Cell Phones & Health

After reading the title of this post you probably thought, "Oh no ... yet another article on whether cell phone radiation is detrimental to kids health." Rest assured that I am not touching that one with a mile long pole! However, after striking fear into the hearts of my dedicated readers (all 1.5 million* of them) about the dangers of modern communication to our kids, I decided that it's important to remember the advantages as well.

The ability to reach out for help in emergency situations is one of the many reasons that parents by their children cellular phones, but of course you don't need to read my blog or anyone else's to know that. Putting parents numbers on speed dial is the most basic way to make sure you can be reached in an emergency.
However, in medical emergencies children are not always able to make the necessary call either because of injury, illness, or sometimes just plain panic. As a result many countries have initiated campaigns to request that cell phone users add an entry in the contact list of their phone containing the name and number of the person to contact in order to obtain the child's (or adult's) medical history, illnesses, allergies, etc. When emergency personnel arrive they can then look for the special entry in the child's phone and easily make the call to the correct person to obtain crucial information that could affect treatment.

In the United States and Britain it is recommended to give the entry the name ICE (in case of emergency). In non-English speaking countries different acronyms or names are used. In Israel for example, 101 (the equivalent of 911 in the US) is used. So to add an ICE number in your phone in the US or Britain you would add an entry that looked similar to the following:

ICE Jim 1-555-654-1234

Eilish O'Regan points out in his article another important health related use for cell phones. Have you ever sat in a doctor's office with a child trying to describe symptoms the child experiences but that are not evident during the appointment with the physician? Or, probably I should ask ... who has not been in this situation? The child had a fit or seizure, turned blue, red or whatever color, has an intermittent odd rash??? No matter what you do though, it doesn't happen in the doctor's office? So, take a picture or video with your mobile phone! Obviously a higher quality camera is preferable, but since your phone is more likely to be with you use it. A picture is worth more than a 1,000 words in these situations. I know I once had a very weird phenomenon in one of my children diagnosed this way.

* If you believe that I have 1.5 million dedicated readers, then you probably believe that I am a belly dancer in my spare time. Since I am not, I will be honest and share with you that to date I have had about 200 readers from countries such as the US, Canada, England, Ireland, Israel, India, Kuwait, New Zealand and Croatia. Thanks to all of you who are following this blog!