Be Your Child’s Advocate

You and your child will get a lot more out of your health visits if you do a bit of planning beforehand.  Sitting down to discuss some key questions and answers is a great place to start. By developing your responses you put yourself several steps ahead resulting in a more efficient appointment and a more accurate diagnosis.  The HealthPod Baby can guides you through this discussion.

Ten Key Questions for pre-planning your child’s health appointment:

1) What are the symptoms?

2) When did the symptoms first appear?

3) Is your child better, worse or the same as when the symptoms started?

4) Is your child running a fever?

5) Does anything make the symptoms seem better or worse?

6) Did anything trigger the symptoms?  What was it?

7) Has your child been exposed to anyone with an illness?

Has your child recently been injured?

9) What home remedies, over the counter medications or alternative treatments have you tried?

10) Is your child currently taking any medications? If so, what are they? What are the doses and when are they administered?

(Trust yourself. No one knows your child better that you do. If you notice anything unusual, or simply have the feeling that something isn’t quite right, don’t hesitate to call your healthcare provider. You’re not being paranoid, you’re being a parent!)

Excerpt from HealthPod Baby

What better time to pause and reflect on the year than when you are snowed in under several feet of snow and subject to  -20 degree temperatures - well, frankly, there’s not much else to do! 

It has been another great year for HealthPod Baby - it’s hard to believe another year has gone by so quickly.  Maybe its a function of age, but it seems like time is flying at warp speed!   Grabbing the number one spot on our list of exciting events this year was when Disney Family included HealthPod Baby in their Top 10 Pregnancy Essentials list - we were thrilled!  Another exciting event was when our own Marci Andrews, co-founder of HealthPod Baby, was named one of Calgary’s Top 40 Under 40 by Avenue Magazine - congratulations Marci!   (Check out the article and Marci’s video interview at http://cli.gs/XN9EJT).

We are also thrilled to welcome a new member to the HealthPod Baby team - Kelly Morris.  Kelly joins HealthPod as the new General Manager with a great background in marketing and social media.  We are really excited about Kelly’s ideas regarding social media - so expect to see more about HealthPod when you’re visiting your favourite networking sites.  If you haven’t connected with us on Twitter lately, you should check it out - Kelly has revamped the page and has been diligently tweeting away!

On the flip side, we are sad to say good-bye to two other HealthPod Baby team members, Lisa Hargreaves and Kim Fenton.  Both Lisa and Kim joined us over a year and a half ago.  Lisa was our sales girl extraordinaire and Kim did everything from assembling HealthPods and shipping them out to our customers to sending out all the free gifts with registration.  (If you haven’t registered with us, you might want to!)  Both these girls were extraordinary at what they did and had as much passion for HealthPod Baby as we do.  Unfortunately both had other opportunities that fit their families and lives better than HealthPod - we will miss them and wish them all the best in their future endeavours!

We are also sad to say good-bye to Magda Kaczan.   If you have signed up to receive the HealthPod newsletters, you’ve seen Magda’s work!  She kept us organized with articles and has recently been working on our new web store (to be launched shortly).  Magda recently welcomed a new baby into her family.  Congratulations Magda - we wish you all the best!

After such a busy 2009, we’re wondering what’s in store for 2010…..hopefully we’ll have time to slow down and enjoy all the events of the year instead of watching it whiz by at lightening speed!   From all the HealthPod team, past and present, we would like to wish everyone a happy holiday, and a fun, healthy and exciting 2010!

All the best.
Jana