Ear Infections and Tubes

My youngest child has had a few ear infections, but not many. I do have several friends who have dealt with tubes. If the child is diagnosed properly, they seem to really help. Read the bold text below to find the connection between clumsiness and ear infections.

From Medstar: One of the most common causes of developmental issues in kids is recurrent ear infections. And with a trend toward letting them heal without antibiotics, when is it time to talk tubes?

In his first year, Luke Longmore faced a flurry of ear infections. Mom Michelle Longmore said, "He had six in a six month time period. It wasn't that they weren't healing. They were healing after each time. The antibiotics were working for him, but he just continued to get them."

Luke was the perfect candidate for ear tubes, small, plastic tubes surgically inserted into the eardrum to keep air moving in the middle ear.

Dr. Margaretha Casselbrant said, "We usually say if a child has three acute infections with pain on colds and fever in six months, after that you should start considering putting tubes in." Doctor Casselbrant is the first researcher in the United States to find a potential link between clumsiness and fluid in the middle ear.

Dr. Margaretha Casselbrant said, "I think it's important to see how the child doing in school. can they hear, or not? do they seem to be extra clumsy? and i think they need to talk to their pediatrician." Luke's motoring around with no problems, thanks to the ear tubes he got a few months ago.

Michelle Longmore said, "Within a week's time, he was crawling around the house, pulling himself up to stand, sleeping through the night." Dr. Casselbrant said,"Usually the whole personality can be different and the parents come back and say, 'oh, my child is like a new kid.' And I think that's the fun things to hear."

Dr. Casselbrant continues her research, focusing on the search for the gene responsible for ear infections.

FAST FACTS:

• 90 percent of children in the U.S. have at least one ear infection before age three.



• Ear infections lead to more than 5 million visits to physicians' offices each year in the U.S.



• Chronic ear infections can lead to hearing problems, speech development and balance problems.



• More than one-half million ear tube surgeries are performed on children in the U.S. annually.

Are your kids clumsy? Do they get a lot of ear infections?

(I am still working on the how to donate cord blood locally story)

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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