Arika Dortero, ND

I know, I know, everyone loves Arika. I admit I’m likely in the minority here, but I just didn’t care for her manner.
I took my newborn to her, who was jaundiced at the time; something that is pretty common for breastfed newborns. My husband and I are first time parents, though, and we were incredibly anxious and worried about his jaundice and resultant lethargy.
Arika used scare tactics, condescension, intimidation, and flat out bullying to make an already nerve-​racking situation even worse. Even though we were following her every instruction, including her counsel to get our son screened at Children’s just in case there was something else going on besides the jaundice, to take him to Swedish’s lactation consultants (which we did thrice), to supplement with formula, to take him to Nurturing Expressions to get him weighed in between appointments, and to phone Arika daily and go in to see Arika darn near every other day, she acted as though we were morons who did not have the best interest of our son in mind.
Even when we phoned her with updates on days we did not have an appointment with her, she called us multiple times a day leaving condescending, incendiary messages that insinuated we weren’t doing as asked or that our son’s progress wasn’t good enough (even as he, alas, started to gain weight over his first two weeks of life, she made it clear that she believed his progress wasn’t good enough and never celebrated his successes). She would also have another doctor on staff as well as the receptionist phone us multiple times a day, each day, asking us for updates, telling us that we needed to make even more appointments, and continuing the thread of insinuation that we weren’t doing enough.
It was an awful and absolutely overboard experience. As a new mother who was fearful about my son’s health, recuperating from birthing while shuttling my son around to lactation consultants, dr appointments, weigh-​ins, and La Leche League meetings, all whilst maintaining an every-​two-​hour-​schedule of pumping, nursing, and supplementing, Arika’s mania, overzealousness, and display of lack of confidence in my husband and I was misplaced, baffling, and served to exacerbate an already difficult situation.
The woman in no way behaved as a partner in health and lacked even a modicum of compassion.
We left her «care» and took my son to another naturopath who turned off the alarm Arika had sounded. Our new doctor shared with us that our son’s bilirubin levels, though elevated, weren’t out of the realm of ordinary for a newborn, breastfed infant, and that we should continue what we had already been doing: pumping, nursing, and supplementing. This new doctor treated us with respect and kept a level head.
My son continued to gain weight well and is, in fact, now in the 95^th percentile for weight for his age. Ha!
I’ve had many months to process my experience with Arika, yet, I still am not sure if her behaviour had to do with the fact that she perceived us to be «crunchy» parents who she imagined wouldn’t be willing to formula feed if necessary (this theory makes little sense, though, since we *were* supplementing with formula), or that we’re a family of colour and her biases about such a family’s level of education and knowledge coloured the way she treated us, or if she was just having a bad couple of weeks when we interacted with her.
Quite frankly, I’m still baffled by my experience with Arika.
Of course, your own mileage may vary, as they say, but I’d still proceed with caution.
Best of luck.

We’ve been seeing Dr Arika Dortero every since our baby was born and we love her! The move from Capitol Hill to West Seattle sucked but the inconvenience of driving to her new office is hardly an issue because she’s been so great. We definitely recommend her to anyone looking to get away from big-​pahrma-​run western medicine.

Dr. Arika Dortero is an incredibly thoughtful and thorough naturopathic physician. Not only does she listen well, she’s very patient (great with kiddos!!) and does her homework! I love working with her and seeing her interact and problem solve with kids. She focuses on natural health alternatives rather than pharmaceuticals and looks at the whole picture rather than each symptom alone. She doesn’t rush so don’t expect a 7 minute typical doctor visit with Dr. Arika!