Visiting a dokter

Four days ago, my wife was worried about Alisha. Alisha didn't eat anything for the whole day. The only nutrition that could get in were her mom's milk and some of her favourite vitamins. But other than that, she rejected. Even her favourite fruits, grapes and tomatoes were a no-no.

So, Vera took her to a 'dokter anak-anak' in Jakarta. My parents recommended this dokter as she is a specialist in child digestion problem. But it didn't take long for her to examine Alisha. Her diagnosis was an alarming one: possibly alisha refused food because there were too much dirty things that got into her mouth and digestion system (?), and she recommended to do a check on alisha's blood and faeces to get a detailed examination. She also criticised my wife for letting Alisha's weight 3 kilogram below normal (She was 8.6 kg at the time of examination).

When I heard about this, OF COURSE I was very surprised. My own opinion was this could be due to Alisha's teething problem. She got some new teeth recently, and it is possible that it caused some inconveniences to her. Or maybe because of a change of environment, from a cold, dry weather in the UK to a hot and humid climate in Indonesia. So I expect the dokter would give some advice in relation to these things. But NOT AT ALL. She looked at it from a different perspective. Alisha, and I think most babies do, likes to put any object in her mouth. Then the dokter took this habit as the source of Alisha's eating disorder. Well, she is the DOKTER anyway, and I should trust her judgement.. or shouldn't I?

At the moment, Alisha still seems like a perfectly healthy toddler. She is very active and playful. She doesn't eat a lot, but I hope it is only because of the change of climate only, not for any other serious problem.

**update**

I did some web searches and found these information:
Why is my child such a picky eater? and
My toddler won't eat
The first sentence of the first article gave me relief: "It's perfectly normal for young children to suddenly decide they hate everything — even foods they loved yesterday."

posted by kistijantoro @ 9:10 pm