3 reasons not to miss a well child check

What is the point of a checkup?

If you ask a dozen doctors, you might get two dozen answers.

Even then, there might not be a single one of them that lines up with what you want from a checkup.

Here are some goals that we can all agree are important:

Answer questions about your child. The most fulfilling checkups for me are those where a parent brings a list of questions (on paper, napkin or iPhone).

Monitor your child’s growth. Following along those graphs and height and weight percentiles are not only used as a way to compare your child to your friends on Facebook; they provide great insight into your child’s overall health.

Discuss your child’s development. Discussing your child’s new skills helps me intervene when things are not progressing as we would like.

Here are three reasons that are important to me (that might not be as important to you):

1. Talking through 2 or 3 issues per check-up that I think are too important to not miss. Some examples are back-to-sleep for newborns and diet and nutrition for older children.
2. Completing a full physical exam. This helps me determine if there are any subtle health problems that might not have been noticeable to the family. Some common problems identified at check-ups are eye problems, hernias and heart murmurs.
3. Vaccinations. Vaccinations. Vaccinations. There are very few things that I do as a general pediatrician that protect lives. Vaccinations do.

Even when you think everything is going well, it is important to show up yearly for your checkups. You never know when that routine visit could turn into something very important.