Teething symptoms: cross sectional survey of five groups of child health professionals

Abstract

Teething symptoms: cross sectional survey of five groups of child health professionals Melissa Wake, Kylie Hesketh "There can be no excuse for ascribing fever, fits, diarrhoea, bronchitis, or rashes to teething," wrote the BMJ in 1975. 1 The intervening quarter century has seen the growth of evidence based medicine, yet it has also illustrated how great may be the distance between research evidence and professional practice and how slowly that gap may close.Good evidence now exists from careful prospective studies that teething is associated with, at most, minor and relatively infrequent symptoms. [2]3] How do the views of professionals now align with the evidence?This study aimed to determine current beliefs about teething and related practices of child health professionals in Victoria, Australia.