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

(shocked emoticon, phone app doesnt have it) bucharest at the meningitis incident!!

My gyno was surprised (actually rather impressed) I knew the word Braxton Hicks!!

But then theres people who are hardly literate and know the name of all antibiotics/ antinflammatories/etc under the sun, especially those over 70!

My gynae here in Italy is absolutely wonderful, someone any health care system would envy us for!

My sil and brother spend a significantnchunknof their income on private medicine because they were so shocked at the lack of blood tests, investigations, injections and prescriptions available on the NHS!

Women in France are prone to a disease called 'heavy let's especially in summer. You go to the pharmacy and buy a spray or cream to apply. Strange that British women don't have this afliction.

During pregnancy, French women fear the hardening of their belly. This is a Bad Sign. 'Mon gyeco m'a dit que j'ai déjà le ventre hyper dur'.

I think heavy legs could be restless leg syndrome?

I bet people in Belgium and France have a higher life expectancy than us though!

The French do, indeed, have life expectancy that is higher than most.

However, they have quality of life that is poor by international comparison. It's all very well keeping people alive...

Italy also has one of the highest life expectancy rates in Europe. It's probably all those check ups...

It has still to be debated what fun it is to live until you are 98, but I suppose I am too (relatively) young to understand.

As for quality of life... we've been living above our means for yrs

I have laughed out loud at the "no sweating" rule in Italy! Hilarious.
I think people here in Germany do take their dc to the paed much more often altho i'm not sure how often they actually get antibiotics. Our paed has an interest in homeopathy so is more inclined to recommend something natural first which drives my regular doctor dh nuts. But I very, very rarely take mine to the doctor which is strange as I dont overdress them so according to my IL's and all german friends they should be constantly ill.

France has high live expectancy but also extremely high rates of anti depressants. Now, that might be just because French docs are more exuberant with prescriptions than elsewhere, but the very high rate of suicide in France suggests there is a high rate of depression and / or poor treatment of mental health issues / depression.

no heavy legs are not restless legs. The latter is a recognised medical condition that often appears at night and might be to do with a mineral deficiency. Heavy legs are something that French women have invented! My french friend told me her legs just felt bloated sometimes and literally heavy - you can buy special cooling creams from their ridiculous pharmacies but you can't buy anything useful like e45 cream or vaseline in there

Life expectancy here: We are same as Germany and Belgium but lower than France and italy. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

Heavy legs, I thought it was a condition suffered only by old women (like my grandmother).

We gave heavy legs in italy too! But usually in the summer snf its caused by extreme hot weather+water retention. People dont go to the dr for this though, they just moan about it !

I think the higher life expectancy, at least in Italy, can be explained in terms of better eating habits (though they have been getting worse..) and healthier lifestyle in general. Medical care possibily better too, (obsession with antibs aside) especially in terms of preventive medicine, which is virtually unheard if in the uk (smear tests and mammigrams aside).

I think Italians must have a lot in common with Greeks! They have the sweating thing here too. I have been to children's parties where the mums take bags with extra vests/ tops for their children to change into if they get too sweaty, and some mums even take hairdriers in case the children's sweatiness results in wet hair.

I am also a negligent mum for not dressing my children like the michelin man the minute it drops below 25 degrees. And I remember when ds1 was a baby, we left him with MIL for a couple of hours during a 40+ heatwave. I had left him in just his nappy. I came back to find him fully dressed and wrapped in a blanket.

I am always being told I will catch a chill because I open my windows when it's not the height of summer.

And they LOVE vitamin supplements here. I have a friend who gives all her children an iron syrup every morning because "they look anaemic" (they all look perfectly normal, just a little paler than her). And she makes them do the saline nasal spray every day.

Xpost Franca! Yes its mainly older women, I imagine its linked to higher blood pressure too?

Yes, def linked to high blood pressure Claire. And I agree re preventive medicine. Lets hope that all these tightenings of belts don't put any more pressure on our health care system, which I find, generally speaking, rather good.

Alexpolismum, lots of similarities, yes. I wonder how all these myths came about.

Do Italians also keep little cupboards full of half used medicines that they bring out "because it worked last time/ when X had a similar problem"?

yes

More on heavy legs here: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7779126.stm

And you'll never have a cold here, it's always a "rhinopharayngite"

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15987082

And watch out for the "hit of air" syndrome in Italy. Where I live in London there are lots of French and Italian families and you can always identify them in the playground by the fact that their children are basically wearing salopettes and ski jackets as soon as the temperature falls below 15 degrees. I saw a toddler at the park the other day wearing sort of padded waders - poor thing could barely move but he was warm and protected from all hits of air.

Hits of air kill, it's a fact Margo.
Seriously though, as an Italian who lived in the UK for a long time, I can hand on heart say that Italians aren't generally prepared for the UK weather. It is hard to get adjusted, and not because the UK is colder (I am from Milan which gets significantly colder than London in the winter).

What we aren't used to is the wind (even more than the rain). It drove me bonkers! I was cold the whole time.

I am on the other hand quite perky even at 40 degrees

And how about our constantly swirling fogs franca? When I lived abroad people were always asking about how we managed with the fog .

Didn't know it was more windy here though. Maybe the wind envigorates us and eliminates heavy legs?

I've no problems with the fog, I am from Milan which is the pianura padana, the foggiest area of Italy.

Yes, I think the heavy winds make for a more robust population, thus eradicating the sorry problem of heavy legs.

is in the pianura padana