Dr. Greene’s Blog

Dr. Alan Greene

Dr. Greene is a practicing physician, author, national and international TEDx speaker, and global health advocate. He is a graduate of Princeton University and University of California San Francisco.

    Is Codeine Safe for Children?
    August 15, 2012
    Is Codeine Safe for Children?

    More than half a million tonsillectomies are performed each year on children in the U.S. More than sixty percent of those children report significant pain in the days that follow. Acetaminophen with c…

    Tending the Garden Within
    June 19, 2012
    Tending the Garden Within

    One of my favorite gardening activities is digging potatoes. Rich soil hides delicious, nutritious gems like the ones in the image above from our garden.…

    Alan Greene as a boy in kentucy with father and grandfather
    June 15, 2012
    Father: Past, Present, and Future

    Even before our babies are born, we are teaching them about the world around us. We communicate our choices, our values, even without thinking about it. They hear our voices, smell our aromas, and the…

    Their Eyes Tell the Story: Babies Fascinated By What You Say
    January 17, 2012
    Their Eyes Tell the Story: Babies Fascinated By What You Say

    Guessing what babies and toddlers are thinking about can be difficult before they have words to tell the story. Over the first year parents usually do get increasingly adept at recognizing when their …

    October 31, 2011
    Pediatricians’ Trick-or-Treat Bags

    Each year thousands of pediatricians gather for a national conference to catch up on the latest science and with each other. There’s also a huge exhibit hall, as in so many professional and trad…

    Food Day: A Great New Holiday
    October 24, 2011
    Food Day: A Great New Holiday

    Food Day, my favorite new holiday, is a simple but profound celebration of something all humans share – we become the food we eat. The first annual Food Day (foodday.org), debuts October 24, sponsor…

    October 6, 2011
    Stress and Environmental Toxins

    Of course reducing toxic exposures is an important way to reduce risks from unhealthy chemicals, but a growing body of research suggests paying attention to positive habits – such as good food, heal…

    Baby in a diaper from behind. Which diapers are best for the environment?
    September 29, 2011
    Which Diapers Are Better for the Planet?

    Those landfill diapers that are so easily tossed into the trash are clearly a major ecological issue. But what about the energy, water, and often chlorine involved in laundering cloth ones? Comparing …

    September 6, 2011
    The Price of Health

    How much does it cost to start a baby on better food? Cost of Baby Food Cereal In my local Safeway this summer I found the most popular white rice (white flour) cereal available at 29.4c per serving, …

    Pregnant woman in the kitchen preparing food.
    August 10, 2011
    Your Baby Knows What You’re Eating … Even Before Birth

    Dr. Greene’s take on prenatal nutrition… Babies have more taste buds before birth than at any later time. Why would they be designed to form extra taste buds only for them to disappear bef…

    Breast Milk’s Subtle Flavor Magic
    August 7, 2011
    Breast Milk’s Subtle Flavor Magic

    Dr. Greene’s take on the flavors of breast milk… Interestingly, babies tend to suck more vigorously when a new flavor is introduced into their mothers’ diet (even if the mothers don&…

    When Does the Flavor Hit Breast Milk?
    August 6, 2011
    When Does the Flavor Hit Breast Milk?

    As you might expect, different flavors appear to take a different amount of time to enter breast milk. In one recent study, researchers gave breastfeeding mothers capsules of banana, caraway seed, lic…

    Flavord in Breastmilk
    August 5, 2011
    Flavors in Breast Milk

    Flavors in human breast milk have been shown to influence babies’ early flavor preferences. One famous landmark study showed the power of prenatal carrots to increase acceptance of carrots by ba…

    Tips to Reduce Colic
    August 3, 2011
    Tips to Reduce Colic

    Colic can be very distressing both for babies and their parents. Parents often feel their baby’s screaming is an indictment of their parenting ability: there’s something wrong with me; the…

    July 27, 2011
    Jumping out of a Plane More Than 47 Times Safer Than Checking into a Hospital. Unless…

    I saw several news stories recently reporting that flying in an airplane is safer than being admitted to a hospital. True. But not all that shocking. After all, plane travel is pretty safe, and you ha…

    July 7, 2011
    Autism Linked to Prenatal Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft?

    Autism diagnoses have increased rapidly over the last two decades; so has the number of women taking antidepressants during pregnancy – from somewhere between 1% and 6% in the early 1990s to 7-13% m…

    About the WhiteOut Movement
    July 7, 2011
    About the WhiteOut Movement

    Dr. Greene explains the WhiteOut movement… “Let every child’s first grain be a whole grain. There’s no good reason not to. They won’t mind. They’ll thank you.”…

    To Solve Obesity
    June 23, 2011
    To Solve Obesity, We Must Change the Way We Feed Babies

    Waiting until school age is too late, according to a welcome 2011 Institute of Medicine report called Early Childhood Obesity Prevention Policies. The report documents the critical role of early learn…

    Food Allergies A Bigger Problem Than Previously Reported
    June 20, 2011
    Food Allergies A Bigger Problem Than Previously Reported

    Dr. Greene’s take on the increase in food allergies… If it seems like nowadays there’s someone in every school classrooms with a food allergy, that’s because almost 1 in 12 kid…

    Young Girl Playing in Outdoors Water
    June 14, 2011
    Skin Damage Starts with Your Child’s First Sun Over-exposure

    It’s taken a long time for science to quantify what mothers have always known: the skin of babies and toddlers is very different from the skin of older children and adults. Babies’ skin is…