Travel can be a terrific experience for any child, unless they become hurt or ill. Within these pages, Dr. Marlene M. Coleman - a board-certified pediatrician with more than thirty years of experience - clearly outlines preventative, proactive advice to help you plan and enjoy any outing with children, be it a day trip, a week's drive, or a flight abroad.

With this book in hand, you can prepare for both known and unforeseen circumstances - making it much more likely that your children will enjoy and return from their travels happy, healthy, and safe.

You get expert, up-to-the-minute information on: travel planning and preparation for a variety of situations; security measures to safeguard your child; guidelines for staying healthy while traveling; specific advice for a variety of travel-related illnesses and injuries; general suggestions for successful trips with children; tips on traveling while pregnant or with special-needs children, planning grandparent-grandchild trips, and more!

Safe and Sound provides the necessary preventive and proactive approach to assist parents in ensuring that their children--beginning in infancy and lasting through adolescence--come back from any travels safe and healthy.

This book takes parents by the hand and walks them through the various aspects of travel planning and preparation in a variety of situations. It is designed to make parents feel as if they have a pediatrician assisting them before the trip and traveling with them on the trip to help them over the rough spots. It even provides specific guidance regarding the types of issues and at which points in travel planning the parents should be in touch with their child's pediatrician.

More than anything, Safe and Sound helps parents in preparing for known and unforeseen circumstances--making it much more likely that they will bring their children home happy, healthy, and alive.

Marlene M. Coleman, M.D., is a board-certified pediatrician with an adolescent medicine emphasis and a sub-specialty in travel medicine; an attending physician at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California; and an Associate Clinical Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Southern California Medical School. As a Captain in the U.S. Naval Reserve Medical Corps, she served in Washington, D.C., at the Naval Annex to the Pentagon during Operation Desert Storm. In addition, Dr. Coleman is a frequent and popular speaker on a variety of health-related topics, in particular healthy travel with children. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Judge William Huss.

Introduction

Part I: Travel Planning, Safety and Well-being

Chapter 1: Planning a Vacation

Chapter 2: Parents' Guide to Safety at Home and Abroad

Chapter 3: Health Guidelines to Follow

Chapter 4: What to Pack

Part II: Travel Challenges and Solutions

Chapter 5: Other Travel Situations

Chapter 6: Grand Trips with Grandparents

Chapter 7: Today's Special-Needs Travelers

Part III: Travel Modes

Chapter 8: Commercial Transportation

Chapter 9: Travel by Car, SUV or RV

Chapter 10: The Family Outdoors

Appendix A: Dr. Coleman's Prescription for Safe Baby-sitting

Appendix B: Plan a Successful Return Before You Leave

Appendix C: Recommended Resources

Index