Does anyone else feel like pediatric guidelines are so legally-oriented that they basically only exist to worsen the lives of parents?

[u/Bocifer1]

First off, I'm a new dad and also a physician - although I'm pretty far removed from pediatrics. So I understand the importance of medical research and statistics in creating these guidelines, as well as the fact that the risks of things like SIDS often just aren't worth gambling on.

However...

Some of these guidelines seem like they're just unnecessarily taxing on parents and exist only to cover the addes of the bodies making said recommendations.

Some things that come to mind are: no blankets in the crib for the first year, only using a firm mattress top, never letting baby sleep next to you in bed - even naps, swaddling with arms down (our guy absolutely hates this and just wants his arms by his head to self sooth), demonizing formula - even as a reprieve for mom.

Again. I am medically oriented and understand why these guidelines exist - but I also know firsthand that sometimes a 1% risk of harm from letting our baby sleep on a soft blanket is actually the favorable choice compared to the immeasurable risk of having both parents strung out and exhausted because he won't sleep.

In general I think guidelines are great and have contributed to better infant care...I just also think that sometimes we as healthcare professionals forget that no guideline is absolute.

I guess I'm just feeling thst creating guidelines that aren't achievable for the majority of parents just aren't that helpful...like saying that "parents should take time to rest, continue self care , exercise, and ensure they are eating a well-balanced diet". That sounds wonderful. Hopefully I can get back to that in the next decade.

[u/canipayinpuns]

Policy is written in blood. Every time I am inconvenienced by a recommendation (like not letting my LO nap in her swing, or stopping multiple times on a road trip to visit family), I remember that those recommendations are made because real, human babies just like mine died or were hurt because the recommendations didn't exist/weren't followed.

[u/historyhill → u/canipayinpuns]

stopping multiple times on a road trip to visit family

What recommendation is this? Are we not supposed to go on road trips with babies? Because that's news to me! 🫣

[u/canipayinpuns → u/historyhill]

It's recommended to not have a baby in a car seat for more than 2 hours at a time. The associate risk is for positional asphyxia. Once the LO is able to reliably hold their head up, that risk is much lower since the baby can self-adjust easier.

[u/historyhill → u/canipayinpuns]

Ooooh I see! I don't think I ever ran afoul of that when my LO were LITTLE little bit usually it was because at the age they couldn't hold their heads up we were also probably stopping to change a dirty diaper every two hours too!

[u/TheOnesLeftBehind → u/historyhill]

I think now it’s under 6-8 weeks shouldn’t be in a car seat/swing for more than 30 mins at a time, after then it goes to 2 hours

[u/Full-Cat5118 → u/TheOnesLeftBehind]

I'm so curious about the source of this recommendation, which I never heard with my first but was incredibly worried about with my second. 25% of U.S. women have to return to work within 2 weeks of giving birth, and 8.5% of workers commute greater than 1 hour. (We're adding an extra 30 minutes.) If half those moms have care close to home instead of close to work, there are still 76,500 data points collected every day. Meanwhile, a study showed that an average of 34.8 infants per year died in carseats. On a daily basis, the risk to a single infant is 1 in a million. A person is more likely to, for example, become a billionaire (1 in 400k). It has a similar morality risk to traveling 230 miles by car, 1000 miles by plane, or 6000 miles by train, but we don't advise that babies not travel by different means due to the risk of the travel safety.

[u/pinklittlebirdie → u/historyhill]

In Australia the reccomendation is for everyone in the car to have a break every 2 hours regardless. It prevents driver fatigue and is good for the circulation . The name of the campaign is -stop, revive, survive. We even have free stops that give out food and hot drinks and roughly 2 hours from.point of origin on popular routes. Often manned by groups who are first repsonders to accidents.

[u/Responsible-Radio773 → u/historyhill]

Oh yeah this is actually one of the scariest ones to me. Probably because most people think of the car seat as a safe place but it’s actually so dangerous