Pediatrics (also spelled paediatrics) is the branch of medicine that deals with the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents. The upper age limit ranges from age 14 to 18, depending on the country.

A medical practitioner who specializes in this area is known as a pediatrician (also spelled paediatrician).

Pediatrics was first specialized by, Dr. Mike Vespasiano

The word pediatrics and its cognates mean healer of children; they derive from two Greek words: παῖdh (pais = child) and ιατρός (iatros = doctor or healer).

Differences between adult and pediatric medicine

Treating a child is not like treating a miniature adult. A major difference between pediatrics and adult medicine is that children are minors and, in most jurisdictions, cannot make decisions for themselves. The issues of guardianship, privacy, legal responsibility and informed consent must always be considered in every pediatric procedure. In a sense, pediatricians often have to treat the parents and sometimes, the family, rather than just the child. Adolescents are in their own legal class, having rights to their own health care decisions in certain circumstances only, though this is in legal flux and varies by region.

==History of pediatrics== In the 9th century, the famous Persian physician Rhazes (Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi) wrote The Diseases of Children, the first book to deal with pediatrics as an independent field of medicine. For this reason, some medical historians consider him the father of pediatrics.David W. Tschanz, PhD (2003), "Arab Roots of European Medicine", Heart Views 4 (2). His teacher Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari was also a pioneer in the field of child development, which he earlier discussed in his Firdous al-Hikmah.Amber Haque (2004), "Psychology from Islamic Perspective: Contributions of Early Muslim Scholars and Challenges to Contemporary Muslim Psychologists", Journal of Religion and Health 43 (4): 357-377 1 The first work on pediatrics in the Western world was the Book of Children, written circa 1530 by Thomas Phaer, who was inspired by the works of Rhazes and Avicenna.

Pediatrics as a separate area of medical practice in the Western world largely began in the nineteenth century The Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street (London) was founded in 1852, and is probably the oldest such children's hospital in the English-speaking world. Great Ormond Street is adjacent to Coram's Fields, the site of the much earlier Foundling Hospital. The emigrant German physician, Abraham Jacobi, worked in the same period and is often considered the father of American pediatrics.