Parenthood is a complex process. In addition to their own beliefs, numerous trends influence adults, social, economic requirements, and the traditions of upbringing have not been canceled. Parents are wondering how to raise a child healthy and successful. Dozens of television shows have been shot and hundreds of books written. Thousands of copies are broken in disputes over vaccinations, breastfeeding and more. Proponents of traditional medicine fight violently against proponents of alternative. Weekly examinations are contrasted with a complete rejection of hospital visits. Home birth vies with clinical. Even doctors themselves sometimes oppose WHO recommendations and the requirements of modern traditional medicine. Robert Mendelssohn in the book “How to Raise a Healthy Child Despite the Doctors” tried to answer all the questions of thinking parents.
Dr. Mendelssohn
Robert Mendelssohn was born in Chicago in 1926, studied at a regular Chicago school. During World War II, he served in the United States Navy. After he defended a medical degree at the University of Chicago. And he received his specialty as a pediatrician at the Michael Reese Hospital in 1955 and stayed there to work. As a Jew, he repeatedly opposed his faith, which taught to choose life, and traditional medicine, which preached a worthy death. For more than ten years, he led a private practice as a pediatrician in his office in Chicago. And after he continued to receive patients of all ages at home. He also actively engaged in teaching, for a long time was a professor at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois.
In 1967, Dr. Mendelssohn was appointed National Director of the Head Start Medical Advisory Services Project. He left his post two years later under pressure because of his criticism of the state school system. Robert Mendelssohn recalled his resignation with humor and even dedicated the book “Confession of a Heretic from Medicine” to his persecutors, in which he thanked them for the gift of an opportunity to come to a new way of thinking.
Dr. Mendelssohn supported breastfeeding, advised parents on how to raise their baby healthy, participated in many conferences and educational programs on television and radio, and was awarded the Rachel Carson Award for caring for the health of American consumers. He was married, raised two daughters, Ruth and Sally. After the death of Dr. Mendelssohn in 1988, the Illinois Senate sent his family a letter acknowledging his merits and expressing condolences. Dr. Mendelssohn’s work has been translated into many languages and has thousands of supporters.
Heretic from medicine
Dr. Mendelssohn began calling himself a heretic from medicine in the late sixties. He recalled that this was facilitated by his own patients. Turning into adults, they returned to him with diseases that he himself created when he treated their childhood diseases. Some patients came with throat cancer, because in pediatrics it was customary to use x-rays for angina. Some patients had yellow-green spots on their teeth from tetracycline, which was prescribed for the treatment of acne.
As a student at a medical university, the future heretic from medicine participated in experiments. Women were given diethylstilbestrol, a synthetic estrogen substitute to prevent miscarriages. The drug did not help, but because of it a whole generation of boys and girls with tumors and malformations of the reproductive organs was born. When Robert Mendelssohn noticed an undoubted connection between drugs for children and the effects that they gave in the near future, he considered that doctors should learn from their mistakes and understand how to raise a healthy child.
But modern medicine with its ultrasound, puncture of the abdominal fluid, childbirth in the hospital, global vaccination campaigns has not changed at all over the years. Doctors just keep making other mistakes. In his books, including How to Raise a Child Healthy Despite the Doctors, Mendelssohn tried to help people realize that health depends on themselves. And there is no better way to recovery than the natural one. For his views, the doctor was often condemned by the medical community, but was warmly supported by the parental community.
Books for people
The first book that attracted widespread attention was The Confession of a Heretic from Medicine, in which Dr. Mendelssohn insisted that patients had the right to know about all the risks associated with treatment. The author also argued that the methods of modern medicine sometimes did more harm to the patient than the disease itself. He was sure that the prescribed drugs, which doctors are in a hurry to prescribe, have a long-term effect in the delayed future, affecting the whole body.
Robert Mendelssohn urged all patients to be attentive to doctors and not to accept the recommendations blindly on faith. Evidence-based medicine was subsequently based on this principle, which requires a decision on the use of drugs or procedures only if there is evidence of safety and effectiveness in the interests of patients.
In 1981, Mendelssohn published the book “Male Medicine. How women are treated, ”in it he raised uncomfortable questions about the difference in attitude to patients of different sexes. The book presented the results of studies that showed that women were prescribed more diagnostic tests and were prescribed twice as many psychiatric drugs than men. Dr. Mendelssohn was extremely concerned about the number of surgical interventions in a woman’s body, such as hysterectomy (removal of the uterus), radical mastectomy and cesarean section, which led to an increase in mortality, and not to general recovery.
