Well Care at Main Street Pediatrics
At Main Street Pediatrics, we understand the importance of well-child visits in ensuring your child’s growth and development. Our doctors provide comprehensive care during these visits.
We believe that parents and pediatricians play an essential role in promoting and maintaining children’s good health. That’s why our pediatricians take the time to listen to your concerns and provide individualized care plans for each child. During your child’s physical, your pediatrician will have an opportunity to examine year-over-year changes and progress, with an emphasis on developmental progress and vaccinations in the younger years, a focus on academic and social growth in the school age years, and a deeper exploration of psychological and physical changes and advice about avoiding risky behaviors during the adolescent period.
Scheduling your child’s physical is the best way to take a proactive approach to their health. Well visits are our opportunity to check in with you to make sure everything is going well with your child. We perform a comprehensive review of your child’s health, including growth, development, nutrition, behavior, sleep, mental health and physical health. This is our time to provide you with guidance on safety and injury/accident prevention. We also make sure your child stays up to date on his/her vaccinations. We require all our patients to follow the vaccine schedule as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and Centers for Disease Control. It’s also an opportunity for you discuss any particular questions or concerns you have about your child.
Regular well-child visits are an essential part of maintaining your child’s health and ensuring that they are meeting their developmental milestones. Our pediatric doctors are committed to building lasting relationships with families and providing individualized care for each child. By partnering with parents, we can work together to promote healthy habits and prevent illnesses and injuries.
How Often Does My Child Need a Physical Exam?
For Infants (less than 1 year old): Newborns and infants will have frequent visits to your pediatrician. From your first visit after the hospital to your child’s first birthday, you will have 8 well care visits! We see all infants two days after they go home from the hospital, then again at 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, and 9 months.
For Toddlers (1-3 years old): Your toddler needs a physical at 12 months, 15 months,18 months, 2 years and 2 and a half years old. These are important opportunities to track your child’s growth and development as well as make sure he or she stays up to date on vaccinations. We also perform vision screening, lead screening and anemia screening at the 12 month and 24 month visit.
For Preschool and School Age Children (3 years to adolescence): We recommend annual well visits. In addition to monitoring growth and development, we also start to screen blood pressure, hearing and vision at each visit. Note that all children need to have their 4 year old vaccines before starting kindergarten. In addition, all children need their 11 year old vaccines before starting 7th grade.
Adolescence can be a challenging time for both your child and you. We recommend annual visits at which we will check in with your adolescent about how things are at home, at school and with their social life. We will also offer advice to your adolescent about self care, in particular as it relates to their mental health, their sleep habits, their physical health as well as counsel them about avoiding risky behaviors.
A Special note about Sports/Camp/Daycare physicals:
Up to date routine care is often all that is needed for us to be able to complete the majority of sports, camp and daycare forms and do not need to be scheduled as separate appointments.
To schedule a Well-Child Visit at Main Street Pediatrics call us!
(410) 494-1369 Towson office
(410) 526-7993 Foundry Row office
We look forward to helping your child grow and thrive.