested again one year later. If the first two tests fail to turn up any abnormal cells, a pap test every three years until the age of 69 will suffice.

Why your teen should have a cellphone

by Sharon Oosthoek
Is your teen constantly moping about not having a cellphone, laying it on thick with the everybody-else-has-one sob stories? Wendy Wright’s 16-year-old daughter, Colette, campaigned for a cellphone for two years before the Toronto mom finally gave in. Today, she reluctantly admits the phone has actually been good for both of them. “[Getting] it coincided with her first year of high school. Now that she’s going out more, she can call me and say that she’s running late or ask which streetcar to get on. I know she can haul it out and call 911 in a flash, too,” says Wright, who – like many parents of cellphone-sporting teens – finds the extra security a comfort.

If you decide your teen is ready for a cellphone (and that letting her have one might not be such a bad thing), you’ll need to set a few rules to keep the peace and your good credit rating. Here are a few to consider.

Dial responsibly
A survey of 1,000 North American cellphone-owning teens showed that 71 per cent enjoy completely unrestricted use of their phones, calling whomever they want, whenever they want.

That’s not always a good thing, says Dr. Liza Weiser, a psychologist in Thornhill, Ont. “When there’s a problem, many teens often act on impulse. They say, ‘Well, I’m going to call you and tell you what I think right now,’ instead of sleeping on it,” says Dr. Weiser. If your daughter is constantly in the middle of an alpha-girl drama with her friends, or your son is threatening to dial Children’s Aid each time you ask him to clear a plate, you can always take the phone away.

There’s also another option – cellphone plans that allow parents to block incoming/outgoing calls of specific numbers and limit their teen’s calls to certain times of the day. While these plans are currently available only in some parts of Canada, the Firefly phone from Rogers Wireless – which allows kids to dial only a few preprogrammed, parent-approved numbers and rejects calls from numbers not in the phone’s directory – is available in most parts of the country.

Obey school rules
Many schools have strict rules for cellphone use, so find out your school’s policy and ensure that your teen abides by it. At Vancouver’s Britannia Secondary School, students can carry cellphones with them, but they must be turned off during class time. Principal Randy Clark says just about all students comply, and when they don’t, the teacher can confiscate the phone until after class.

Cough up for costs
Beverley Cathcart-Ross’s daughter, Gillian, ran up $140 on her first cellphone bill. The parent educator and Toronto mom of four had already established that she’d pay half of a 100-hour, $40- per-month plan, while her daughter was expected to pay the other half. Gillian had to pay off the balance with earnings from her part-time job.

Wright buys a $10 phone card for Colette every month. When she runs out, she waits ’til the next month.

Ringers off at dinnertime
Dinnertime is often the only opportunity busy families have for conversation. To keep that sacred, make your dinner table a phone-free zone.

State your destination
You bought the phone so you wouldn’t be left wondering if he’s lying in a ditch when he’s late getting home, and now he’s tossing you a flippant “Just call my cell” when you ask where he’s going? You’ve every right to be miffed. After all, it’s a phone, not a Global Positioning System, right? “You can say, ‘I don’t like it when you say you can get in touch with me, so I don’t need to know where you are,’” points out Dr. Weiser. If that doesn’t do it, set out some consequences, she says. Negotiate a solution or take away the phone.