Pediatrician versus pediatrics
The book "How to Raise a Child Healthy Despite the Doctors" was published in 1984. She became a reflection of the new philosophy of a famous doctor. In it, Dr. Mendelssohn gathered all his pediatrician experience, but opposed traditional recommendations and practices. He sincerely believed that parents know better how to raise a child healthy and strong. He supported natural parenthood, from home birth and breastfeeding, to active participation in decision-making about treatment and surgery. Outside of pediatrics, the pediatrician spoke out against vaccinations because he was convinced that there was no scientific evidence that mass vaccination would lead to the disappearance of childhood diseases.
The main idea of the book “How to Raise a Healthy Child Despite the Doctors” is that the best way to maintain children's health is to stay away from doctors, except in cases of emergency injuries or very serious illnesses. Dr. Mendelssohn’s ideas did not find support in professional circles. He was accused of undermining the foundations of modern medicine, his supporters were enlisted in the ranks of sectarians. However, no official evidence of the harm done by the postulates of how to raise a child healthy was given. In the book, Robert Mendelssohn did not urge to abandon medicine completely, he only advised to be careful about the health of the child and not to take all the recommendations of doctors on faith.
Critics
Advice on how to raise a child healthy in spite of doctors, Robert Mendelssohn gave mixed. They have not been approved by all readers. Fiercely criticized is the call to refuse vaccination. The home birth advised by Dr. Mendelssohn also has few supporters. These are global issues, and they are associated not only with personal beliefs, but also with state policy in medicine. Some recommendations of the renowned pediatrician cause bewilderment, and even shock, among readers.
Negative reviews about the book, for example, are written by people who do not agree that angina does not need to be treated, but it is worth letting it go through itself. Headache and otitis also do not require medical intervention, but require silence and light painkillers. Clubfoot and flat feet, according to Mendelssohn, also do not require correction, but simply are physiological features. Many believe that raising a healthy child, the book will only help overseas parents, as it was written by an American for Americans.
Dr. Mendelssohn’s colleagues criticized his attitude towards hospitalization as an unnecessary activity aimed at increasing hospital income. At the same time, critics often overlooked that in his book "How to Raise a Child Healthy Despite the Doctors," Mendelssohn often mentions the need to consult a specialist. But he calls for doing this in emergency cases and teaches how to recognize these cases.
Reader Reviews
Despite the controversy of some points, readers, for the most part, support the idea of a "heretic from medicine." Confidence in doctors has long been undermined by the hasty prescription of potent drugs with side effects and numerous, not always justified, analyzes. Readers are especially grateful to the author for removing the guilty feelings that many mothers experience under pressure from society, especially those who do not take the child to the hospital or refuse vaccinations.
In his book, "How to Raise a Child Healthy Despite the Doctors," Dr. Mendelssohn reveals the problems of traditional medicine. He is convinced that doctors, including himself, are hostages of the generally accepted system, which forces them to make quick and not always the right decisions for the sake of regulation and contrary to the interests of patients. In his vision, which has changed in the process of teaching, human health is associated with his psyche. In his opinion, parents should rather wonder how to raise a mentally healthy child than the question of what medicines should be stored in a home medicine cabinet. Modern pediatrics is aimed only at suppressing symptoms and does not have the goal of maintaining health in the long run. The result is numerous chronic diseases in adults.
The main advice of Robert Mendelssohn in his book is that you should not go to doctors unnecessarily, most childhood diseases do not require medical intervention. The author bases her advice for parents on how to raise a child healthy, based on her own observations and experience. His studies show that most typical childhood diseases do not require medical treatment, but pass by themselves, because the body’s desire to heal is usually stronger than any medical manipulation. In addition, many medications, procedures and surgical procedures are prescribed without sufficient justification and need, sometimes just to reassure alarmed parents. Not all pediatricians are knowledgeable about nutrition and pharmacology and cannot plan a therapeutic diet or take into account the side effects of drugs.
When asked how to raise a child healthy, Mendelssohn replies that parents should be able to distinguish a child’s condition that requires medical intervention from those when it’s not necessary, but just peace, care and good care. The book highlights the problems of baby food, the use of drugs and the consequences of their use, typical childhood and adolescent diseases and other difficulties that parents face in the process of education.
Parents are wiser than doctors
Robert Mendelssohn addressed his book to parents who need advice on how to raise a healthy child despite traditional methods of medicine, public pressure and even public policy. According to the author, the main factor in this is the responsible attitude of parents to the health of children. But at the same time, Mendelssohn warns that hyperprotection and panic in mild illnesses can play a bad role. The main thing is to remain calm and soberly assess the situation. Robert Mendelssohn believed that injuries rather than cough, runny nose and headache are more dangerous, the body is able to cope on their own.
