Would you skip a well baby check up?

[Annie Laurie]

Deleted, felt like too much personal info floating in internet space.

Edited October 31, 2008 by Annie Laurie

[Cathy in IL]

I am trying not to be envious of those of you whose children are rarely at doctors. I was just rejoicing the other day when we were stepped down to every two months for visits with my son's primary and quarterly visits with his specialists. We have a minimum of 29 visits a year with my 3 children and all their specialists. That doesn't count sick visits or the three days of IV antibiotics my son with sickle cell needs for every fever over 101. Then there are brain MRIs every 6-12 months, ultrasounds every 6 months, and the blood transfusions to prepare for each test. I am incredibly thankful for excellent health insurance and incredible children's hospitals!

[emeraldjoy]

I am trying not to be envious of those of you whose children are rarely at doctors. I was just rejoicing the other day when we were stepped down to every two months for visits with my son's primary and quarterly visits with his specialists. We have a minimum of 29 visits a year with my 3 children and all their specialists. That doesn't count sick visits or the three days of IV antibiotics my son with sickle cell needs for every fever over 101. Then there are brain MRIs every 6-12 months, ultrasounds every 6 months, and the blood transfusions to prepare for each test. I am incredibly thankful for excellent health insurance and incredible children's hospitals!

 

I have been infatuated lately with needing a major dose or two of perspective daily; I think we all could benefit......

This is for sure one major dose for me today. Thanks for sharing your story. I am extremely thankful for the health of my children and my heart grieves for you and your family; it just doesn't seem fair.

 

And still you find time to be thankful through it all, your my new hero.

Again, thanks for sharing.

emerald

[cathmom]

I am trying not to be envious of those of you whose children are rarely at doctors. I was just rejoicing the other day when we were stepped down to every two months for visits with my son's primary and quarterly visits with his specialists. We have a minimum of 29 visits a year with my 3 children and all their specialists. That doesn't count sick visits or the three days of IV antibiotics my son with sickle cell needs for every fever over 101. Then there are brain MRIs every 6-12 months, ultrasounds every 6 months, and the blood transfusions to prepare for each test. I am incredibly thankful for excellent health insurance and incredible children's hospitals!

 

Yes, thank you for giving us your perspective!

[Miss Sherry]

I understand not having insurance and needing to keep those costly visits down.

We don't have insurance and are still paying payments for the treatment of my daughters broken ankle that happened in April.

 

We had insurance when our children were little and went to all of the well child visits. Several of them we went off schedule due to being sick with allergies or colds. We rarely need to be at a doctors appointment now and they still get sick with allergies or colds so I know this is not something picked up from the doctors office.

 

I do know a couple of people that have had serious conditions diagnosed at well child doctor visits. My friends infant son had a rapid heart beat (diagnosed at a well child visit ) that had to be treated and they did some tests and found he also had a hole in the septum of his heart.

 

Another family just was not noticing ( or unable to accept ) that their daughters development is not where it should be. The pediatrician suspected autism and it turns out that it is autism.

 

I know that well child checks are a waste of time for many families and the cost can really hurt your finances but I just can't disregard them completely because I do think that we do not pick up on every health issue our children have ourselves.

Edited October 31, 2008 by Miss Sherry

[A home for their hearts]

Thanks for all the replies and for putting my at ease that I'm not a bad mom if we skipped one well child visit. Up until a couple of years ago our insurance covered all well baby/ well child visits and 100% of vaccinations and so I took all my kids faithfully. I didn't figure out until after my baby's second welll visit that they weren't covering as much as they used to. So I called and they only cover $125 a year for any kind of well being check including vaccinations. We went way over that at my baby's first visit! So now we go to the health dept. for our vaccinations. We have an HRA account but it was gone around June after all the issues I've had with my gallbladder so now we are paying our deductable so that means we would have to pay for the check up. I think my baby is fine and it can wait until January.

 

Our ped. who we've gone to for the last 3 1/2 years is no longer in our network either so I was really hoping I could take her to a new ped. so we could get a relationship started but it's just not possible. I think it's important to know your ped. well and for him to know your kids. For example when my dd9 gets strep throat is rarely ever comes back positive on the rapid strep screen but it always comes back positive a couple of days later so my old ped knew that and would always start her on antibiotics right away. Now if she gets it I'm probably going to end up having to beg the ped. to just go ahead and start her on antibiotics.