If you have children, you will undoubtedly spend some time in the emergency room (ER). Of course, the fortunate parent of the child who looks prior to leaping and exercises caution rather than throwing it to the wind will most likely spend a lot less time at the ER than others. Yet if you have a child with a birth defect, you may find that this very abnormality may cause you to see a lot more of the inside of the ER than perhaps you had bargained for prior to becoming a parent. Add to this that many children with birth defects will still be, well, children, and understand that a birth defect will not necessarily slow down the adventurous spirit of your child, and you might end up exchanging Christmas cards with the ER intake nurse and be on a first name basis with most of the staff.

Yet in spite of the fact that fostering a good working relationship with the staff at the ER is a wise choice when parenting a child with physical deformities or systemic abnormalities, birth defects make ER visits problematic for a number of reasons. For example, and intake nurse not acquainted with your or your child's health issues may not properly triage you as you enter and actually consider your case far less pressing than it truly is. Similarly, ER physicians unsure of how to treat a child with a birth defect will not necessarily know the right decisions to make in a pinch.

While you obviously cannot tell a triage nurse or doctor how to do her or his job, the fact that you can make the admittance and treatment of your child more foolproof should be encouraging! Here are some suggestions that will help you get the most out of your ER visit and prevent medical mistakes:

1. Some hospitals offer coded cards that will contain a patient's medical history and can be swiped at terminals set up throughout the hospital and ER. If your ER offers this kind of technology, avail yourself of it.

2. Have a printed list of all the medications and dosages which your child is currently taking. Bring a spare list to include in the child's ER chart.

3. Carry a list of previous ER visit, reasons for the visit and the way the problem was resolved. Include in this list any hospitalizations, even if they were not related to medical emergencies. Keep the list crisp and avoid fluff and fillers.

4. Another list that clearly spells out the birth defect, the problems currently experienced because of it, and any allergies that are known to you needs to be made available to the ER nurse as well as the attending doctor. Hand it to the nurse right away with your insurance information and insist that it be read through before you will take a seat.

5. All of this information should be contained in a special bag that may be accessed on the way out the door and thus it does not matter if you, a home health worker, or other caregiver needs to take the child to the ER, the information will be readily on hand.