Recently I encountered something terrifying that got me thinking how we assume that just because someone has given birth, their advice is necessarily correct; especially when it comes to how one should handle children.Samantha’s two-month old baby caught a cold and she got really scared.Luckily, or so she thought, a friend of her’s who has two children advised her to use a particular syrup that she claimed to be very helpful.Since she was very desperate, Samantha didn’t hesitate to rush to the pharmacy and buy the syrup."I gave my baby two doses of that syrup for that day but instead her stomach started swelling. It was scary when she started crying uncontrollably like she was in intense pain. I rushed to the pediatrician who said that if I had administered the third dose, my baby was going to die,” Samantha’s mother narrated.Apparently, she had given her baby medication that was too strong and lethal for her age, according to the pediatrician.I have heard many similar stories where women tend to believe advice from every woman who is a mother. We shouldn’t play with the lives of our precious children by taking in every Mary and Jane’s advice. What if what works for Mary’s child doesn’t work for yours or what if worse still, Mary doesn’t wish you well?Let’s not take chances with our children and risk their lives since we wouldn’t forgive ourselves if anything awful happened to them.Well, our mothers brought us this far I know but times have changed and so have the conditions we live in. At times, your mother’s advice may not be right.With your children, you should always take it to the extreme and make it a habit to always seek the doctor’s advice. Most of us have doctors within our reach or in the neighborhood.With the health insurance in place, surely, it would be a big shame for a mother to take the old lady’s advice at the  office that turns out to cause dire consequences yet they could have cheaply received a doctor’s advice.Stop playing with the lives of your children. Next time something isn’t right with them, call up a doctor or rush to the hospital and not your aunt.