Relief for sleepless parents

Starship Children's Hospital paediatrician, Raewyn Gavin, knows all about the demands of raising children.

As a busy medical professional and mother of three young children, she understands that parents constantly need help and support, often in the middle of the night.

She accepted the task of helping to produce a much-needed parents' guidebook relevant to New Zealanders.

Dr Gavin and fellow Starship health professionals pooled their expertise for the New Zealand 3am Handbook: the most commonly asked questions about your child's health.

The book was adapted from an original Canadian version. Publishers Tandem Press bought it at the Frankfurt Book Fair knowing there was no authoritative New Zealand equivalent.

Dr Gavin says the specialists provide reassuring advice on how to treat all common childhood illnesses. "It's a book you can literally pick up at 3 am when you can't ring your doctor or your friends."

The book also helps determine when it is necessary to call a doctor or rush to an emergency department, and also to know what steps to take to make the child feel better. It is written in a question-and-answer format so information is easily accessible.

It is much more than an emergency health manual, Dr Gavin says. It begins with what to expect in the maternity ward and how to choose the child's doctor. It gives advice on identifying and managing behaviour and learning problems through to the teenage years.

An extensive chapter on safety encourages parents to think of most injuries as preventable.

The book retails for $29.95, with New Zealand royalties donated to the Starship Foundation charity. It is stocked by many bookstores.