Usually your general physician or pediatrician is the first person to have a look for your child’s health needs. He is the one who will suggest visiting a pediatric surgeon for any  illness or condition needing surgery. Sometimes such conditions may be present since birth.

 Many times a consult is sought for unexplained symptoms like long standing tummy ache (abdominal pain), constipation.

Few conditions where you need to seek the opinion of a skilled pediatric surgeon:

• Tummy ache (Abdominal pain) of recent or prolonged duration, blood in stools, diarrhoea, constipation. Consult a Pediatric Surgeon to rule out few surgical conditions like appendicitis, intussusception, rectal polyp.
• Vomiting – especially if in copious ammounts. Green vomit always points to a surgical emergency. It may be a pointer of an obstruction. Milky vomit in copious ammounts in infants is also a red alert sign. Immediately consult a Pediatric Surgeon if your child suffers from any of the above.
• Constipation – recent onset or since birth. Evaluation is needed in both situations to rule out certain correctable causes.
• Feeding and Swallowing difficulties – especially in neonates needs an evaluation by pediatric surgeon. Many times, this is due to gastroesophageal reflux, Infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis or other such condition needing surgery.
• Umbilical hernia – swelling of umbilicus (belly button) is a frequent occurrence in children. As long as the hernia is reducible it needs no emergency surgical intervention. However, the child needs to be under regular observation by a pediatric surgeon. Always make sure to know the warning signs to suspect obstruction.
• Swellings and Lumps in neck – These can be due to an enlarged lymph node, dermoid cyst,branchial cyst, thyroglossal cyst. All need surgical intervention.
• Discharging sinus in neck – branchial sinus and thyroglossal sinus are the common causes needing surgery.
• Inguinoscrotal region swellings – These can be varied like an inguinal hernia, absent testes in scrotum (undescended testes), hydrocoele, torsion of testes. All of these are surgically corrected. Timely surgical intervention by a proficient pediatric surgeon matters in such situations.
• Urine infections – always need to be evaluated and managed by a knowledgeablepediatric surgeon. Usually, infections arisesecondary to an obstruction (Pelviureteric obstruction, vesicoureteric obstruction, Posterior urethral valves) or Vecioureteric Reflux.At such times the underlying conditions need surgical correction to control the infections.
• Genital abnormalities – Abnormally located urethral opening and a bend in penis – medically termed as hypospadias, needs correction surgically in single or multiple sittings. Abnormal looking skin around penis – webbed or buried penis also are corrected surgically.
• Phimosis is often a cause of painful urination. It arises due to tight foreskin of penis and may need surgery (circumcision)
• Bedwetting is often seen due to medical reasons. Many children improve with behavioural therapy and medications. Few have underlying abnormalities that need to be corrected.
• Trauma or Injuries are an integral part of childhood. Sometimes these injuries demand emergency surgical care. Many times, children have cuts and wounds on face and limbs. To achieve a cosmetically appealing result they need to be sutured by an expert pediatric surgeon.
• Abnormalities detected during pregnancy always cause anxiety to the prospective parents. They encompass a wide spectrum of diseases with varied prognosis. A pediatric surgeon is often consulted by such parents to seek guidance for the immediate and future management of such a child. Many conditions like congenital diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia need surgery within first few days of life. And in such instances a pediatric surgeon provides a corrective surgery to give the child a chance to near normal life.