Top Ten Sleep Tips for Children

Top Tip 1 - Work With Your Family DoctorSleeping problems can cause serious health issues or can be a symptom of another underlying health problem. Children who don't get enough sleep simply don't thrive as they should. They are less happy, get ill more frequently, find learning more difficult and don't even grow as well as they should.So it is important that you seek accurate and appropriate medical...

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Living with a Recurrent Fever

Just a Virus?I can’t tell you exactly when this started, because it took awhile for us to figure out what was going on, but it was sometime around age 2. For a long time, we just kept thinking Hayley had a bad string of viruses. Our other children never caught any of them, however, and after awhile, we began to realize that all of her viruses were very similar. She never had a stomachache, never threw...

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Heart Murmurs and Your Child

Many parents fear the worst when their child is diagnosed with a heart murmur, but this diagnosis is actually extremely common. In fact, many kids are found to have a heart murmur at some point during their lives. Most murmurs are not a cause for concern and do not affect the child's health at all.What exactly is a heart murmur? By itself, the term heart murmur isn't a diagnosis of an illness or disorder....

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Cholesterol and Your Child

Most parents probably don't think about what cholesterol means for their kids. But high levels of cholesterol are a major factor contributing to heart disease and stroke, and medical research shows that cardiovascular disease has its roots in childhood. And with the dramatic increase in childhood obesity, more and more kids are at risk.Problems associated with high cholesterol generally don't show...

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Arrhythmias

An arrhythmia is an abnormal heart rhythm usually caused by an electrical "short circuit" in the heart.The heart normally beats in a consistent pattern, but an arrhythmia can make it beat too slowly, too quickly, or irregularly. This can cause the heart muscle's pumping function to work erratically, which can lead to a variety of symptoms, including fatigue, dizziness, and chest pain.What Causes Arrhythmias?The...

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Anemia

About AnemiaAnemia, one of the more common blood disorders, occurs when the level of healthy red blood cells (RBCs) in the body becomes too low. This can lead to health problems because RBCs contain hemoglobin, which carries oxygen to the body's tissues. Anemia can cause a variety of complications, including fatigue and stress on bodily organs.Anemia can be caused by many things, but the three main...

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Alpha Thalassemia

ThalassemiasThalassemias are a group of blood disorders that affect the way the body makes hemoglobin, a protein found in red blood cells that is responsible for carrying oxygen throughout the body.The body contains more red blood cells than any other type of cell, and each has a life span of about 4 months. Each day, the body produces new red blood cells to replace those that die or are lost from...

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