Reply to Poll: how old are your kids and how many times have they been to the ER in their life?

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Reply to "Poll: how old are your kids and how many times have they been to the ER in their life?"

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[quote=Anonymous]5:0
7:1

My observation is that some people go to the emergency room for everything. We have some friends whose kids (ages 5 and 3) have each been to the emergency room at least 8 times. These kids don't have chronic health issues or underlying conditions. They just think that a fever that lasts more than a day or two or a cough that persists more than a week deserves an emergency room visit. To me, that's a "call the nurse hotline, or worst case go to urgent care" situation. Usually we contact the nurse hotline through our pediatrician and get some good advice for treatment plus reassurance about what actually requires an ER visit, and it's fine.

My feeling is that the ER should be for: unexplained lethargy, trouble breathing (always), sudden injury (anything that makes you worry about a concussion or broken bone), or the weird kid incidents like an item lodged in an ear or nose, assuming you can't get into a pediatrician which these days you can't.

We don't go to the ER for cold symptoms, even bad ones, and we don't even go for flu/RSV type illness unless something escalates (like breathing issues). Most of the time, I think kids are best served by staying home, resting, and being cared for by a family member, not sitting in a hospital all night.[/quote]

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