3 Reasons To Schedule Routine Wellness Checks For Your Little One
Visiting the doctor is something that few adults look forward to. Some parents have a tendency to transfer this reluctance onto their children by waiting until an illness arises to schedule a doctor's visit. Children can benefit greatly from routine wellness checks with a pediatrician.
Learn more about the ways that regular wellness checks can benefit your child over time so that you can better understand the important role these appointments play in your child's health.
1. Identify Development Issues
Childhood is a time of change. A young child's body is constantly growing and evolving as they mature toward adulthood. These changes and evolutions usually go smoothly, but it is possible for complications to arise.
A pediatrician will use standardized tests to check your child's development against the normal range for a child their age. Height, weight, and other physical attributes will be monitored over time. Any changes in these development markers can signal trouble for your child.
Wellness visits allow a pediatrician to establish developmental trends for your child so that a more accurate diagnosis can be made.
2. Maintain Better Health
A child's health can be fragile. It's important that your child is getting all of the vitamins and nutrients they need for the body to develop properly. A pediatrician can use wellness visits to help you identify changes that can be made to your child's diet and physical routine.
The addition of a dietary supplement or suggestions on how to increase a child's exercise can go a long way toward helping a child counteract deficiencies that could have a lasting negative effect.
Without regular well-child visits, a pediatrician may not catch small changes that could turn into big problems for your child down the road.
3. Reduce Potential Illnesses
The type of medical care that a child receives during their early years can sometimes impact overall health into adulthood. Medical conditions that could have been treated if they were spotted in childhood can plague a child for the rest of their lives.
Wellness visits provide pediatricians with the opportunity to conduct comprehensive screenings for their patients. The results of these screenings can be compared to screenings from previous wellness visits. Changes in these results will be investigated further, allowing a pediatrician to identify and treat the root cause of troublesome examinations.
Your child can't call and schedule a wellness visit on their own. Take the time to give your child the medical attention they need by scheduling regular wellness visits with a local pediatric care clinic.