- Proper nutrition, regular checkups and dental care are just some of the things that a good parent can do to raise a healthy child, but raising kids isn't easy and certainly isn't for the timid at heart.

But it can be a most rewarding and loving experience that parents cherish.

On this episode, we'll look at ways to help raise healthy, strong and happy children.

Welcome to A Su Salud, Cheers to Good Health.

I'm your host, Genesis Ortega.

We're broadcasting from inside the PPL Public Media Center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

My first guest is Dr Vhada Sharma from St Luke's University Health Network.

Thanks for joining me today, doctor.

- No problem, thanks for having me.

- I want to set the expectation here that you are a mom of two, but you're also expecting.

- Yes, in May, I'll have my third little girl.

- Aw, congratulations.

Really happy for you.

I have a boy myself.

So but let's get started here.

Let's talk about bottle fed or breast fed.

In your personal opinion, professional opinion too, which which is better?

- So no one is equally better, fed is best, so as long as the baby is thriving and the mom is happy, that's all that I care for.

There are lots of perks of breastfeeding.

So the kids would have a better immune system, better able, for breastfeeding, better able to handle infections to all the vaccines and the illnesses the mom's had in her life, she's able to transmit that to the baby as well as a little bit of a higher IQ of breastfed babies versus bottle fed babies.

But I mean, in the end, you just want your baby to be fed and your baby to be happy and the mom to be happy.

So that's what matters, being fed.

So whether you choose formula or breast, it's all good in my world.

- Now you have two kids of your own, and like I said, you're expecting so you and I can bond over this next topic.

Mom guilt.

So, you know, with dealing with new parents, I imagine, you know, they have all types of questions and are afraid about what it takes to be a good parent.

So what sort of advice do you have for those new parents?

- I always tell the parents to relax.

I always say, when you have a newborn, sleep when the newborn is sleeping, don't worry about, you know, cooking or cleaning or laundry.

Just take care of yourself, drink lots of water, rest And then once you have that nice sleep, that nice beauty rest, everything else kind of gets a lot better.

So I always tell the new moms not to stress out and to relax as much as they can and let everyone else do the hard work.

- See, when I was pregnant, I thought that I would relax a little bit more once the baby was in my arms and I knew he was all right.

But there's a whole new set of fears that kick in after that baby's in your arms, you know, and so they'll have their first well visit.

So what are pediatricians looking for at that visit?

- So you have to know that newborns will drop 10% of their body weight and that is totally normal.

They were in your womb surrounded by amniotic fluid, so they have a lot of water weight.

So in that time, we will see your baby quite frequently to make sure that they regain the birth weight.

So sometimes we could be seeing your baby every week or every couple of days until they regain that birth weight.

And then after that, it goes to every two months until they're about six months of age.

- So how important are these well visits in a child's development?

I mean, are you looking for any specific telltale signs for the fact that something's wrong?

- Yeah, so in every well visit, we always track their growth charts and that consists of their head circumference, their length and their weight.

And these this might seem very simple, but it actually gives us a lot of information.

So a child will usually track along their birth weight.

But if that child jumps up too much or is stagnant or drops off, it clues us in that there could be several things that are wrong.

And we need to delve into this problem a little bit more.

- What are some of the signs that a baby might not be thriving?

- Some other signs, maybe the baby isn't developmentally doing what they should be doing.

So another thing that we look for is developmentally-specific questions.

And usually as soon as you go into the room, you can see, "Oh, the baby's moving their hands around.

"They're holding their head up.

"They're sitting up now.

"They're cooing."

So just looking at the baby, physically seeing them, we can tell a lot in that first couple of seconds of seeing the baby.

- Now, you know, I've been in the throes of this.

My baby's 15 months old.

But a lot about what I read is a baby should be doing this at X amount of months and there's always a timetable.

So if a child is delayed in reaching a milestone, according to the textbook, at what point should someone intervene?

- So I just want to say those milestones, they're not set in stone, so it just gives you the average, but there's certain there are many times when they'll come in for that, say, 15-month visit.

And at 15 months they'll be they should be walking.

They may be able to say two or three words.

And they're not doing that yet.

But I'll say, you know, maybe just give it one or two weeks and that baby will be walking, that baby saying 2-3 words, and that, in effect, is true.

So even if your child's not meeting those milestones at that age, it's not horrifically worrisome.

I just say let's keep an eye on it.

But on the other hand, the sooner we have them evaluated and get them into therapies, the better it is for them because they can start working on it.

So, I always give the parents options when we first detect that they're not on that developmental scale.

Like, "Let me just give you the number for early "intervention, which is a free program to the state based "on your county and they can come evaluate you" or we could just give it like maybe to the next well visit to see how they're doing.

