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About The Book


What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do!

“ Moms and dads need expert guidelines, especially when it comes to their kids’ health. This book reveals the inside strategies I use myself—I’m a parent, too!— to avoid critical, common blunders where it matters most: in the ER, pediatrics ward, all-night pharmacy, exam room, or any other medical hot spot for kids. These tips could save your child’s life one day. Even tomorrow.” –Dr. Jen

M
aking health care decisions for your child can be overwhelming in this age of instant information. It’s easy to feel like you know next to nothing or way too much. Either way, you may resort to guessing instead of making smart choices. That’s why the nation’s leading health care oversight group, The Joint Commission, joined forces with Dr. Jennifer Trachtenberg on this book: to help you make the right decisions, whether you’re dealing with a checkup or a full-blown crisis.

The Smart Parent’s Guide
will give you the information you need to manage the pediatric health care system. Dr. Jen understands the questions parents face—as a mom, she’s faced them herself. She walks you through everything: from how to choose the best ER for kids (not adults) to when to give a kid medicine (or not to) to how pediatricians care for their own children (prepare to be surprised). Her goal is your goal: to protect the health of your children.

There simply is nothing more important.

About The Author

Photograph courtesy of author

Dr. Jennifer Trachtenberg, is a nationally-renowned parenting expert and board-certified pediatrician. She has practiced pediatric and adolescent medicine for more than 12 years and maintains a successful private practice in New York City. Author of Good Kids, Bad Habits:The RealAge Guide to Raising Healthy Children, Dr. Trachtenberg also serves as chief pediatric officer for RealAge.com. She earned her undergraduate degree in clinical nutrition, as well as her MD, from Cornell University.  She is also Assistant Clinical Professor in pediatrics at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and a mother of three young children.

As the heart and soul of the RealAge.com Parenting Center, Dr. Trachtenberg helps educate parents on how to raise healthy children through the RealAge Healthy Kids Test. The site offers a RealAge Parenting Style Quiz, and gives parents the opportunity to sign up for weekly tips and check the most recent and relevant medical news on child health. Dr. Trachtenberg has appeared on NBC’s The Today Show, AOL Coaches Homepage, iVillage Live, and CNN’s Headline News, among others. She has published articles on various health and parenting topics, including child development and childhood obesity.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Free Press (March 16, 2010)
  • Length: 336 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781439171899

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Raves and Reviews

A great jumping-off point, this book presents a lot of practical content conversationally with the child's experience in mind. Parents and other caregivers of children will want to keep this close at hand. --Library Journal

This wide-ranging resource will be useful to parents hoping to calmly manage and/or avoid childhood illnesses and accidents. --Publishers Weekly

"Trachtenberg's book is like a printed version of taking a big, deep breath."
--Houston Chronicle

“A thorough guide to help parents make the right decisions on finding the right doctor, tips for the perfect office visit, how to prevent medical mistakes in a doctor’s office or hospital, and much more. The author has credentials to spare and this book has much to recommend it.” --Bookviews.com

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