1st Year Paediatric Care & Advice

About the First Year

This is a very busy time in you and your new baby’s life. The 1st year is very much about ensuring your baby thrives by getting off to a great start. At the same time, as babies get themselves established in this world there will also be things that need more urgent appointments. A child’s 1st year is characterised by a mixture of routine and more urgent appointments, along with quite possibly telephone advice too. You’ll see quite a lot of your paediatrician and that is completely normal; reinforcing the importance of someone you get on with and feel confident in.

Pediatrician Examining Baby With Stethoscope In Clinic

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Why Dr Sara Watkin for Paediatric Care & Advice?

“I love the first year of life, am passionate about helping babies thrive and also pride myself on my support of parents as this is quite a scary time too.” – Dr Watkin

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30 Years Experience

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Tertiary Trained & Experienced

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Calm & Reassuring

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Full Paediatric Admitting Rights to HSA

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Acute Paediatrics

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General Paediatrics

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Former NICU Chief of Service

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Paediatric Emergencies

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Available 24/7 Quickly

Dr. Sara Watkin, a woman with short, light hair and glasses, smiles while wearing a white dress adorned with pink and red floral patterns. She stands in a brightly lit hallway, the background softly out of focus.

A toddler from their babies' first year places a toy into a white plastic cage-like container with multicolored slats, while other toys are scattered on a table.

A smiling toddler with curly hair, wearing a white dress with orange polka dots, sits in a cozy room reminiscent of a Healthcare Clinic Cayman, complete with bookshelves and a wicker basket in the background.

A paediatrician in Cayman uses a stethoscope to check a young child's heartbeat, both seated with the child looking to the side.

Care Needs & Services

There are things to organise, such as immunisations, and many milestones to monitor. Babies pick up bugs and find certain things make them irritable. They have their feeding foibles and a mind of their own sleep pattern. Everything is new and many things are firsts. You’ll spend time worrying whether everything is going OK too – all perfectly normal. One of the greatest challenges for parents is that babies have very limited ways of communicating all is not well and so it is tough sorting out the minor from the more important. If you’ve had a child before, you’ll know just what we mean and if this is your first, you’ll be amazed how fast you grow in confidence too, especially with reassurance and some guidance.

Services Dr Watkin provides, or areas she covers, include:

Immunisation and vaccinations
Advice around breastfeeding and then feeding & nutrition generally
Growth advice and concerns
Developmental follow up and milestones
Skin, spots, rashes and other blemishes
Fevers, viruses etc
Ears, noses, throats & eyes
(occasionally these require referrals to ENT or eye specialists too)
Allergies and intolerances e.g. Cows Milk
Intolerance & nut allergy
Urgent or emergency care
(I have a close working relationship with George Town A&E and full admitting rights to the paediatric wards)

In the UK Dr Watkin ran a feeding and growth clinic weekly, both for the neonatal unit graduates and with referrals from GPs (family doctors).

Dr Watkin also ran developmental follow up in the UK but this was predominantly for ex-preterm infants as normal, routine checks and follows were conducted by health visitors and GPs. However, here in Cayman, most follow up for babies and children is conducted by the paediatrician. You’ll find Dr Watkin wants to schedule certain visits for this purpose, to ensure your baby is developing and thriving as he or she should.

Safe sleeping is another important issue. Did you know we primarily grow when we are asleep? Also, parents worry about SIDS – Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Great strides have been made in reducing this through better advice. A good start is the latest guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics:

https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages/american-academy-of-pediatrics-announces-new-safe-sleep-recommendations-to-protect-against-sids.aspx

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Access & Appointments

Perhaps one of the most important considerations in the first year of life, in Dr Watkin’s opinion, is access, when you need it. IDr Watkin frequently get calls in the evenings, during the night, at weekends etc when parents have concerns. Regardless of how minor something may turn out to be from a medical standpoint, it’s rarely minor in the mind of a new parent. This is something she firmly recognises and so you will never be made to feel you shouldn’t have called. Dr Watkin adds: “I am lucky in that we also have an excellent Urgent Care service for evenings, Sundays etc and they are very good at calling me if they have any concerns. It’s an extra level of cover that you don’t get everywhere.”

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2 Alexander Place

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