The author gives recommendations on home diagnostics, explains the importance of proper baby food and talks about the dangers that official medicine may pose. The voluminous chapter of the book “How to Raise a Healthy Child Despite the Doctors” is devoted to protecting the child before birth and in the first days of life. Here, the author talks about the need to care for the health of the child before conception. Recommendations for pregnancy management, rejection of ultrasound, the dangers of interfering with childbirth and childcare, operations such as circumcision, he talks about all this in the chapters on the role of parents in ensuring the health of their children.
A red thread across the book is the idea that you do not need to worry about nothing. Mendelssohn urges parents not to compare their child with other children, not to worry about non-compliance, but simply to carefully monitor the child, his health and support his development with all his might. In his opinion, this is greatly facilitated by a healthy diet and close contact of the child with parents.
Harmless dangers
Robert Mendelssohn's advice and recommendations seem to his supporters very reasonable. But for parents who are accustomed to fully trusting graduates, much of the book seems too revolutionary. For example, Mendelssohn recommends not to bring down the heat, except in infants. The child’s body temperature can fluctuate even during the day, and with infections rises to 41 degrees. However, Mendelssohn does not even consider such a temperature dangerous, believing that this is a protective reaction of the body that does not require the intervention of a doctor. A child’s head can hurt for various reasons, including emotional ones. The author advises, before contacting a doctor, to eliminate the emotional and stressful causes of a headache, and then resort to treatment methods. It is also easy for Mendelssohn to treat abdominal pain caused by allergies or malnutrition, and colds, which, in his opinion, a child can easily overcome on his own.
The chapter on the safety of streptococcal tonsillitis causes a lot of controversy. The author believes that the horrors of tonsillitis are exaggerated by doctors, and the disease itself is quite easy and does not have such terrible consequences, as it is customary to talk about. Robert Mendelssohn in “How to Raise a Child Healthy Despite the Doctors” also details the harmless dangers of otitis media, easily resolved vision problems, skin problems and their causes, as well as focuses on the features of the development of the skeleton and questions for orthopedists.
Doctors and hospitals
Despite the fact that Robert Mendelssohn in his book says that doctors should be consulted when it is necessary, first of all, he teaches parents to cope on their own. His skepticism about the work of colleagues is no coincidence. Many years of practice in the hospital convinced him that this was not the most useful environment for the child, especially if his health was already weakened.
In one of the chapters of the book “How to Raise a Child Healthy Despite the Doctors,” the author describes in detail the dangers that children face after hospitalization: from respiratory infections to serious emotional problems. Dr. Mendelssohn also gives recommendations on choosing a doctor who will not only blindly follow the protocol, but will do everything possible to maintain the health of the child. The advice that was used in the USA in the 80s is also true for our reality today. In the age of the Internet, you can choose a doctor not only by his regalia and experience, but also by reviews and recommendations of friends. Mendelssohn, over and over again, calls not to trust everything that is said in medical institutions, but to approach children's health issues wisely and with attention.
Belief in a miracle
Robert Mendelssohn has always talked about self-healing the body.He considered modern medicine a dying phenomenon, because most people have already lost faith in the power of antibiotics and the need for painful tests. The book "How to raise a child healthy in spite of doctors" is a reflection of his philosophy. Robert Mendelssohn recommended large families, breastfeeding, homemade food. He respected homeopathy and alternative medicine with great respect.
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Dr. Mendelssohn in his books and interviews was not afraid to talk about what his colleagues are usually silent about. For a long time there is no need for global vaccination. Medical students need to study ethical standards, and not just dry science. The role of the doctor is, first of all, to tell the truth, and not to try to draw each case to a common clinical denominator. Mendelssohn believed that part of the families anyway, one way or another, would embark on a healthier path of parenthood, away from doctors and hospitals. Such families he considered stronger, more prepared for further life.
Accept or not accept the point of view of Robert Mendelssohn, everyone decides for himself. You can not always rely on your own instinct, especially if the child is the first. In addition, parental love is blind, and happy mothers and fathers may simply not notice deviations, taking them for developmental features. But Robert Mendelssohn does not ask to absolutely refuse the help of doctors. It simply reminds that each patient, regardless of age, gender, religion, has the right to know the truth about his state of health or the need for drugs and procedures. After all, the patient signs the consent to medical intervention, starting from a simple examination and ending with a surgical operation. But their parents are responsible for the children, so they should study all the instructions more carefully, ask more questions and be much more attentive to the condition of the child. Then, according to Robert Mendelssohn, the treatment of small patients will take place only in their interests.