Question about your pediatricians

[lea]

These might not be topics that would come up for a few more months at least, but maybe those of you with older kids could answer. Does your pediatrician talk about car seat safety and/or gun safety in the house?

I noticed the literature hanging up in the doctor's office just says kids must be RFing until 1 and 20 pounds, which is the law - but the AAP rec is that they rear face until at least age 2. They never brought this up with DS1 (the rec might have been newer then) so I am curious if they will this time.

I've also never been asked if we own any firearms or had gun safety discussed with me. I'm not sure if it was included in any literature we've received because most likely I never read it all. This has just been on my mind since just about every week there's a new story about a child who has shot him/herself, a sibling, a parent, a friend, neighbor, some other relative with an unsecured handgun. I read that in FL, doctors legally cannot ask if parents own a gun. This is absurd to me. At the very least, I feel all pediatricians should say "If you own a gun, make sure it is locked/unloaded/out of reach of children/whatever." They don't have to outright ask if someone owns a gun, but can at least pass along some general safety info.

[luckynumbers81]

At our pediatrician's office it is part of the first appointment. They go through a list of possible exposures, lead paint, guns etc as part of the electronic medical record and then printouts are automatically generated based on my responses. They don't talk about it but I am provided literature if I desire.

[isolemnlyswear]

I'm in MI and our new state law is rear facing until 2 now. The law passed at the end of the year. When we left the hospital they did a car seat check but that was it. I'm not sure if the doctor will go over the new state law or not. Our 6 month appointment is in a week.

We had a questionnaire and it asked if we own a gun.

[Deleted]

We also had a questionnaire that asked about guns. They gave not discussed car seat safety with us, but it is covered in the hand outs we've gotten. The handouts are age specific (ie 3-6 mo), and so far have all said the child must be in a rear facing seat.

[GrrArgh]

They don't talk about that stuff where we take them. Some other safety issues like the not water heater, smokers in the house etc.

[honeybee434]

We haven't had them bring up those topics. They did bring up our hot water heater levels, like the PP mentioned. We always have her infant seat with us so they always see what she is in right now so I don't see why they would have brought that up at this point.

[hurricanerek]

We got asked about all these things. I continue to get asked at every appt about her car seat situation. Thorough in PA I guess

[anotherdreamer]

With my DS and with these two, neither topic has ever been approached. I think it would depend on your area. Here the only non-medical things asked: if the kids are on WIC, if we have smoke detectors in the home, and if there are pets and/or siblings.

[Deleted]

Jan 19, 2015 23:02:22 GMT -5 anotherdreamer said:

With my DS and with these two, neither topic has ever been approached. I think it would depend on your area. Here the only non-medical things asked: if the kids are on WIC, if we have smoke detectors in the home, and if there are pets and/or siblings.

Lol at pets and/or siblings.

I have learned probably 2/3 of what I know about car seat safety from the ladies of the bump. Plus 99% of what I know about baby shower etiquette.

[honeybee434]

Jan 19, 2015 23:02:22 GMT -5 anotherdreamer said:

With my DS and with these two, neither topic has ever been approached. I think it would depend on your area. Here the only non-medical things asked: if the kids are on WIC, if we have smoke detectors in the home, and if there are pets and/or siblings.

We did get asked about smoke detectors. I forgot about that.

[emilillies]

We are asked about the rear facing car seat, animals and dogs in the home and firearms.

[lea]

Yeah, car seat safety after 1 year I mostly learned from TB (and occasional shared articles on Facebook). Extended rear facing, no puffy coats, when a child is mature enough to move from a 5-point harness to a high back booster, etc. If I'd just listened to the law or to family members with older kids, I wouldn't have taken most of the precautions I did/do. I still sometimes feel guilty that my 4-year-old isn't rear-facing when he probably still could size-wise if we had a different seat!

[holidayarmadillo]

Jan 19, 2015 17:52:14 GMT -5 isolemnlyswear said:

I'm in MI and our new state law is rear facing until 2 now. The law passed at the end of the year. When we left the hospital they did a car seat check but that was it. I'm not sure if the doctor will go over the new state law or not. Our 6 month appointment is in a week.

We had a questionnaire and it asked if we own a gun.

I'm in MI too. I knew the bill was in the works and had passed the senate; I'm glad to hear it made it all the way to law. The old car seat law was outrageously lax.

I have never been asked about firearms at my appts, but it never really crossed my mind since we don't own any. We get asked if he is still RFing every appt and at our initial appt about smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and our water heater temp. At every appt we are reminded nothing in the crib, don't leave the baby alone in the bath, and not to leave him alone on elevated surfaces where he can fall.

[liziz]

No one has asked or told us ANY safety stuff. (California) I guess they checked the car seat when we went to the hospital (although we had her in it totally wrong, in retrospect!), and we have brought her in the car seat to all pedi appointments so far, but that's all.

Thankfully I'm on top of it. Geez.

[oldwheeze]

No questionnaire or info about gun or car safety from the pedi. My hospital tour when preparing for birth had a carseat safety class that gave us resources for getting our carseats installed and inspected.

ETA: Texas

[stellabunny]

Our pediatrician asked about guns and gave us all the information for car seat safety, but we haven't talked about either in depth. We don't have guns at this point. But maybe if we did she would've had a safety discussion with us.

[sparkysundevil]

He did ask. And made sure to remind us to keep our firearms locked away from little hands. (Which we always do, anyway. I mean, duh).

[catarntina]

The only time she mentioned anything to me about carseats was at DS's 12 month checkup and he was under 20 lbs. She said I couldn't switch him to forward facing yet because he was only 17 lbs. She's never asked about carseats or gun safety or anything else.