- Now, I've come to associate well visits with vaccinations because it seems like every time I take my baby in for a visit, he has to get a shot.

So talk to me about what some are, what are some of the standard vaccines that are administered to children?

- So in the baby shots can be quite overwhelming to new moms.

There is the hepatitis B and the rotavirus, the DTaP, polio, Prevnar.

But, you know, they're very, very well tolerated by children.

And you only get what I call them the baby shots.

So at two, four and six months, they get these shots and they usually do an awesome job and they tolerate it very well.

And I do recommend getting all of them at the standard routine times.

- Got it.

Let's talk about vision tests.

I mean, I know newborns have a very basic black and white vision when they're first born, but talk to me about how their vision develops and how you can tell if there is an issue.

- So believe it or not, the child will actually be like, you know, "I can't... "I can't see this" or they'll be going up closer to see certain things, the board or anything like that.

Sometimes parents will give us the first clue, like, "Oh, their eyes are tilted a little bit "more in" or they're tilting their head to see things.

So the parent and the child, they actually give us their first indication that something could be going wrong.

But actually, the vision and hearing screen that starts usually when they're three or four years old because they usually have to be able to identify shapes and be able to tell you what they identified or tell you the sound that they heard.

So we don't actually test hearing and vision until they're about three to four.

Before then we rely on the parents and the children to really know if there's something wrong or their family history can clue us in if the dad had or mom had a prior eye condition, then we would say, "Hey, let's look into this a little bit further."

- OK, so three to four years typically then for hearing and vision.

What about dental, when children start to check on their teeth?

- They're actually when they first have a tooth bud, so usually that can be six to nine months.

They'll first have a tooth eruption.

Most dentists won't take them until they're about a year old, but as soon as they get that first tooth bud, the parents can actually start brushing their teeth twice a day with a rice-sized amount of fluoridated toothpaste.

And that is totally appropriate.

- We are running out of time.

I could talk about this with you forever from mom to mom, but I want to end on this.

You know, a lot of new moms get advice from well-meaning friends and loved ones.

Do you have any advice for these new moms navigating all of that advice that really comes your way?

- I would just say to take it easy and relax.

If there's ever any question that you have, you can always reach out to the pediatrician.

Nowadays, St Luke's has this awesome feature called My Chart, and you can email questions to the pediatrician and they'll usually answer it within that same day.

So I would just say, relax, take it easy.

Kids are so resilient.

It actually takes a lot to do something wrong for your child.

And you can always reach out to us whenever you want to.

- I'll echo that, kids are more resilient than we think.

Thanks, Dr Sharma, for being with us today.

- No problem.

- My next guest is Ms Stephanie Stout of the Children's Garden Early Education Center in Easton, Pennsylvania.

Thanks for joining me today, Stephanie.

- Good afternoon.

- Let's start off here.

Tell me more about the Children's Garden Center.

- We are in Easton, Pennsylvania.

We serve children from six weeks old to 12 years old in a school-age program.

We have teachers who have been with us for many years and enjoy working with children and helping them learn and grow and discover new things that they didn't know they could do.

- When you talk about early child development, healthy minds and healthy bodies go along with that.

So how does the center work to do that?

- We have our own cook, Mr Andrew, who is one of the owner's, is the owner's son, and he helps provide very delicious meals for the children, we provide breakfast, lunch and two snacks.

And they love his macaroni and cheese and they love his soups in the winter and they just enjoy everything that he makes.

- What about milestones?

How does the daycare work to help children reach their milestones?

- We work with the children and all the different age levels from infants through the school-age room, and we help them if they need help with walking or need help rolling over.

And we always make a big deal when they do something new and exciting and share that with the parents.

- Is that something that you work with the parents to develop those milestones?

- Yes, and we have had children who might need some early intervention or some extra work and physical therapy, occupational therapy, and they'll come right into the center and they'll show us the exercises they need to do and we'll help them here as well as the parents, help at home.

- So for someone who hasn't utilized daycare, what can a parent expect from enrolling their child in daycare?

- It's a very new experience when they come to child care.

There might be five one-year-olds all going after the same toy.

There could be ten three-year-olds who all need to go to the bathroom at the same time.

But we all work together and form a group setting where the children work together and the parents and the teachers communicate to help all the children gain what they need to learn.

- When you talk about five one-year-olds going after the same toy, that makes me smile.

I mean, what is that social interaction like for the children?

- It's very important, especially at one, because they need to learn the words and gestures and ways to communicate.

So as long as we can help them with picture cards, picture books, singing songs, all that helps in their social, emotional and physical development.

- Now, as human beings I know and children more especially I know no two children learn alike.

