Customer Reviews

The Holistic Pediatrician: A Parent's Comprehensive Guide to Safe and Effective Therapies for the 25 Most Common Childhood Ailments

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have often used The Holistic Pediatrician as a reference when patients/families have queried me regarding herbal remedies. As a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner I have noticed that more families are inquiring about herbal remedies and it is wonderful to have this resource handy. I have recommended this book to many of my PNP colleagues and parents.

If you have a sneaking suspicion that your pediatrician may not know about safer and more effective remedies for your child's illnesses that are natural or alternative, The Holistic Pediatrician is a wonderful reference -- for two reasons.

First, you'll learn about the most effective treatments for many common ailments facing kids -- irrespective of the ideology behind them. Dr. Kemper recommends medical intervention when needed, but she also endorses massage therapy, acupuncture, and other alternative therapies for specific problems. Her endorsements are based on clear reasoning and concrete evidence.

Second, this is a book that your pediatrician will love to learn from. Medical doctors are often skeptical of alternative therapies. But the Holistic Pediatrician presents such compelling evidence (with hundreds of scientific citations) that even the most conservative physician will appreciate most if not all of Dr. Kemper's recommendations.

In other words, the Holistic Pediatrician will allow you to have your cake and eat it too -- to use the best alternative medical therapies for your child without needing to sneak behind your doctor's back to do it.

Read a book on alternative therapy without a solid review of evidence, and you are gambling with your child's health. (For example, food allergy is not proven to be a major cause of ear infections, and changing your child's diet to prevent them may harm his or her growth and brain development!). Read this book, and you can have confidence about those alternative therapies that TRULY can improve the health of your child.

Based on one of the subtitles of this book, "Integrating the Best of Modern Medical Science with Proven Therapies from Herbal Medicines, Homeopathy and Other Healing Techniques", I was quite eager to get a copy for my parenting library. What a huge disappointment to discover that Dr. Kemper is more concerned with protecting her reputation as a pediatrician than in supporting truly holistic methods of healing.

Nearly every alternative suggestion is prefaced with, "there are NO studies evaluating the effectiveness of..." or, "there are NO scientific studies evaluating herbs as treatment for...", etc.

You'll also find statements that keep her from being responsible for recommendations of herbal or other alternative treatments with wording like, "some parents swear by using..." or, "many mothers believe...", and then always finished with another disclaimer that "there are NO scientific studies evaluating...blah blah blah."

I was also disappointed to see that she does not even mention breastmilk as an ideal and economical treatment for conjunctivitis/pinkeye but instead highlights a handy dandy listing of recommended products such as Phenylephrine, Tetrahydrozyline, Naphazoline and Oxymetazoline.

The whole book is tinged with her underlying attitude that mainstream modern medicine is really the best option and the clear feeling that she does not wish to be held liable for anything should one choose to use something besides antibiotics, steroids and vaccines.

This author is obviously pro-vaccine and pro-mainstream medicine.

The bottom line: this book emphasizes conventional medicine, vaccination and pharmaceuticals. It also seems to have been co-authored by a defense attorney. For a much more comprehensive and helpful guide to holistic pediatrics, do yourself a huge favor and check out the excellent, "Your Vital Child" or "Smart Medicine for a Healthier Child".

This book demystifies holistic medicine and presents several different alternatives for treating common childhood ailments. Holistic treatments of various origins are discussed along with traditional Western medicine treatments, and the author takes a very scientific approach in her recommendations.

It is an excellent resource for parents who are interested in alternative medicine, or even those who are curious as to how and why our modern medicine works (or doesn't work) for common childhood ailments.

As the mother of a 9 month-old baby boy, I have found this book to be a fantastic resource. We look things up in it all the time. It's clearly written for parents. I truly appreciate that it's based on the evidence of what's been proven to work and what has not.

The book does not offer false promises of miracle cures, or buy the line that just because something is "natural" it's also safe. I really appreciate this.

I totally disagree with the chiropractor who wrote in. I have spoken with some chiropractors, though, who were really out in left field in terms of their recommendations of treating every ailment with chiropractic, and Dr. Kemper definitely is NOT out in left field.

This is the best book I've ever seen on kids' health problems. And the advice is sensible, practical and thrifty.
Adults can benefit from the information on asthma, colds, and other conditions covered here, too.
I took this book to my doctor, and he was impressed with all the references. He said he'd heard Dr. Kemper speak at a national conference and knew she was from Harvard, so he trusted her advice.
I do, too. Can't wait for the 2nd edition!

Dr. Kemper summarizes mountains of research findings to give parents the information they need to know for addressing children's needs. Organized by common problems, the book details what has and has not been shown to be effective. Sensitive and thorough, the book is an essential guide for parents seeking accurate information about alternative and complementary treatments. I highly recommend every pediatrician read this book to be able to answer parent's questions with the same research base applied to current pharmaceutical interventions. This book represents a significant step ahead for the healing arts, blending the openmindedness of alternative therapies with the rigor of scientific query.

The Holistic Pediatrician is what we've all been waiting for. It answers questions about typical childhood problems in a way that is readable, honest, practical and fair to a variety of different kinds of therapies. I took it with me to my pediatrician, and she had a copy on her shelf already! She said she uses it as a reference to therapies she didn't learn in medical school and thinks the advice is very sound

I write this primarily in response to other contributors on the website who apparently have missed the point of this book.

Dr. Kemper is an MD, MPH trained in traditional "allopathic" or "Western" medicine. She also happens to be one of the most widely published and reputable of researchers in the U.S. who have attempted to address the lack of scientific knowledge regarding complementary medicine therapies and techniques in pediatrics. The aim of her work is simply to inform people who take care of children (parents and providers) of what the state of evidence is regarding different interventions for common pediatric conditions.

To that end, the comments of "there is no evidence regarding the use of (therapy X) for (condition Y)" is just a matter of stating the facts..there are no rigorous scientific studies to support or refute the claims that the therapy works. In contrast, there are times where she states there is reliable scientific evidence to support the use of specific treatments or recommend against others. I don't see where this becomes an "us vs. them" type of discussion as suggested by other readers who insinuate there is some sort of antagonistic relationship between traditional and non-traditional providers (after all, isn't it that everyone is trying to look out for the child's benefit?).

As a parent, the hardest thing to assess when making choices about your child's health is the quality of the recommendations you are being provided. I certainly appreciate someone who has studied the subject and can comfortably say "we simply don't have good science to say whether this works." I also appreciate some the insight into potential side effects of "complementary or alternative" therapies which are generally minimized in discussion in the public forum as the default assumption is that they are always safe (which they apparently aren't). Again, absence of evidence does not mean absence of efficacy, but I may not choose that route if there is another more proven route of treatment (especially if it costs a lot of money out of pocket).

The only disappointments of the book are that Dr. Kemper makes it clear that there is clearly a lot more that needs to be learned and studied rigorously to weed out those remedies which are folkloric and ineffective versus those which have true benefit. I know that institutions like Harvard and the NIH have put a lot of money into investigating complementary medicine. Since this edition was done a few years ago, I would presume that an update of the current state of information is probably
in order.

I took this book to the pediatrician with me. Even he was impressed by its thoroughness. Up to date with latest scientific studies. Very helpful.