"The typical symptoms of pneumonia in children are high grade fever. It is also fast breathing and cough. Cough sometimes may not be present but a high grade fever and a fast difficulty. Sometimes they may present a difficulty in feeding when they are younger children. The younger the child, the more the severity can be of pneumonia. to prevent pneumonia, you can give the vaccines known as the pneumococcal and HIB influenza and also the parents should be aware of these kind of symptoms so that there is no delay in referring such a child to the nearest hospital facility. So mainly I would say fever, fats breathing and difficulty in breathing or feeding and cough. The management of pneumonia is as follows. It depedns on the severity of the illness. if the child is brought early in the course of the disease, it is just a fever and a cough, this child can be treated on an outpatient basis and we can treat them on oral antibiotics and tell them about the danger signs which if are present they need to come back early and they need a regular follow up for this. In case the severity of the illness is more, that is if there is a difficulty in breathing and the child is not able to feed at all, it is better that the child is treated in the hospital itself after admissions. typically we start the on iv fluids to maintain their duration, we start them on iv antibiotics based on the pathogen that we suspect. We get an x-ray done to see what is the severity and the extent of the pneumonia and we asses them every day. When there are viral epidemics like the flu virus that is currently present in Pune, we start them on antiviral treatment. Generally we get a good response to antibiotics after 48 to 72 hours. The criteria for the discharge would be if the child is not having any breathing difficulty, fever has settled and have a reasonable oral intake. That can be the criteria to discharge . However in all such cases, the parents should be aware of the danger signs , which if present the child should be brought back"

"Hepatitis B vaccination it is advocated to be given as soon as the birth of the baby and this definitely should be completed before discharge. So delay more than that is not advisable, pros are many. It helps to prevent his dangerous disease called as hepatitis B infection. The infection with hepatitis B spreads what infected needles use of blood precuts that have not been screened well, haring of needle, drug abuse and sexually transmitted in the older population. This is a very dangerous disease. The primary infection may be like any other jaundice. but the important thing we need to know is that there can be a chronic infection which affects the liver chronically and inturn person can get cirrhosis of the liver , that is a chronic condition of the liver . Also it is at risk of causing a liver carcinoma or cancer. So 100% we need to prevent the disease and as early as possible this vaccination should be given after birth. This has also been endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and this is the guideline that we have been following at Cloudnine we give the babies Hepatitis B vaccination immediately at birth , the vaccination is placed at the resuscitation trolley itself. So as soon as the baby is stabilized, the vaccination is administered. So if you ask me the cons, something related to the pricking of the needle, very rarely there can be fever. But the cons are so little and negligible that I am of the opinion that all of these babies should be given the Hepatitis B vaccination"

"What are Colic is very well known by parents as well as with doctors and we have been treated this for many years or decade as well. So it is something like a gripping pain in the abdomen of the baby because of which the baby becomes very uncomfortable and the baby may cry excessively. Generally this happens after the 3rd or the 4th week of life . It stays for a few months and then spontaneously resolves. There are a lot of misconceptions also in the mind of the parents. Sometimes peool feel that because of the diet of the mother the colic is caused. When it is scientifically proven that this is it not so. Certain remedies or measures can be done to control the colic, that is giving the baby some time known as the tummy time in which you place the baby on the baby’s abdomen however the baby should be supervised when we keep the baby in this kind of position. Secondly giving a little bit of an oil massage and a quick bath even in the evening time, that also smoothens and helps the baby. Lot of medicines are available. There are crude things like gripe water ad gutti which claim to give relief. But they have not been found to have much use and sometimes they can even be harmful. So use of such kind of remedies should be discouraged. There are certain kind of carminatives available which can be used but it has to be prescribed by qualified doctor and most f the time you need to reassure the parents that this is a harmless condition and it is not good to cause harm to the baby. So holding the baby in an upright position, rocking the baby gently, fermentation of abdomen and use of carminative medicines these sometimes help and prevention. I don’t think 100% prevention is not possible cause babies have a lot of gas and sometimes this does cause a lot of discomfort. So it is not completely possible to prevent this. But we can use some measures to relieve the baby of the pain"

"Childhood obesity is indeed a growing problem even in India, we need to make parents aware about this. As the concept that was present previously that the heavier the baby, the healthier he is and everybody was required to have a chubby baby. That no longer holds true. So first of all we need to make the parents aware about this. Second of all, regular weight checks. Being aware of certain health conditions like hypothyroid, which inturn increases the chances of an obese or a heavy baby. These things also they need to be made aware of and screen needs to be done in case of these disorders and also about the food and the diet habits, the kind of food the babies are consuming, especially once they are a little bit older and thy start developing likes and dislikes of their own. So excessive of junk food, lot of fried food and giving excessive of sweets. These things should be discouraged and as such the entire family should be promoted to have a healthy diet. So it is not something that you should be having only when you restrict the child or a particular member of the family. Everybody should be having a healthy diet. People should be always aware that the childbed to be in some sort of good outplay activity and engage the child in this activity so that the babies energy is channelised and also that the child does not become obese.These are the means in which obesity can be prevented"

"Generally what we advise is exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months for all the babies. Once the babies approach an age of approximately 5 and a half months and because many of the mothers nowadays are working and they need to resume their jobs. Generally we start with a little bit of homemade food at this age, that is 5 and half months. We tell the parents that the introduction of food is to be done gradually that the baby tolerates and we give them a weaning diet chart which the need to follow. So I would say that at the age of 5 and a half is good enough. In some special situations we do start a little more earlier which is around 5 months. But definitely before that we prefer to give complete exclusive breast feeding"