Travel with Babies and Toddlers by Mums in Beirut

Travel with Babies and Toddlers

With the Summer holidays fast approaching Lebanon’s first online destination for the Mums in Beirut community www.mumsinbeirut.com shares with us top tips and recommendations while travelling with little ones.

•       Wet wipes and change of clothes for those inevitable accidents

•       Diapers, milk bottles are also a must

•       Toys and books to keep them entertained

•       On long flights, iPads are a necessity and life saviour for Mums. Pre-holiday, make sure you download some interactive and educational apps that will be the most compact form of entertainment while travelling with kids.

•       Some flights also have kids movies and games which can keep the kids occupied and parents happy.

•       With babies, make sure they are drinking plenty (or being breastfed) at take off and landing so their ears won’t hurt much, that has always worked with me.

•       Giving toddlers their own (robust, child-friendly) camera encourages them to observe their surroundings and focus on what interests them. You can then use those pictures to create a memorable family holiday album.

•       Whether they’re out of routine, jet-lagged, or eating less healthily, kids always seem to get ill on holiday. So be prepared and pack their easy to swallow medicine.

•       Pack some drinks, snacks, biscuits and fruits when hunger strikes.

•       If you are going to a hot or cold destination, make sure you pack accordingly, hats sunscreen and eye glasses or gloves and scarves accordingly.

Travel with older kids

When planning a holiday, it would be ideal to choose something the whole family will enjoy. Even more so when your older kids have a passion and interest to learn about a new country, its culture and traditions. Here is Mums in Beirut top tips and recommendations:

•       By reading books and watching documentaries allows older kids to learn more about your next holiday destination.

•       Your kids would want to pack their own back packs which will give them a sense of responsibility.

•       Books and word searches will pass the time on a long flight or car journey.

•       Encourage them to keep a travel journal, Get your kids drawing and listing things they’ve seen and interesting foods they’ve tried. Who knows, this might also encourage them to try different foods.

•       Collecting postcards from places you visit and asking them to write themselves a message on the back means they can reach adulthood with a library of memories all their own.

•       The best way to avoid a soul-destroying sulk from your teenager is to involve them in the planning of the holiday and ask them for input on what they’d like to do.

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Testimonial from Pediatrist Dr Hicham Mansour , Speciality Neurometabolic Diseases

Patients with neurological disorders and metabolic disorders present a challenge in diagnosis and management due to the rarity of the disorders and the diagnostic difficulties as well as finding the appropriate expensive cure. Most of the patients rely on the government and the handicap card for their treatment. Having the neurometabolic unit at Karantina is allowing easy medical access for these patients either to receive appropriate epileptic management or immediate care for the metabolic diseases. And specially we have been able to administer successfully and safely the enzyme therapy without any cost to the patient while ensuring the complete safety since the enzyme should never be given in a unit where there is no PICU so being at the same floor as the PICU there is no risk to our patients. And we have also an EEG machine to allow us to deal correctly with the epilepsy cases referred to us. And we have had many patients who had muscles biopsies done at the center and we were able to diagnose many rare diseases in collaboration with the lab of Dr Barmada.

Les Stagiaires de l'Université de Balamand au Centre Pédiatrique Carlos Slim

Les stagiaires de l'Université de Balamand ont organisé une petite fête au département de pédiatrie de la Quarantaine avant de quitter le service. Ils ont remercié les membres de l'équipe pour leur accueil et leur support, et ils ont témoigné de l'expérience intéressante et enrichissante qu'ils ont vécu au sein du département.

Testimonial from Dr Elie Bechara, Pediatrician Oncologist Hematologist

Since the opening of the pediatric department at Quarantina Hospital 1 year ago, many cases of hematology and /or oncology were managed. The majority of cases were anemia wether in neonatal or school-aged children, mainly iron deficiency, but also due to vitamin deficiencies or even leukemias. Other hematology cases included thrombicytopenia (ITP), thalassemias, sickle cell crises, hemolytic (severe ABO incompatibility), or even metabolic or mitichondrial disease. During this period we had encountered severe cases of oncology and were able to diagnoze leukemias and nephroblastomas. 

The majority of our pediatric patients are coming from remote rural areas and from syrian refugee camps, where many medical conditions along with malnutririon and consanguinity makes the diagnosis challenging. 

In my opinion, the creation of the pediatric department at quarantina and the advantage of having multidisciplinary pediatric subspecialists and excellent staff nursing has led to a breakthrough in the management of these challeging diseases especially in these less fortunate and low socioeconomic population. These children have now access to a cutting edge medical care in a low cost setting.