So do you work with the children with different different styles, different strengths?

- Yes, same as adults.

Children could be visual learners, they could be learners in different ways.

So we try to find ways in our lesson planning to incorporate different ways of learning if they need spatial spatial awareness or they need to use tongs to help pick things up for fine motor experience or puzzles with big knobs or books with fuzzy farm animals.

- They're all great, right, developmentally for children to be in a daycare setting.

What about the parents?

I mean, what do you hear from parents, you know, having a few hours to just have to themselves to work or do other things?

- It helps the parents also.

Most of the children are very good at transitioning and will come to school, you know, some are here at 6:30 in the morning when we open and they leave by 4:30 and they're ready to go home and they're ready for their parents to spend time with them and eat dinner and come have that family setting.

- Even before Covid kids got sick and they spread germs.

So I'm curious to know, I mean, how can parents ensure that their kids will stay healthy in a daycare setting, how has Covid impacted you?

- We did have to shut down for three months.

And then we reopened and we have a special plan of action.

You know, the children's temperatures are taken.

We wash our hands many, many times a day.

Their masks are washed many times a day.

We help with extra masks if the children need them.

The classrooms are sanitized, the toys are sanitized, and the center is cleaned every night by our cleaning person.

- Have you, as a center, implemented any strategies to talking to kids about Covid and the importance of wearing masks and social distancing?

- Yeah, we use like a lots of books and stories and finger plays to help them understand that we're doing this to help them succeed.

We may have to remind them know keep their nose covered from time to time, but they've all transitioned very well.

Even the two-year-olds don't mind it anymore.

- We're unfortunately running out of time, Stephanie, but I want to end on this note.

We're talking about raising healthy kids on this episode.

So what advice can you offer to new parents in terms of raising healthy, well-balanced children?

- You want to make sure that you are there exposing them to all types of food.

Right now we seem to have a lot of children who are very picky eaters, but as long as they learn to try some new vegetables, try some new fruit, go outside, put the tablet away, put the TV away and make sure that they are learning that they have so many skills that they can learn and build from, and it just makes them learn all the better.

- Thank you so much, Stephanie, for your time.

I appreciate it.

- Thank you for having me.

- My next guest is a lactation consultant and breastfeeding advocate who founded her own company called Pretty Mama Breastfeeding, her name is Elizabeth Chang.

Thanks for joining us today, Liz.

- Thank you for having me.

- Let's talk about Pretty Mama Breastfeeding.

How did that come to be?

- It was out of my passion for breastfeeding after I found myself looking for help during the time that I had my first baby.

And I was already very intricate and studying into the world of nutrition before I decided to start a family.

So then I saw that there was a big need for support in the counseling aspect of breastfeeding.

And then I took on a share of that and I said, "Let me start my own business" after I became a lactation counselor.

Yes.

- You are a bilingual business.

How has this helped you with your clients?

- Tremendously, because, again, as a Spanish Latina, I was asking questions for people who have cultural, that they were understanding of my culture.

And I preferably wanted to speak in Spanish during pregnancy and after delivery.

I just felt more comfortable and there was not that many.

So I said, yes, I'm going to take ownership of this.

And I have helped many moms that speak in Spanish preferably and giving them plenty of information and education about breastfeeding in the Spanish language.

- Yeah, I mean, it's hard enough when you speak English, so I can't imagine, throw in a language barrier, how much more difficult that makes things.

But let's talk about from a cultural perspective and breastfeeding.

How how does breastfeeding play a role within the Latino community?

- Well, it is very embedded in our community and is very embedded in the roots of the Hispanic.

But we are such a big mix of countries and nationalities and beliefs that it can play a very intricate role because if we have our family members telling us their stories about how they learned to breastfeed and how they were taught to breastfeed, for example, in Peru or in Colombia and South America, Central America and Mexico, the culture is there, but there are other people that unfortunately have been born here, United States, that don't have that culture so much or they miss that culture because their parents were also born here.

So that is the intricate part.

But it is very embedded in the traditions of the Hispanic communities.

- When we're talking about culture, I think about my family, which is from Dominican Republic and my husband's family from Honduras.

I mean, a woman who has a newborn baby is just breastfeeding out in the open.

But come here to the United States, it's not as socially acceptable.

Have you had to help your clients kind of deal with that cultural barrier?

- Many times!

Those are the main questions that I get from from the Latina woman because again, in the open.

The cultures in Honduras, in Puerto Rico, in Dominican Republic, it's acceptable.

There is not much to say.

The family responds quickly, but here the questions are, "Liz, I don't feel comfortable "because people are just misjudging me or judging me "because I'm exposing my breast," or, "Liz, how can I breastfeed at work?

