Catholic Pediatrics Blog

It’s always an awkward moment when, in the ER, I ask teens about sexuality or risk of pregnancy. I can get a feel by the awkward silence that follows whether I’m talking to a family that has open conversations about sexuality. I will be having many more of these conversations now that the American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending universal screening of all 16-year-olds in my area for HIV. Specifically, the new recommendations state that all teens age 16 and up that live in regions known to have a high HIV infection rate should be tested.

When my first child was one year old, I worked in Malawi, East Africa, as a visiting pediatrician. A stroller proved useless on the muddy dirt streets, and I marveled at the ability of African women to tie a toddler to their back with a rectangular piece of fabric in about ten seconds flat. But these African babies were so clam, so quiet. They nursed through their shots and a waiting room with more than fifty babies was almost quiet. Why? Because these African babies were all carried. And so I, too, became a babywearing mother, with a baby sling.

I have heard Catholic parenting “experts” discourage the diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and attention deficit disorder (ADD).  Such so-called “experts” especially discourage the use of medications to treat this diagnosis.  Instead, many Catholic parenting advocates encourage behavioral modification and alternative parenting techniques.  As a Catholic pediatrician, I find that the best approach to ADD and ADHD is a combination of behavior interventions and medication.

My 3-year-old’s pre-school teacher pulled me aside one day after school.  My daughter and a friend had been putting dolls in their dresses, pretending to be pregnant, then pulling the dolls out from between their legs, and then pretending to breastfeed.  “We weren’t sure what to do!” the perplexed teacher laughed.  Eventually, she said, the teachers decided to redirect the girls into a different activity.