Village Pediatrics of Chapel Hill, NC 27516

Maria will be teaching her life-saving Infant and Child CPR class again soon, but we need more participants before we can schedule.  This class for parents will not provide CPR certification, but if your memory of these techniques is a little fuzzy, or you want to know what to do in an emergency situation, call Maria to sign up!  919-969-9611

Really bad.  According to the Los Angeles Times, Pertussis is making a comeback.  We’ve seen it right here in Chapel Hill, with several cases confirmed by the Orange County Health Department in recent years.  This story reminded us that TDaP is a mandatory vaccination for rising 6th graders in North Carolina.

Avoid the rush!  Get ready for back to school today!

The Food and Drug Administration recently alerted parents and caregivers that some liquid Vitamin D supplement products are sold with droppers that could allow excessive dosing of Vitamin D to infants.  Please read the FDA Vitamin D warning, and make sure you are giving no more than 400 international units (IU) per day.  Excessive Vitamin D can be harmful to infants.

Edie’s trip to Washington and her press conference with BCBSA and BCBSNC at the National Press Club was a huge success. The childhood obesity and diabetes toolkits we helped develop are now available nationwide, and Dr. Bernosky’s remarks were quoted in today’s News and Observer! She was also quoted on getgoingnc.com and The Seattle Times! Pediatricians need more collaboration like this with insurers to provide better care to patients. Like Dr. Bernosky says, “This is a national epidemic, and what we need to do is take measures and strategies from multiple directions… It’s useless to promote these concepts if we don’t reinforce that and make it possible to achieve these goals.”

Dr. Edith Bernosky (Edie) will be speaking today at the National Press Club with both Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association about their new obesity and diabetes toolkit.  Village Pediatrics has been helping to develop BCBSNC’s obesity and diabetes toolkit since 2007,  and today Dr. B will be announcing the availability of this toolkit to all BCBS pediatricians nationwide!

The press conference is at 2pm, and you can watch is live here:  http://www.bcbs.com/news/bluetvradio/childhood-obesity-and-diabetes/

Celebrate the start of summer vacation by meeting team members of the Carolina Railhawks professional soccer team, as well as their team mascot, Swoops!  The Railhawks, Eurosport, and the Independent Weekly will be presenting this special event at 7:00pm on Thursday June 10th on the Village Green.  Come for the team giveaways and free raffles, and stay for the 9:00 showing of ‘Bend it Like Beckham’.

$4 regular admission if you stay for the movie | $3 if you’re wearing your soccer uniform | $2/person if you and your team of 5 or more people show up in uniform

Now is a good time to sign up for our free New Parent CPR class!  This is a two-hour class that will led by American Heart Association certified instructor Maria Mekeel, RN.  The class will be held in July and refreshments will be provided.  Email maria@villagepediatrics.com if you are interested.

Take some of the stress out of sending your little one to kindergarten by booking his or her physical now!  We’re planning a special evening of fun and treats on June 18, and it’s just for rising kindergartners.   There’s no need to worry about getting the school’s physical form, we have our own.  Avoid the rush and call us at 969-9611 to reserve your appt!

Get a head start on the next school year by scheduling your child’s sports physical early!  This is a great way to save time and make sure that your child won’t miss his or her first practice. We will be offering evening appointments just for sports physicals on Thursday 7/8/2010 with Dr. Bernosky.  Avoid the back-to-school rush and call us today to reserve your appointment!

We get asked about car seats a lot, so we created this helpful table of North Carolina car seat laws.

*Children 12 and under must ride in the back seat.

*Children should remain in a rear facing seat as long as possible.

The American Academy of Pediatrics announced that parents should keep their children in rear-facing car seats until age two (not one as previously recommended).  The newest research has shown that kids in rear-facing seats are more than five times safer than those riding in forward-facing seats.  Statistics from recent studies have shown that children under the age of 2 who ride in rear-facing seats are 75% less likely to die or suffer major injury during a collision.

* You can have your car seat inspected to ensure proper installation at your local Fire Department free of charge.