I was able to talk to Dr. Joy Patten, a Pediatrician at the BYU Health Center. At first I was curious about public health trends among the BYU population in general but then I realized how interesting the health trends are for children, especially in Utah Valley and even more especially at BYU. There are several prominent health trends that she has seen increase in the last few years and a few additional trends that she feels will become more prevalent in the future. Five of the public health trends that were particularly interesting to me include the prevalence of mental illness, circumstances surrounding the number of births at home verses at the hospital, the noticeable increase of antibiotic resistance, the affects of herbal/alternative medicine trends, and the consequences of not vaccinating your children.
1. When I first asked Dr. Patten about health trends among children in Utah Valley she immediately stated the increase in mental illness. The specific ailments she noted were anxiety, depression, conduct (antisocial) disorder, ADHD, and Autism. She explained that, especially among BYU student’s children, she has seen many more cases of children with these mental disabilities in the last few years than before, especially depression/anxiety and Autism. She said there are quite a few studies being performed and published currently to try and explain those trends but I found some of her hypotheses interesting. In addition to working at the BYU heath center she has had experience in clinics in Texas, Maryland, Salt Lake, and several other locations in Utah Valley and she believes that part of the reason why the children she sees are more depressed and anxious than other children are because they are the children of young married couples who are still attending school and working. In other words, your child’s mental health may very well depend on your mental and emotional health. Maybe having children while the rest of life is still crazy and insecure is not the best idea you can have at BYU.
2. I thought it was interesting that the next thing Dr. Patten brought up was the number of children she sees that were born at home or in birthing centers by a mid-wife compared to those who were born in a hospital. She said that last week most of the babies she saw had not been born in the hospital and, she believes, if they had they would not have needed to come see her. She explained that more and more mothers are choosing to have home births or going to a birthing center. Some mothers choose to do this because of personal beliefs/preferences but if you take two minutes to research it you will find that the price to have a baby in the hospital is significantly--even drastically--higher than the alternatives. When you are a poor, starving college student this looks pretty great. Without going in to too much detail, because she did give credit to how much the safety and success of midwife-delivered births has increased in the last few decades, Dr. Patten pleaded the benefits of having your children in a hospital. It is a safer, cleaner, more prepared for emergency-centered environment. They take a lot more precautions before and after the baby is born that helps start your baby’s life as healthy and disease-free as possible.
3. The next trend that Dr. Patten discussed was the increase in antibiotic resistance that she has seen in the last few years. Again, she noted that there have been and continue to be many studies performed to try and explain these trends--and the problem of antibiotic resistance is not just prevalent among children but adults too--but her explanation is that we are too quick to prescribe antibiotics. She said that especially young BYU mom’s who are so new to the parenting world always feel like they need a solution to every symptom their children display. If they give their child medicine they think it will help. So even if the cause is not antibacterial they ask for an antibiotic and say “better safe than sorry.” However, just because you child cries does not mean they are hungry and the same idea applies to giving your child medicine every time they cough or sniffle. Increases in bacterial infections (both the prevalence and duration) among children has increased because we are growing antibacterial resistant children and something about that definitely needs to change.
4. While we were discussing antibacterial resistance and different medications, Dr. Patten touched on a subject that caught my attention and I ended up discussing it with her in much more detail after our conversation and that was the trends in alternative/herbal medications. These include acupuncture, chiral practices, Colloidal Silver, and herbal supplementation. An increase in all of the noted practices have worried Dr. Patten more than almost any other factor in the last few years. She stressed the importance of knowing exactly what you give your children and because herbal supplementation and alternative medicines do not have to be approved by the FDA you can never be certain exactly what you are giving your children. While some sources are not harmful, most choices are not safe. None of them are regulated and most do not even include all their ingredients on the labels because they do not have to. She told me that there are times and places for acupuncture, chiral practices, and some supplementation but we should be a lot more careful about the “snake oil’s” we believe in and depend upon because they haven’t been tested. We do not know what the consequences in the short or long term future will be.
5. The last topic we talked about, and probably the most important point that Dr. Patten wanted to get across, was the consequences of not vaccinating your children. There are a few cases when vaccinating your children would be more harmful than beneficial but more and more parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children and according to Dr. Patten “this is showing an irresponsibility on the parents part. There isn’t a more stupid thing that a parent could do than not vaccinate their children.” She talked about the numbers of deaths among children that could be prevented if they had been vaccinated. She also talked about several disease outbreaks in schools in Utah Valley (including the whooping cough outbreak at the elementary school I attended and where my younger siblings currently attend) and explained how all but one were traced back to a child who had not been vaccinated. She also explained how most private practices in Utah Valley will not even see your child if they haven’t been vaccinated anymore. If parents would vaccinate their children, more diseases would disappear and we would see less money being spent medically and legally (because of many legal issues being brought up).
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