Get Organized!

Keeping Baby's Health Records in Check

By Carol Sjostrom Miller

It's midnight and your baby is miserable. She's running a fever, pulling on her ear and screaming. You recognize the signs of an ear infection, so you pick up the phone to call the pediatrician. After explaining your child's symptoms to the employee at the answering service, you try to comfort your baby while you wait for the doctor on duty to call you back.

Finally the phone rings, but the pediatrician who calls has never seen your child. "I'll call in a prescription for an antibiotic," he says. "Is your child allergic to any medications?"

"When she had her last ear infection, there was an antibiotic that gave her horrible diarrhea and a rash," you reply, struggling to hear the doctor over your baby's cries.

"Which antibiotic was that?" the doctor asks.

Your brain is still fuzzy from being awakened, and you can't think with your sick baby screaming in your ear. The name of the antibiotic won't come to you. "I don't remember," you say.

Even the most conscientious parents find themselves in a situation like this at least once. And since children often get sick in the middle of the night or at other times when their medical records aren't available, it's important for parents to have their child's medical information at home – and close at hand.

"In this day and age, kids receive health care in a variety of settings," says Dr. Bryan Sibley, medical director of Beacon Children's Specialty Hospital in Houston, Texas. While the majority of health care takes place in the pediatrician's office, children are also treated in the emergency room, acute care clinics or even over the phone. "When care is provided someplace other than the pediatrician's office, the child's records are not always immediately available to the physician treating the child," he says.

That's where parents come in. "You have to be an active participant in your baby's health care," says Stacy DeBroff, author of Mom Central: The Ultimate Family Organizer (Kodansha, 1998). "There are critical times with a baby when you need the information about your baby's health history at your fingertips."

Want to see more?

• On the Record: The Risks and Benefits of Infant Immunizations
• Medicating Baby's First Illness: Caution Required!
• When to Call the Doctor
• Talk about it!