PediaOrganic

When our son was two years old and had the flu, he got severely dehydrated!

His doctor recommended the usual oral electrolyte drinks. We bought them but he refused them!

I sent my husband to the drugstore again and he brought back a few more of the brands and some sports drinks. The boy pushed them all away, calling them Yuck! I read the ingredients: artificial colors, artificial flavors, artificial preservatives. We landed in the ER and our poor son was put on IV. He was crying hysterically, in lots of pain from the needles, and completely miserable! My heart broke for my little boy! When his doctors told me we were not alone and many kids refuse the national brands and land in the ER; I told my husband that there should be an organic hydrating drink for kids that tasted good so that when they are sick they will actually “want” to drink it! So right there in the ER, the idea for PediaOrganic® was born!

I began by mixing juices, adding vitamins and even called on organic recipe developers to help me make an organic oral electrolyte drink for kids of all ages. For years, I worked all day and well into the night to develop the recipe for PediaOrganic®.  But we had some pretty strict requirements.  It needed to:

• Be Made with all Organic Ingredients
• Be Made without Genetically Modified Ingredients
• Have No Artificial Colors or Flavors
• Be Gluten and Dairy Free
• Have No Preservatives or Alcohol

When I finally got down to a few recipes I asked neighborhood kids, nieces, nephews, and even kids and moms from a nearby preschool to taste test it. The results were amazing, everyone loved PediaOrganic®!   (Moms and dads liked the flavor and were drinking it too!)  And I knew we had found the solution we had been searching for…

We didn’t just stop our research though once we found the right recipe for PediaOrganic®.  Because in addition to wanting an organic product that would help keep our son hydrated when he was sick, we needed to make sure the plastic bottles produced for PediaOrganic® were health conscious as well.  After checking a number of bottlers we decided on Ball Plastic Packaging since none of the resins used to produce Ball’s plastic bottles contained BPA.

So we started off looking for something that would help keep a little boy with the stomach flu from becoming dehydrated, and in the end it became so much more…  Moms have used it after a long day in the sun, at the park or after a visit at the amusement park. Some people drink it after a workout. There are moms that freeze it into popsicles too!

I believe that all things are possible and making things organic and healthier for our children is my life’s goal!  May you forever find health and happiness without artificial ingredients!

HEALTHFUL HINTS

• Symptoms of Dehydration
  • extreme thirst, more than normal or unable to drink
  • dry, warm skin
  • cannot pass urine or reduced amounts, dark, yellow
  • weakness
  • crying with few or no tears
  • sleepy or irritable
  • headaches
  • dry mouth, dry tongue; with thick saliva
• Treating Dehydration
  • First and foremost – when your kids are sick, consult your pediatrician or health care practitioner
  • But always keep a bottle of an oral electrolyte in the fridge at all times, because stomach flu’s or other ailments usually strike in the middle of the night when most drugstores are closed. (Note: most oral electrolytes including PediaOrganic are used for mild dehydration. They replace fluids and electrolytes lost during diarrhea and vomiting to help prevent dehydration from becoming more severe)
  • Never use an oral electrolyte in an IV
  • If there is vomiting or fever, or if diarrhea continues beyond 24 hours, consult your doctor and/or seek additional medical attention.

The Littlest Victims of The Recession – Part II

I wrote several weeks ago about the effect the economic crisis was having on our littlest ones. How 44% of children’s hospitals were reporting increases in ER visits this year because people were avoiding insurance and doctor’s office visits they couldn’t afford, and delaying care until it was absolutely necessary. The message was clear: children and their parents, the people working night and day to care for them, were flooding ER’s across the country. And the effect this was having on our children’s health and wellbeing was starting to take its toll.

CONTEST #1: What’s Wrong With This Picture???

For the past decade ER and Grey’s Anatomy have been two of the most popular US hospital dramas. Medical consultants are a given at this level. Take a look at the following clips from both of these shows…both show an ambulance arriving at the ER with a young child.

Two questions: What’s right with these pictures? …and more important what’s wrong?

(scenes © ER and Grey’s Anatomy, all rights reserved. A special thanks to Young Estate Studios for creating these clips and making this possible)

• You are seeing a totally accurate picture of what happens today. Clearly someone was holding the child during transport – whether the parent strapped to a stretcher or the EMT or paramedic who is getting off the ambulance holding the child. Regardless, they did not unstrap the child and pick them up to hop out of the ambulance. The consultant got it right.

What’s wrong?

• The consultant got it right – someone was holding that child on the ambulance while transporting them to the hospital. Noone has strapped that child in and currently there’s no law – at least in the US as well as in a number of other countries – requiring them to do so. It is not the medic’s fault, for very little is available in terms of equipment to safely secure young children on ambulances. But what if that child needed CPR? Or even more important, what happens to that child if the unimaginable were to happen and that ambulance were to be hit?

Maybe they’re safer in an ambulance than a car? If we consider that we are highly likely to be going above the speed limit around curves and passing through intersections against the flow of traffic, I’m not sure I believe that. Also I can say without a doubt there is at least 1 child I know of that will never attend public school because we did not keep her secure in the back of an ambulance. So clearly what we’re doing is not working, but until we’re ready to say “this is unacceptable” nothing will change.

The Littlest Victims of The Recession – Part I

According to CBS Early Show medical correspondent Dr Jennifer Ashton, nationwide 44% of children’s hospitals are reporting increases in ER visits this year. At Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio – one of the larger children’s hospitals in the country, traffic is up in the ER, even though the population of children in northeast Ohio is down.

Dr Edward Barksdale, chief of pediatric surgery, says the ER is busier than ever because people are waiting to seek care. Too many can’t go to a doctor’s office and end up coming to the ER instead, delaying care until its necessary. Then there are cases such as baby Hailey Sarubbi, born at 23 weeks and weighing little more than a pound who is struggling to survive because her mother went into premature labor after working seven days a week to make ends meet. And 17-year old Teauna Boysaw who didn’t have health coverage when she came into the ER with an infected cyst…her mother, a nursing assistant, couldn’t afford the $550 monthly fee to insure her children.

CBS News Interactive: Children In Danger

http://kdka.com/health/kids.health.care.2.1013257.html

Unfortunately, the sad reality is that our little ones are ending up in ER’s across the country. Do we blame the parents who delay treatment until it is absoutely necessary because it is more important to put food on the table? Do we blame a system where one in nine children lacks health insurance coverage? Do we blame the doctors and nurses who keep the child waiting in the ER, sometimes for hours, because every day there are more and more to treat.

Or is there something simpler we should consider here. Perhaps rather than blame, we could look for a way to help …a way to support…a way to cheer on every caregiver who is managing to not only survive these unbelievably awful times, but doing their very best to make life a little better for the child in their care – whether it’s their own or someone elses. Maybe it’s by relying on each other that we find the answers to the problems…for them…and for us. Perhaps its silly to look to a television show for any real meaning, but maybe the castaways on ABC’s Lost were on to something when they said “live together, die alone”. All I know is its up to us to make sure the littlest victims of the recession never become its casualties.