I remember the day that I got a positive pregnancy test with my youngest son, I was kinda shocked when I the pregnancy test came back positive because we had been trying for over 18 months. When we first started trying to conceive, I was excited the first few months and the excitement slowly wore off each month that I got my period. I finally gave up and stopped worrying about trying to get pregnant. We decided to let nature take its course and decided to leave the decision up to God. In late September 2010, I realized that I hadn’t gotten my period and took a test. The test turned positive immediately and we were thrilled to be expecting. I remember feeling like a new mom all over again since my it had been 10 years since I had been pregnant or had a baby in my house. After I had my youngest in May of 2011, I found that I always had a ton of questions and I didn’t like searching Dr. Google and coming up with some crazy answers or possible problems. If you have searched Dr. Google, you probably know exactly what I am talking about.
Disclosure: This post is for informational purposes only. If you or your child has a medical emergency, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
Today, I wanted to share with you some of my 6 of my favorite resources that I trust and recommend for new parents.
My Child’s Pediatrician’s Office
If I had a question during the day, I would call my son’s pediatrician office and leave a message for the nurse to call me back. The nurse usually got back to me fairly quickly unless their office was busy when I called. If they were busy, sometimes it would take a few hours to call me back, which was frustrating if I was dealing with a crying baby for several hours. My youngest actually had a crying spell when he was a few weeks old for several hours and I felt horrible because I didn’t know what else to do to soothe him. I tried making sure that all of his basic needs were met and even tried giving him some gas drops. When the nurse called me back, she told me that sometimes it is normal for a baby to go through crying spells aka witching hour. It was frustrating because my older two kids never went through this phase and I assumed that there was something wrong with my youngest son. Thankfully, he quickly outgrew that phase and things got better after a few days. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact your child’s doctors office that is why their office is there to handle and to help support you and your baby between office visits. The nurse can usually tell you if it is something serious and if your child needs to be seen the nurse will help you make that decision.
Utilize Your Insurance Company’s Nurse Line
Did you know that most insurance companies have a nurse line that you can call 24 hours a day, 7 Days a week 365 a year? The nurse line is there to answer any of your questions regarding any basic health questions such as symptoms, discuss any medications and their side effects, give you home remedy options for any symptoms that you or your child may have, and help you determine when you should go to the doctor or emergency room. So when your doctor’s office is too busy or you need answers in the middle of the night from a professional, simply pick up the phone and call your insurance companies nurse line. You can locate the phone number on their website or on the back of your card. Insurance companies provide this service to its subscribers to help you when you need an ear to listen too and to gain advice from a trained health representative. Plus, sometimes a simple phone call to the nurse can save you an trip to the doctor or emergency room.
Comments
4 responses to “6 Resources for New Parents”
WebMD is fairly reliable, but it can cause alarm for some new parents. If you’re prone to jumping to “worst case scenarios,” schedule an appointment with your child’s doctor, get a diagnosis from him/her and use WebMD to gain further understanding. A computer cannot distinguish between the gastric stomach upset of a baby who swallowed air while nursing and gastric stomach upset of an intestinal blockage.
I agree with you Karen. WebMD can freak a new parent out when they start googling symptoms for their baby. It’s better to call the doctors office, most of them have a 24 hour answering service or you can even call the ER to talk to a nurse too.
Thank you for these information, Christy. You really can’t stress enough how important it is to talk to your health care provider for any concerns regarding your pregnancy or your baby. Sometimes I have the tendency to think that my concern is too simple or not too important to bother my OB that I end up doing research and finding answers from not so reliable sources. In the end, it still doesn’t feel right. What will really put my mind at ease is talking to my OB, and I should always remember to do that first no matter what.
Your welcome. Just remember that your OB is working for you and even if they make you feel rushed always ask them any questions that you may have. Don’t be afraid to call and ask your OB nurse any questions that you might have missed when you were in the office. It is best to be over protective and ask the questions than to google it. Once you are twenty weeks, you can also use Labor and Delivery as a resource for your questions after hours especially if you think you might be in labor in the middle of the night.