Welcome to Natural MD Radio, your place to hear the whole truth on health and medicine for women and children and get the tools you need to take back your health naturally starting now.

I'm Dr. Aviva Rong. Did you know that just five days of ibuprofen use has been associated with

gastritis a potentially dangerous inflammation in the lining of the

stomach that is caused by this medication.

That ibuprofen now has a warning for increasing the risk of heart attacks in adults who

use it,

and that Tylenol eats up glutathion,

one of the body's main natural detoxification chemicals.

Yet these are the medications we turn to

over and over for our kids when they have a fever.

In this week's podcast, who's afraid of fever and kids?

We're going to talk about fever.

We're going to get to the bottom of what you need to know, the safety and risks of these medications, and some gentle alternatives you might consider using.

One recent afternoon, a lovely natural mama in my neighborhood wrote me a semi-frantic

email. Her little nine-month-old daughter was running a high fever, she said, of 100.4.

Since her daughter also had a cough, this mama was worried about pneumonia.

I've been giving her ibuprofen around the clock to try to bring the fever down, she said, and I'm really

scared.

A few emails later, she was reassured that this was a low temperature and did not meet the symptoms

of pneumonia, and she was more able to relax.

I totally get it though. When my son was around 18 months old now, he's almost 31 now,

he had his first fever. I took him to the doctor because that's what you did back then. I didn't know what else to do. It's still what most mamas do.

...