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Dr. Blatnik: Hi, this is Tara Blatnick. I am a Washington University Physician, a Sports Medicine Doctor through St. Louis Children's Hospital. And I'm also a MomDoc.

Melanie Cole: Taking part in sports and recreational activities is such an important part of a healthy physically active lifestyle for our children. And if you're a parent of a young athlete, you know how important it is that they stay safe. This is MomDocs, the podcast from St. Louis Children's Hospital. I'm Melanie Cole, and today we're talking about proper sports equipment for our young athletes. Dr. Blatnick, I'm so glad to have you join us today. Tell us a little bit about protective gear, like helmets and mouth guards and shin guards, why they're so important and what injuries do wearing these things help our children to avoid?

Dr. Blatnik: Yeah, so proper gear is always important no matter what sport it is. And certain sports definitely take a lot more equipment. Mostly those sports are the contact sports, so things like football, hockey, those sorts of sports we know take a ton of equipment. So those guys all have helmets, they all have mouth guards, lots and lots of pads. And the reason is because those athletes come into contact with each other, you know, so things like basketball, you can come into contact with another player, but it's not sort of part of the sport necessarily. And so for these other sports, we definitely get a lot more injuries, bruises, contusions, breaks, if people aren't wearing the right pads or the things that they need to protect themselves from the other players.

Host: So thank you for that. And certainly the contact sports, hockey and football as you say, but you know, our girls are playing soccer and there's not a lot of equipment in soccer. What do you want parents to know about sports like that? Baseball, you know, they've got the helmets on for the batter and you know, there's pitch limits so that they don't hurt their shoulder. You know, there's all these things, but what do you want us to know about the sports as parents of children who play these sports that don't have all this gear?

Dr. Blatnik: Yeah. So there's definitely like, as you mentioned, things like soccer where we still see a ton of injuries, but really all they have is their shin guards and their cleats. So there's not a whole lot else that those guys have. But I think the important thing to remember is that things like stretching and warming up are other ways that even though it's not necessarily an equipment type thing, it's injury preventative. So kids learning how to stretch the right way before and after games can also be helpful in those sports where we don't necessarily think of it as an equipment based sport.

Host: We put a lot of faith in the equipment Dr. Blatnik, what about helmets and things? Do they prevent against concussions? Is that not their intended purpose? Tell us what they're supposed to do.

Dr. Blatnik: Yeah, so helmets, although a lot of people think they would prevent concussion actually don't. So how much are more there to protect the head from things like fractures, bruising, other sort of more sort of blunt force type things, but definitely not concussion. So you can't rely on that helmet unfortunaetly, to prevent that.

Host: And what about other types of protective equipment? Can we trust them? Mouth guards. Obviously if a kid loses an adult tooth during a game, that's a big deal. So do those help to prevent for that? Have you seen kids losing teeth even when they're wearing mouth guards?

Dr. Blatnik: Yeah, for sure. So mouth guards do make a huge difference and I try to encourage kids as much as possible, especially kids with things like braces. So we see a lot of adolescents with braces, which can complicate things as well too. So I encourage all of them if possible to wear mouth guards because if you look at a kid that takes, you know, an elbow or something to the mouth without a mouth guard and then one that takes it with a mouth guard, the kid that had the mouth guard in has significantly less issues. So they're much more likely to maybe get a cut on their lip or you know, a bruise, but much less likely to lose those teeth. And especially when we're talking about adult teeth, it's really a big deal if you lose one of those. So mouth guards are awesome for protection against that.

Host: Well, they certainly are. So for sports that don't have as much of the equipment you mentioned stretching, what about sports like cheer, which you know we're considering a sport or not, does not have a lot of protection involved in that and you know, you're throwing them up. What do you want parents to know when they want their children to be involved in these sports, but they're a little bit afraid?

Dr. Blatnik: Yeah, so cheerleading's a really great example of that because we do see a lot of injuries from that because they do a lot of things like stunts and stuff like that. I think a lot of it is training, so training of both the coaches and of the kids to know how to do those maneuvers properly. So most injuries happen when they don't know how to do it or they're not properly supervised in what to do. And so just good training of the coaches and the kids, and doing things that are within their limits and what they're able to do at that age is important.

Host: Well tell us about the services that the Young Athletes Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital offers for kids who have sustained sports injuries.

Dr. Blatnik: Yeah, so we have clinics every day here at, especially at the specialty care center, but also at downtown Children's. And actually now out of the progress West location. So we can see kids same day for injuries that they have that they sustained from sports or from, you know, the playground and other things. And then we also have physical therapists that work along with us to help get kids better after we've sort of diagnosed what's going on and help them get better from injuries and get back to sports.

Host: Well that certainly is the goal. And any parent that has an athlete knows that child just wants to get back out there and start playing. What as parents, and for coaches as well. Dr Blatnik, what would you like us to know if our children do get injured, if our soccer player gets an ACL injury or if they lose a tooth or any of these things, how long can we keep them out? Are we supposed to try to do that?

Dr. Blatnik: Yeah, so it's always a hard thing. Kids definitely want to go back and you know that's really the goal for most of the kids for sure is that they want to get back to their sports. You know, it's all very injury dependent, but I think relying on your sports medicine physician or your primary care physician to help you, you know, pain is all is obviously a guide. But sometimes you know things like, you know like losing a tooth and stuff, the dentist really needs to guide you. So I would use your physicians as a guide to help you get your kids back safely.

Host: And give us your best advice before we wrap up about preventing injuries. And while you're talking about that, you can give a little talk about parents on the sidelines because sometimes kids can become distracted when their parents are yelling on the sidelines and predispose themselves to injury.

Dr. Blatnik: Yeah. So parents sometimes can be a little bit of a distraction to kids on the sidelines. Kids are obviously, they want to listen to their parents and so they look to them for advice and things even when they're out on the field. And so I always say let the coaches do their job. They're the ones that are there to kind of help guide your children. And so let them do their job, be happy, be supportive on the sideline for kids, you know, they're just kids and they're out there to have fun. You just want to make sure that you're being supportive of everyone on the team and not even just your child. And even of the other team too. We all want to teach good sportsmanship to our kids and so it's good to model that behavior for your kids. In terms of injuries, I think that, you know, really making sure that you have good coaches that are really properly trained, making sure that they have good stretching regimens for your kids before and afterwards, and then proper fitting equipment is really important too. And I can't stress enough making sure that helmets are fit properly. So the improperly fit helmet can lead to injury. So you want to make sure that, especially in football and hockey that those helmets are fit well cause the last thing we want is for a kid to get a head injury.

Host: And what about playing multiple sports and not sports specific training only. Can that really help to avoid some of those chronic injuries as well?

Dr. Blatnik: Yeah, for sure. So kids that specialize early in sports, we do find that they tend to have a lot more injuries than kids that do different things. So each season trying a different thing. So doing one season of soccer, maybe a season of basketball, a season of softball. It also makes the kids better athletes because they're training different muscles and doing different things so it actually can help them in the long run.

Host: Thank you so much Dr. Blatnik. What great information for parents to hear. And that concludes another episode of MomDocs with St. Louis Children's Hospital. For more information on the young athletes center at St. Louis Children's, you can search the Young Athletes Center at StLouisChildrens.org for more information and to get connected with one of our providers. If you found this podcast informative, please share on your social channels and share with other parents, you know, that way we can all learn from the MomDoc experts together. This is Melanie Cole.