Is this normal "child health care" in Europe? (Luxembourg specifically)

[NannyR]

I'm a nanny with 15 years experience of working in the UK. I've recently started working in Luxembourg, my first overseas job.

In the past few weeks I've had to take each of my three charges to the paediatrician with clear runny noses, little bit of a nighttime cough, no temp, still eating well, well enough to go to school and generally running amok around the waiting room. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with them that a couple of early nights, calpol and cough linctus or honey and lemon wouldn't sort out.

However being a professional nanny, if mum has concerns about their health then I take them to the appointments she arranges. What really shocks me is each time we have come out of the doctors with prescriptions for two different kinds of nose drops, a saline spray to squirt up their nose, anti-mucus medicine, cough medicine and antibiotics.

For the two year old the antibiotics meant a couple of days of diarrhoea and a really sore bum, which I felt was worse than the cold they were treating.

I wouldn't have even considered booking a gp appt in the uk, let alone have expected to get antibiotics for such a minor cold.

Is this normal, what European parents expect with regards to child health care? Are parents and kids in the UK more stoic, i.e. do we consider runny noses to be a normal part of childhood to be put up with rather than cured?

It just seems to me to be really over the top, as well as potentially harmful (in terms of developing resistance) to be giving "well" kids antibiotics

Yes, I am Italian too. The combination of being a not so hysterical human being and having had my dc in the UK has made me quite relaxed in terms of treating colds (though I believe in keeping warm...)

To be honest though, in the event of a serious illness, I prefer being here (Italy) than the UK.

I am still traumatised that it took me one full day to convince to properly examine my 3 days old dd who was running a high temperature.

My southern European relatives are amazed that we are all still alive. We do incredibly reckless things like open windows when the temperature is lower than 25C. We took DS on walks outside from day 1 (in the middle of winter) rather than waiting until he was 6 months old. Once on holiday my aunt physically wrestled a cold drink off me that I had taken out of the fridge to drink after coming in from a run. Apparently drinking a cold drink after exercise would cause immediate and agonising death from a 'twisted stomach.'

And don't get me started on the multiple liver ailments and 'heavy legs.'

Bonkers, the lot of them.

This reminds me of that thread about swimming in cold water which ended up with someone saying that their belief was you could die from drinking a glass of cold water

I think I might have heavy legs.

It's because of chocolate though, not because I have a nasty disease.

Ha malinois I hadn't read your post! That was exactly it! You couldn't make it up

Sardine, yes, according to the best authorities (i.e. bat-like Mediterranean crones) the correct way to rehydrate after a 10km run in 30C weather is to drink a thimble-full of lukewarm fucking apricot juice. Coffee would also be acceptable. Because actually drinking water will kill you.

Isn't it just so strange though.

What things are there that UK people think that are ludicrous?

My mum used to say I would get pneumonia if I went out with wet hair. I think she said it because she didn't like me going out with wet hair though, she thought it was scruffy!

Let me all remind you though, that the perception of cold/hot it is cultural, and that every time there is a "heat wave" in the UK, MN gets filled with anxious threads of people lamenting that it's too hot at 26 degrees...

ALthough it is always pooh-poohed by GP friends over here, I am actually convinced that if you are incubating a virus, allowing yourself to get too cold or too tired or stressed somehow pushes you over the top, if you see what I mean. Allows it to get a hold.

Whereas if you didn't get too cold your immune system would have shrugged it off.

Any science behind this?

they did do a study a few years ago with people sticking their feet in cold water. I can't remember the results. I will google it, not sure how far I'll get with googling 'feet in cold water'

:)

found it! and yes, wrapping up warm may prevent colds!

'Although the chilled subject believes they have 'caught a cold' what has, in fact, happened is that the dormant infection has taken hold.'

so yes, Abra1d, you are right.

How interesting! Thanks for that, Belgo.
I always go out looking like a walking duvet when it's cold.

The trouble is, I have politely dredged up all the bonkers British health myths I can think of and my Spanish family just take them as a hopeful sign that we are not quite as lost to reason as they thought we were!

SQ Biggest weird folk beliefs in the UK:. 25C is a 'heatwave', -5C is 'Siberian', 10cm of snow is the end of the world as we know it. A meal consisting of 4 different types of starch is healthy and balanced.

Unfortunately the 'antibiotics cure everything' attitude is just as prevalent here, it's just that our doctors are much better at telling patients to get lost.

'I have politely dredged up all the bonkers British health myths I can think of'

Oh please share!

Abra1d, I just had an argument about that with DP. He reckons that the baby has a cold because her room is cold, & that being cold stops the immune system from working properly, & she's thus more susceptible to infection. He is a doctor but that doesn't mean I believe him! I am more hardy about these things (he wanders around wearing two jerseys when I'm in a vest).

Oh cross posts. Balls, sounds like he's right.

I was told that sitting on a radiator means you get piles...

RillaBlythe as long as she is wrapped up warm(which I'm sure she is), then a cold room shouldn't be a problem.

Oh yes, I've heard it too, that sitting on a hot surface give you piles. But also sitting on a cold one...

Putting cold feet onto a radiator can give you chilblains. Not sure about piles! I don't suppose they would have many recruits for that scientific study?

Yes let's hear the bonkers ones

One that is DEFINITELY true is that putting cold, wet feet on a hot surface will give you chillblains. I once came in from school with shoes and tights soaked through from walking home in the snow and lay on my bedroom floor with my bare feet flat against the radiator for about half an hour. Result: horrendous chillblains.