PEDIATRIC HEALTH ASSOCIATES

Shelly Flais, MD We at Pediatric Health Associates support your child's health and medical concerns, and we also seek to nurture kids as a whole, including both mind and body. In this spirit, today's blog post is on the topic of childhood education, to provide food for thought for parents in the evolving 21st century. As Illinois schools implement newer Common Core standards, the face of education continues to evolve. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) curricula are gaining more attention as these fields foster particular skills that will be necessary for the workforce over the next few decades. Computer science offerings, such as basic computer programming, however, are more challenging to find for students and usually are not available in public schools until the high school level. NPR recently addressed this issue; to read more, check out the article at h ttp ://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/02/17/271151462/a-push-to-boost-computer-science-learning-...

Welcome to Pediatric Health Associates! Did you know that you do not have to wait until the hectic summer is here to get your child's yearly physical?   School and sports physicals are valid for 1 year from the date they are completed.   This means at any point your child can be seen for their kindergarten, sixth grade and ninth grade checkup and get their school forms completed.   Checkups are not only a time to approve school and sports exams--- they are far more-- following up on past development and growth issues, as well as re-assessing any ongoing medical issues that your child may have.  Further, if specialty referrals are needed, we will arrange at the time of your visit the best specialist for your child's problem.   You may be wondering what the benefit is of having your primary care provider do your physical versus having one of the retail clinics attached to a pharmacy complete your physical? First, your primary care office ha...

    Happy Valentine's Day!    

The trend towards using organic foods to feed our families is something we really can put our support behind.    Feeding our families preservative free, antibiotic free and non-genetically altered food reduces the body’s need to process potentially harmful substances. But not every “raw” food is necessarily a good thing.    Take unpasteurized raw milk.   Unpasteurized milk can contain bacteria and germs such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria. Whether raw milk comes from cows, sheep, or goats, the bacteria is especially dangerous to children .   O f all outbreaks that were caused by food sources that occurred between 1998 and 2011 over 79% of them were caused from raw milk products. No matter how much a cow’s udder may be cleaned before milking, the milk can be contaminated in a variety of ways: It can come in contact with cow feces or bacteria on the cow’s body.   It can be contaminated if the cow’s udders have an infection. Bacteria c...