"I'm carrying my pump and I have to do it.

"I have to do it in the lunchroom "or where do I have to do it?"

So there's just many of those questions that they feel censored, they feel judged and not so comfortable with the culture here, United States being so sexualized.

- Yeah, it's interesting to talk about.

Let's get into breastfeeding itself.

Talk to me about some of the benefits of breast milk for a child's development.

- For a child's development, the advantages are beyond.

There is a whole world of the science of human milk and I get really excited because when I open books and research the science behind human milk, it contains the antibodies, all the protections for ear infections, for allergies, for the cold and for viruses in their stomach, for the brain development, for... Maybe that they have asthma, maybe they are insulin-dependent, women that are insulin-dependent.

All this things, there's a whole science that is unbelievable.

And for people who only know all the benefits, there are too many to actually talk about for the baby.

And at the same time, the mom gets the benefits as well.

So cancers, breast cancer, cancers in the ovarian cancer, childhood cancers, leukemia, protection for diabetes, protection for the baby to get diabetes, for protection for the mom to get diabetic, it just continues, it's a whole science that I could continue studying for the rest of my life, just the science of human milk.

And for the babies, they are capable to receive this protection that is so pure and so instant, and then they give them a heads up for their life.

And it's not for a few years.

This is for the rest of their lives because the gut, the stomach gets protected and right away, the beginning of their lives are going to have an upper and upper hand in their health.

- I mean, you're absolutely on the mark there.

I remember when I gave birth, all of the nurses hit it home, all of the benefits that breastfeeding has.

But what about for the mother?

Let me ask you this.

I mean, there's a lot of talk about breastfeeding and skin to skin being beneficial for the baby, but what kind of psychological benefits does that have for the mother?

- I'm glad you asked that question, because that's another part when we as women have the ability to put the baby immediately after after birth skin to skin our emotions, our psychology, our development, our beliefs, our system of human humanity.

We are transferring all these emotions.

We are transferring all the psychological ideas of what is to be a mother and what is to connect with our offspring.

So women that are going through depression, women that have had trauma in the past, women that feel lost or not sure about motherhood or have no idea what to expect about motherhood.

First-Time Mothers, that gives them an upper hand for the rest of their lives or how they're going to behave as a mother with this child and how their child is receiving the love, the compassion, the beginning of understanding what is to be nurtured.

What it is to be cared, what is to be loved.

That connection is the connection of love is a connection of intimacy, is a connection of intimacy between a mom and a baby.

And that psychologically has many, many effects on the mother and many effects on the baby for the rest of her life.

Not for a few months, but she's going to she's going to want to continue having that affection and that connection with her child and develop a greater development with her child through the years.

- This is a great conversation.

Unfortunately, we're running out of time.

But I want to ask you this question, Liz.

I mean, it's clear that there are benefits to breastfeeding your infants, but there are struggles, too.

So what do you say to moms who are struggling to breastfeed?

Because it's not easy.

- I say contact other people, get cheerleaders, get your family involved, get the father or the partner, get your boyfriend, get your friends involved, call them up, find lactation counselors, find lactation consultants, find anyone in the community, call them up, send emails, get in to Facebook on the Facebook groups for breastfeeding.

Get motivated, read or listen to a talk about the importance of human milk and find people that can cherish you and help you along in this journey because it's so important.

The first two weeks is really hard.

But then later on you're going to be successful.

If you find those two leaders and you keep at it, be strong, be courageous.

- And that's my, yes.

- That's great advice.

How can people reach out to you on Facebook?

Where can they find you?

- Yes, I have a page it's Pretty Mama Breastfeeding.

They just have to be Pretty Mama Breastfeeding or Liz Chang.

Any of those pages, Pretty Mama Breastfeeding is the name of my business, they can also reach me personally by Liz Chang and I will be glad to just give encouragement and support and connection, yes.

- And it's bilingual help too.

You offer some services for people who just feel comfortable communicating in just Spanish, correct?

- Absolutely.

All my services are in Spanish, though, in Espanol... - Muchas gracias, Liz.

We appreciate your time being with us today.

- Thank you so much for inviting me.

This is great.

- I want to thank our St Luke's University Health Network expert.

And I also want to thank our other guests, Stephanie Stout and Elizabeth Chang, for being with us today.

And thank you for tuning in.

We look forward to seeing you again soon.

If there's a medical subject you'd like for us to cover, send me a message on social media.

You can find me on Facebook and Instagram.

Plus, you can tune in to hear more of my reporting on 91.3 FM WLVR News, your local NPR News source all day, every day.

I'm Genesis Ortega and from all of us here at Lehigh Valley Public Media, stay safe, be healthy and cheers to your health.