Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Darwinian Pediatrics



Dr Paul Turke is writing a book titled Bringing up Baby: A Darwinian view of pediatrics, but I'm pretty sure my mom had the idea first.
In an interview with New Scientist he discusses the philosophy of letting the body take care of itself:
One example is when a child twists an ankle playing soccer. Everyone rushes to offer ice and ibuprofen. As the father of a soccer player, I've seen this happen many times, and it didn't take me long to earn the label "cruel and unusual", by insisting that my son needed neither. As a Darwinian paediatrician, I think the pain and inflammation that made my son cry and his ankle swell are an evolutionary response to injury, which suggests that they are part of the solution rather than the problem. They exist to promote healing.

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