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"Several months ago I wrote about commonly available tests and treatments that should not be automatically requested when your children are sick, such as antibiotics and cough and cold medicines, especially in the setting of a viral infection. I also mentioned not asking your doctor for a CT scan if your child has experienced a minor head injury without first having a conversation about the benefits versus risks of the radiation involved.\u00A0\u00A0Since then parents have been choosing to ask me if I could share even more recommendations as to which medical tests may not be necessary for their child. Fortunately the American Academy of Pediatrics has recently endorsed some new recommendations as part of \"Choosing Wisely,\" a national campaign to limit unnecessary tests and treatments.One such recommendation is to not subject your infant or child to what we call a \"screening food allergy panel\" unless a family or medical history warrants it. A cranky infant is not a reason to do food allergy testing since this testing is expensive and rarely revealing in an infant who is cranky when exposed to a particular food. On the other hand, an infant who has difficulty breathing, an itchy rash, abdominal pain or diarrhea after eating a food might be allergic - and in that case allergy testing is warranted.\u00A0Another recommendation is to avoid the use of medications or x-rays for a baby who routinely \"spits up,\" but is otherwise growing, gaining weight and in no apparent distress when they do spit up. Again the risks of radiation or possible complications of the medications are not worth the benefit. Medications and imaging should be used for babies whose spitting up is causing poor weight gain or significant breathing difficulty.A third recommendation is to avoid checking urine for possible infection when your child has a routine check-up, unless your child is complaining that it hurts or burns when they urinate. Finding germs in urine when a child is asymptomatic only leads to unnecessary use of antibiotics and, in turn, germs that develop antibiotic resistance in your child's body. This is because the germ in the urine is more likely a non-worrisome germ living outside your child's body on their skin that got into or contaminated the urine specimen when collected.Hopefully tips like these will allow you and your child's doctor to choose more wisely when it comes to making sure the risks of tests and treatments don't outweigh the benefits."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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