For Expecting Parents

Wheaton Pediatrics offers group prenatal visits in the evenings at our office. These visits are moderated by one of our physicians or nurse practitioners, and provide parents with a lot of information about our practice and staff. If you are interested, please call the office at 630-690-7300 and arrange for a prenatal visit.

For parents delivering at Central DuPage Hospital, you need to let them know that Wheaton Pediatrics will be your baby's pediatrician. They typically ask this when the mother is admitted for labor. You can use any of our physicians’ names, or simply the name of the practice. One of our physicians visits patients every day at CDH, usually in the morning, so a doctor will visit the mother in the room every day that you are there, and will visit the mother in the room every day that you are there, and will examine the baby, usually in the room with the mother. We will answer your questions, and give you an update as to how the baby is doing. In addition, our lactation consultant, Jan Barger, will try to visit each mother every day. Most newborns do quite well, but in the unlikely event that there are problems, CDH has a level 3 nursery, meaning that a neonatologist affiliated with Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago is present at CDH 24 hours a day, and is available for consultation. When the mother and child are due to be discharged from CDH, we will let you know when we need to see the baby in the office for the first visit. Depending on the status of the baby, that first visit in the office may be with a nurse only, with a physician consult if needed.

For those parents delivering at other area hospitals, we have a large network of providers that we trust to see our patients at other hospitals. Please call our office and speak to our nursing staff. We can give you names of physicians at other hospitals who will see your baby after delivery. No matter where you deliver, please try to bring the pertinent medical records from the hospital with you to your first visit. These records should include birth weight, length, head circumference, gestational age, blood type of baby and mother, any lab results, any complications, and discharge weight. Because we did not see your baby in the hospital after delivery, we usually suggest that babies born at other hospitals come to see us within 2-3 days after being discharged.

All parents also need to consider two decisions before the baby is born. First, what to feed the baby. We strongly support breast-feeding, and feel this provides the baby with many health benefits, some of which can last a lifetime. As noted above, our lactation consultant will visit each mother at CDH, and help with this process. For those mothers who can't breast-feed or choose not to, we can help you choose the right formula for your baby.

The second decision is for those parents of boys: should they be circumcised? This is an individual decision, and one that we can help you with. However, our advice is that if you want your son circumcised, do so while he is in the hospital. Do not wait to go home and attempt to have the baby circumcised later. Delaying circumcision is usually more costly, not covered by insurance, and more importantly, usually requires a general anesthesia. The exceptions to this are the event of a religious ceremony (bris) or a medical contraindication to immediate circumcision (i.e. bleeding disorder, prematurity, hypospadias, etc.). Please feel free to discuss the pros and cons of circumcision with our doctors at the prenatal visit or in the hospital after delivery.