Being a new parent is very exciting, but it can also be stressful and hard work. Time and money become extra-valuable and scarce resources when there is a new baby to take care of. Telemedicine holds a vast amount of potential for new parents. The time-saving, money-saving and increased choice that telemedicine provides can come in extremely handy for people who are taking care of a new baby.

Here are seven benefits of telemedicine for new parents.

Telemedicine Allows Babies to Avoid Doctor’s Surgeries and Hospitals

Babies and toddlers are particularly vulnerable to picking up germs and viruses. Doctor’s surgery waiting rooms and hospital ERs are often hotbeds of germs and viruses. This can be especially problematic for babies, whose immune systems are still a little weaker and less robust. Keeping babies in relatively germ- and virus-free environments will make sure that they get sick as infrequently as possible. By using telemedicine, new parents can keep their babies out of doctor’s surgeries and ERs and away from the viruses and germs that linger there. This is a big benefit of telemedicine for new parents.

Keeping your new baby healthy and safe is your first priority as a new parent, and telemedicine can help you do that.

Telemedicine Provides Education For New Parents

Being a new parent throws up lots of new and unexpected challenges. It is crucial for a new parent to acquire the knowledge necessary to protect and nurture their child optimally during the baby’s formative early years. Conveniently, many telemedicine apps are full of interesting and important information for new parents. Apps such as Text4Baby provide pregnant women and new parents with a wealth of invaluable knowledge and information about being pregnant and becoming a new parent. Telemedicine apps have opened a whole world of learning and knowledge to new parents. This increased knowledge can hugely improve the lives of new parents and their children.

Telemedicine Saves New Parents Time

For new parents, time can be an extremely scarce resource. Things that were taken for granted in the past, such as a full night’s sleep and the chance to sit down and watch a TV show, become vanishingly rare treats! When taking care of a new baby, it can seem like every minute of the day is taken up by baby-related activities. This is often very exhausting for new parents, and anything that can save time is hugely helpful. Telemedicine saves massive amounts of time by doing away with the need to make time-consuming trips to the doctor’s surgery, hospital, or pharmacy. The time-saving that telemedicine provides is one of its greatest benefits for new parents.

Telemedicine Saves New Parents Money

Financial commitments are often huge for new parents. For many people, these financial commitments can put a major strain on their bank balance. Intelligent budgeting is very important for most new parents. Telemedicine provides big opportunities for new parents to save money by allowing them to choose the most economical and best-value medical professionals. Telemedicine also saves on gas and transport costs, because many consultations can be done online.

Most new parents are strapped for both cash and time, so the money-saving and time-saving benefits of telemedicine are extremely helpful.

Telemedicine Provides New Parents With More Choice

New parents are eager to get their babies and toddlers the best possible medical care that they can find. Whereas for most of human history, parents were very limited in which medical professionals they could get to treat their children, today they can choose from a much wider pool of doctors and specialists thanks to telemedicine. Telemedicine makes geography much less of a relevant factor, because new parents can consult with medical professionals who are based far from where they live. This increased choice offers huge benefits to new parents.

Telemedicine Improves New Parents’ Ability to Live in Remote Locations

Many new parents would prefer to bring their children up in remote and idyllic rural locations, far away from the negative influences and dangers of the big city. Growing up in the wilderness and playing freely in nature can be a beautiful, life-enhancing experience for children. Telemedicine makes it possible for new parents to bring up their children in remote locations because it is much easier to provide necessary medical treatment remotely, if and when it is required, using telemedicine apps and smart mobile technology.

Telemedicine Ensures The Best Medical Professionals Rise to the Top

The increased choice that telemedicine provides to new parents tends to make the market more competitive. This means that medical professionals who treat children are operating in a more demanding market. In this more competitive market, the cream tends to rise to the top. This is great news for new parents, because it means they can get their children treated by the best medical professionals in the business. Telemedicine increases competition amongst doctors and ensures that the most talented are easy to identify, which is extremely beneficial for new parents.

In an age where digital devices are becoming more and more prevalent, many tasks are becoming simpler for us thanks to our new tech-based companions. While most of these tasks include the non-essentials such as texting, learning languages and checking our bank balance, this new technology includes plenty of important applications as well. We can use our smartphone to keep track of our heart rate, measure how much exercise we’re getting per day, and even check in with our doctor. The latter is called telemedicine, and although it utilizes the most modern devices on the market (smartphones, tablets, etc.), it’s a practice that has been around for decades.

Telemedicine is essentially defined as the utilization of clinical services through telecommunications. For a large number of years, this meant a telephone; but recently, with the light speed development of communications technology, telemedicine has found a whole new place in the world, and people up and down the country are utilizing it for medical purposes. This has a number of advantages. One of the most obvious is that it benefits people who are either physically unable to get to their doctors, or live too far away from one to avail of it consistently. Take for example a handicap parking permit; a patient who requires one of these essential tools for the disabled is often not able to visit a doctor’s office to get one. Telemedicine solves this issue by letting the patient confer with a doctor from the comfort of their home. This is just one concrete example of how telemedicine is making medical practice more accessible to people who need it.

Many parents use telemedicine to care for their children with lightening-quick results.

When it comes to the health of their children, many parents rightly refuse to compromise. When kids get sick, they react differently than adults, and the younger they are, the harder they find it to express their symptoms in words. This in turn makes parents more likely to seek medical care as soon as possible.  There’s something reassuring about going to see a living, breathing doctor and having them check your child for symptoms. However, parents should definitely consider using telemedicine to care for their children as it comes with a whole host of benefits.

Chief among these benefits is the ability to confer with medical professionals straight away. As mentioned above, parents want a lightning fast response when their children are struck down with sickness. With telemedicine, you don’t even have to leave your house. You can start up your laptop or your tablet, and very soon be in consultation with a medical professional. This is especially applicable for families who don’t live near a doctor’s office; it can save precious time and also provide a baseline peace of mind for parents whose children suffer from a chronic disorder or are prone to sickness.

If you’re a parent, you could consider using telemedicine to treat your children’s minor ailments.

Going hand in hand with this valuable timesaving feature is the fact that, on a whole, telemedicine costs much less than in-person clinic visits. This is great news for families who might be hard pressed to come up with the doctor’s fee every time their child needs to visit the clinic; it can can dramatically reduce these costs, as well as negating any travel costs associated with doctor’s visits. On the other side of the line, telemedicine also reduces hospital and clinic costs; doctor’s can get through more patients in the day, and the use of online technology serves to reduce admin costs associated with in-person visits. Telemedicine can also reduce non-necessary ER visits but getting symptoms checked out at home first, to ascertain whether an ER trip is required.

Children are often referred to specialists to get to the bottom of their particular health issues, and telemedicine can also help on this front. Traditionally, with any ailment that require specialized treatment, a primary care physician is merely the gatekeeper for a referral. Also, as a patient, you are shackled to the nearest specialist to your home or local area. With telemedicine, you can seek out the best specialist possible for your child, because the limits of proximity are removed. For patients in rural areas, this is especially beneficial, and reduces waiting times if the specialist in question is catering for many separate patients across a large area.

It might seem like a big leap when compared to the tried-and-tested clinic visits, but studies show that 74% of patients prefer easy access to their healthcare, and have come to fully embrace telemedicine. When it comes to children’s health, no risk is worth taking; the practise of telemedicine is one that can revolutionise the way America looks at healthcare, and comes with many benefits for patients and medical professionals alike. Ultimately, telemedicine is only going to become more prevalent as the technology evolves to support it. Jumping on this particular bandwagon as soon as possible will prove advantageous for patients (and parents) up and down the United States!