Do your eyes start to glaze over when you hear other parents and the media start talking about diets? Well The Gluten Free Diet is perhaps one you should get a little understanding of. The reason is that most kids (and adults) eat far too much wheat and wheat products, and you will be amazed which foods contain wheat that perhaps you never thought of. A gluten overload in children can lead to one or more of the following symptoms:

For young children
• abdominal bloating and pain
• chronic diarrhoea
• vomiting
• constipation
• foul-smelling stools
• weight loss

What is Gluten anyway?

You just know when your child isn't feeling well, but how can you know when coughs and sniffles mean it's time to keep your child home from school? Or when to call the doctor? Since school-aged children get up to 10 colds a year, it can be a puzzle for many parents.

That's why the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) and Triaminic® have partnered to create "Sick Day Guidelines: Making the Right Call When Your Child Has a Cold." Some 22 million school days are missed each year in the U.S. due to colds, which are also the leading cause of doctor visits and missed school and work days.

Read on for useful information to help you make the right call on your child's next sick day.

Should I keep my child at home or send them to school?

Consider keeping your child home if he or she:

Has a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher
Has been vomiting
Has symptoms that prevent him or her from participating in school, such as:

The following article by Simon Owens of PBS’s MediaShift provides a good overview of resarch on a link between children developing Asthma and swimming in chlorinated pools. It includes useful information for parents worried about sending their children to swimming / water play classes because of a fear of increasing their risk of developing Asthma (or making existing Asthma worse). The article concludes that the benefits of exercising in water far outweigh the yet-to-be-proven risks of developing Asthma as a result of frequent exposure to chlorinated water. Read on for the whole story ...

Having a sick baby or child at home is no fun ... and I'm just talking about relatively minor illnesses like the common cold or a flu. It's awful to see your offspring suffer and not be their usual joyful self. It's also tough to manage the extra care they require and put up with (usually) more sleepless nights as they struggle to settle down or keep waking up. But there is something that's worse ... and that is getting sick yourself when your child is unwell. With many illnesses such as the common cold or the flu it almost seems inevitable that whoever spends most time with the child gets sick as well (school teachers and day care centre staff can tell a tale of this). So what can we do as parents to avoid getting sick when our children have a cold or flu? Here's my starter for 10 list based on recent experience (my 19-month old went through 2 consecutive colds and an ear infection and I didn't get sick - YAY!).

I recently came across a story about a stomach bug that I hadn't heard of up until then - it's called "campylobacter" and it can get pretty horrendous for babies and children. Eating food contaminated with the campylobacter bacteria causes a gastrointestinal infection which typically leads to diarrhoea, vomitting and cramps (amongst other symptoms).

The bacteria is very common in NZ (in fact NZ has the highest rate of campylobacter food poisoning in the developed world) because of very high contamination rates found in chicken food stocks. Infants and young children are most at risk from a campylobacter infection. Symptoms typically show up 1-10 days after ingesting contaminated food and the illness lasts 2-5 days (sometimes up to 10 days). Diagnosis of the illness is made by testing a specimen of faeces (bowel motion).

Typical signs and symptoms of campylobacter

Do you get flu jabs for your kids? Yes? No? According to a survey just released by American drug company MedImmune, 44% of all parents in the US have their children vaccinated. So what are the pros and cons?

Flu vaccination seems to be a hot topic at the moment in the country's current political fever as evidenced by the election-themed campaign "Flu Vaccination: Choose Your Administration." It's an effort to increase flu knowledge and empower Americans to take action for their health and the health of their families.

According to the media release by MedImmune, flu vaccination is an important part of the healthcare dialogue. The decision to vaccinate or not is particularly topical as it is the first flu season following expanded flu vaccination recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which now advises that all school-age children get vaccinated against the flu each year.

Greetings! A father named Terry writes:

“My definition of time is that it’s the most valuable thing in the world I can give my son. Though I’ve believed this since he was born, I have a different perspective now. My father is dying of pancreatic cancer and during my visits with him, I’ve been flooded with memories from when I was a young child. One memory that stands out for some reason is that when I was probably three years old, I watched him use a post hole digger at the end of our driveway to put a mailbox in. He was big, strong, and invincible. He seemed like Superman to me. While visiting him at the hospital recently, I told my dad about that memory and he couldn’t remember it at all.

“Get up to your room!” Frank shouted at his kids.The two of them sprinted out of the living room and up the stairs.

They’d been lucky this time. Although they’d been terrified by his screaming, they were far enough away to avoid the blows that sometimes followed. And as they huddled together in their room, they hoped they wouldn’t hear the footsteps coming up the stairs. For if they did, there would be more anger, and more fear.

Sadly, this scenario plays itself out in millions of households across the country. For centuries, men have learned to use anger in an attempt to control their kids. And while it does have short-term results, the long term damage is tremendous, both for the children and for the fathers who carry this anger.

I just got one of these viral emails about an amazing discovery by the Canadian Research Council. Apparently Vicks Vaporub, stops night-time coughing in children when applied on the bottom of their feet and then cover with socks. Is this a hoax, has anyone tried it?

Here is the body of the email I received:

It works 100 percent of the time, although the scientists at the Canada Research Council (who discovered it) aren't sure why. To stop night-time coughing in a child, put Vicks Vaporub generously on the bottom of the feet at bedtime and then cover with socks.

Even persistent, heavy, deep coughing will stop in about five minutes, and stay stopped for many, many hours of relief. This works 100 percent of the time and is more effective in children than even very strong prescription cough medicines. In addition, it is extremely soothing and comforting and they will sleep soundly. I heard the head of The Canada Research Council describe these findings by their scientists when they were investigating the effectiveness and usage of prescription cough medicines in children as compared to alternative therapies like acupressure.

Surprise, surprise - a few days after our son got sick, my wife came down with the cold as well. It's a bit of a worst case scenario to get sick when you are breastfeeding, as "mum" is still needed for the feeds no matter how she is feeling. So how can dads help their partners while they are not well?

When my wife got sick I briefly wondered whether I should focus my extra attention on our baby or her? (like when you are on the plane and they go through the emergency procedure ... "make sure your mask is fitted before helping infants"). I concluded that both of them needed extra attention.

First things first - I made sure we had all the remedies in the house that she is allowed to take while breast feeding. The main one being Paracetamol ... apparently you are not supposed to take vitamin supplements etc. while breast feeding. Other standard cold remedy drugs are not suitable either so we mainly used Paracetamol and a lot of hot lemons with honey.