Hi moms! This is my first and I was wondering just how to go about choosing my pediatrician. I am delivering at a hospital that is about 40 min from where I live and if I pick a local ped will they go out to the hospital when I deliver? Does my ped even go to the hospital? What kind of questions should I be asking in order to choose the right one for my baby? AHHH please help me! I don't know anything!

I never picked one with my first because I didn't know how. They gave me this woman doctor for DS and I loved her!! She was so intelligent, but I hated where she was at. It was always busy and the parking sucked. I switched to an other doctor and she is great too. Plus it's 7 miles from home in a smaller city and I can call her home number if I have a problem (which I ended up doing one time).

I would start with looking for either male or female.

Age? Ethnicity? I preferred a woman that's not too old. Ethnicity, I wanted to make sure I could understand her. lol. Sometimes it's hard. lol DS pedi was a very young Chinese woman. She spoke better English than I did though. lol

If your baby is a boy does the doctor have plenty of experience with circumcisions (if you plan to circ) or not.

How far away is this place if you have to make an emergency trip

Are they under your medical insurance

Vaccinations (Most doctors push it so if you plan to vax or not find a non bias doc)

Sometimes a woman doc is good because they can show you how to BF, too and help correct BF issues right there in the office.

Is their office clean and up to date?

Are they organized?

I bet others will have better questions for you. These are just MHO

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Does your hospital have an on-call ped that would come so that you wouldn't have to limit your choices by hospital location? We deliver at a birthing center and we just go for a 3 day check with the pediatrician. Would that be something that would be feasible?

Get recommendations from like-minded moms who live close to you. Does the wait to get in for a sick visit stink? Our ped's well-visit wait is about 6 months. BUT, we've always been able to get in at least the next day when I've needed to with a sick kiddo (which has been rare, fortunately.) Do they have partners that you could possibly get into for a sick kid?

Mostly, though, it depends on the choices you are going to make as a parent--do they jive with the doc's point of view? We HUGELY delay vax (if we give them at all), cloth diaper, extended breasteed, pretty much no drugs, hands-off let the body do it's thing. SO, we found a very laid-back, but well educated female doctor with kids of her own who is more than willing to go along with our decisions and supports us as parents, making us feel like we are smart enough to make good choices for our kids. That has been a huge blessing.

How far are you willing to go? We drive for 25 min for our dr appts. (Our doc is fam practice, so she's my ob as well as the girls' ped.) But, overall we are very healthy and haven't had to make more than 3 'extra' visits in our parenting career, so the drive time has been totally worth getting an awesome doctor.

Honestly, I think that a pediatrician who hasn't had kids will have a different POV than one who has, so keep that in mind, too.

Good luck and remember that this isn't choosing for life. If you don't like the first one you choose, it's really not that hard to switch.

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Great suggestions above. I asked a few of the OBs in my OB/Gyn office who they took their kids to. I figure if they are happy with their ped, and they are medical professionals, then I could probably trust him/her too. We have no complaints with the ped we chose for ds.

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Beth
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