Useful Links

Throughout this site, drnorahanke.com, there are hyperlinks, which, when clicked, will take you to another page. Some links refer to pages at drnorahanke.com, some to other websites offering relevant supplemental information. These links appear as words that are in a shade of blue, as, for example, the hyperlink here for drnorahanke.com. If you place your mouse over one of these links, the text will be underlined and change to a lighter shade of blue, further signaling that it is a hyperlink. If you then click on the link, you will go directly to the linked page, which, in many cases, is at another site providing more information on the topic. To return to where you were in drnorahanke.com, click on the "back" button of your browser—it is usually in the upper taskbar.

Below are collected for your convenience a number of links to other web sites which provide further information that may interest you.

Medical News

Asthma

• For stories about children who went from poor control to good control after their parents learned to recognize and treat asthma, see Dr. Tom Plaut’s site. Dr Plaut has also written about How to Choose a Doctor in his Asthma Guide. (Please note, my office carries copies of Dr Plaut’s very readable One Minute Asthma in English and Spanish, at reduced cost.)
• For a technical summary of current guidelines used internationally, see The National Asthma Education and Prevention Program’s Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma.
• The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has published a set of web pages starting at What is asthma? which provides the general reader a good explanation of what asthma is, its cause, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

Breastfeeding

• Are you delivering in a baby-friendly hospital? What is a baby-friendly hospital? To learn about this World Health Organisation and UNICEF initiative to support breastfeeding in hospitals, see the slick UNICEF site.
• A sophisticated site has been developed by La Leche League International, the well-known breastfeeding support network that offers meetings for local women at several sites. Though I am grateful for LLL’s widespread presence and support of breastfeeding, sometimes I don’t agree with their positions.
• This site publishes a list of 101 reasons to breastfeed your child.
• To search for lay and professional publications about breastfeeding from the American Academy of Pediatrics, you can start at their homepage.

Nutrition

Food Pyramids

• You may review the current USDA and DHHS diet guidelines, at this Harvard School of Public Health Food Pyramids site. It provides commentary and a proposed alternative food pyramid.
• For more radical and interesting food pyramids, including vegetarian diets, amongst others, see the Oldways’ Healthy Eating Pyramids.

Fats

• For a brief description of the different kinds of dietary fats, and to help understand which are healthy and which are not, see this.

Exercise

• Now there are federal recommendations for how much exercise is needed by everyone from age 6 years through adulthood. They are available here.

Obesity

• Find out here what the federal Centers for Disease Control mean when they say American society has become “obesogenic.”
• The CDC reports here that a study based on American children’s sizes in 2007-2008 showed 17% were already obese (not just overweight).
• A coalition of national organizations has teamed up to address the childhood obesity epidemic. See what parents and kids can do at the We can! website.
• To learn about healthy eating and energy balance, send your kids to a website just for them, from the Department of Health and Human Services.
• Boston Children’s Hospital has an outpatient obesity program and their website gives helpful information here about Body Mass Index (BMI) and how parents can model healthy eating for their kids.
• If you have some time to read something longer, see this comprehensive review article (PDF) by Dr Ludwig, MD, PhD, a well known Boston Children’s Hospital researcher in childhood obesity, and colleagues. It was written for health professionals but I think it should be understandable by many lay people, as well.

Vaccinations

General

• General and specific information on vaccinations from the federal government’s Centers for Disease Control can found at their National Immunization Program’s home page.
• To review an immunization resource for parents and everyone else, see the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Childhood Immunization Support Program site.

Autism

• I think vaccines are for the most part safe and desirable for babies and children. I also know many parents are worried that vaccine risks may be too great for them to allow some or any vaccines to be given to their child due to the risk of autism. If you feel this way, please look at information about vaccines and autism from a wide variety of sources, which you can access at the Immunization Action Coalition’s web site.

Hepatitis B Vaccine

• My favorite vaccine information source, the Immunization Action Coalition (IAC) and Hepatitis B Coalition, provides a summary page of articles regarding Hepatitis B immunization.

The Choice Not to Immunize

• A brief summary of risks, with links to other reputable sites for vaccine information is provided by the IAC here.
• To read stories about unvaccinated children and adults who contracted vaccine-preventable diseases, go to the site Unprotected People.