Parent Australia

You can't overfeed a breastfed newborn

2011-02-22T16:07:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I became a grandmother for the first time!!What a buzz it is I hadn't quite realised how emotional I would feel and how I would fall in love with my little granddaughter at first sight!
However today I am quite cross! Not with anyone except the Early Childhood Nurse who is so ignorant of breastfeeding that she told Proud Mum, that she was overfeeding her baby because she had gone from 2.5 kilos at birth to 3.18 kilos after 2 and a half weeks. She was also told that the baby was snacking on the breast and a dummy was the solution! It makes my blood boil just to write this. How can someone who has the wellbeing of newborn babies in their control spout such rubbish? Our little Thumbling is not overfed - she is a hungry newborn who is thriving on her mother's milk. Her mother is a natural breastfeeder and she is loving it. Even with the total support she is getting from Big Daddy this sort of sh** is undermining. Could someone please tell me how a nurse gets into this position and how she can manage to stay so ignorant of breastfeeding??

Parental leave

2010-07-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

Today my son sent me the link to Essential Baby explaining the new Maternity, sorry parental leave provisions! Fantastic that we have got somewhere... and in time for the arrival of my first grandchild. When this new father-to-be was at the same stage I too was looking forward to maternity leave... as it was called then. I was very lucky, I worked for the ABC and the leave I was looking forward to was 6 months on half pay or 3 months on full pay, plus any rec. leave I had accummulated and the rest of the 12 months on no pay. It was so good because I was a public servant and Gough Whitlam was prime minister! He was indeed years ahead of his time. I loved my 12 months off and when time came to go back to work and child care was so appalling, I chose to stay home and work part-time instead (as part-time was not a work option at the ABC then). They gave me 3 weeks rec leave that I had accumulated while I was on maternity leave. Australia did not keep these amazing provisions for leave for new mothers (fathers were not included) - which only applied to government employees anyway - and gradually slid back into the Dark Ages where women and their partners struggled to get a better deal.
I am very pleased for my family - but sad that parental leave, like giving birth, slid backwards so much!

Bleat, Say, Shove

2010-03-11T17:49:00.000-08:00

After working in a book shop for a few weeks - and loving it (it takes me back to my days as a librarian) - I decided it was time I caught up with some of the popular fiction that is frequently asked for. My favourite genre is history and biography, so fiction is not always on my bedside table. Recently I picked up Elizabeth Gilbert's 'Eat, Pray, Love'. To be fair I must put this in perspective. I decided, long before I became a senior!, that there were not enough days left to read books I wasn't enjoying so I generally read between 25 and 50 pages before making a decision. I decided very early on that this was not a book I wanted to read, but I persisted through pages describing blubbering at night on the bathroom floor because she had realised she didn't like being married to a particular man... and pages of agonising about what she was going to do about it!
This is not a position I have ever found myself in! but generally I am interested in people and how they deal with their dilemmas and find it fascinating discovering how they work through them. Not this time. It has been described as a 'funny, tender, beguiling story about a woman's search for happiness' - but since I didn't actually like the woman in the first couple of chapters I decided I really didn't want to know about her travels as she came to move on in her life and find another course.
I may find the book by her ex-husband an interesting exercise. I would like to know what he thought about what to him must have been a sudden about-face on a relationship that seemed to be going where they both wanted it to. As someone who has been married to the same man for nearly 4 decades I know how difficult it can be to keep a relationship going, but I also know that frequently the rewards of talking something through with someone who is your best friend as well as your emotional support and your lover is enormously rewarding. Maybe that's why I thought the book would have been better titled ... 'Bleat, Say, Shove'

Right to choose your birthplace in jeopardy

2009-10-22T17:51:00.000-07:00

I have just received an email from Justine Caines, found of What Women Want asking for membership of the political party she is setting up to work for women's rights in childbirth, especially homebirth. I have joined.
Justine was behind the campaign that lobbied the Australian Parliament earlier this year to keep indemnity insurance available to women want to birth at home. She writes:

"The campaign that many of you were part of achieved extraordinary things.
13000 signature petitions, a Senate inquiry with 2500 submissions (considered a Senate record) and amazingly over 3000 men women and children standing together in Canberra in support of homebirth choice.

...Despite this, the Government have placed this issue on the backburner by offering a 2 year exemption to indemnity insurance and the Coalition have lost interest in what was only a short game of political banter.

The on-going discussions with the Department of Health and others lead us to believe that the choice of homebirth will slowly but surely be extinguished.

For those who find this unacceptable one option is to become really political and place pressure directly on politicians in electorates across Australia. I hope to establish WWW as a real force campaigning for issues where ordinary people have been ignored.

Currently the WWW website is seriously out of date, but those who visit will understand what we are about.

My dream is to establish a 'coalition' of passionate people from various policy areas and establish a party with strong community links and coalface knowledge.

To maintain our registration as a political party, WWW needs 500 members by October 30, yes very soon!"

So if like me, you believe that women need to have the right to birth at home safely and with support, should they choose to do so you might like to follow this up.

Another parenting magazine hits the wall

2009-10-10T00:11:00.001-07:00

A few months ago I wrote about the demise of the magazine I started in Oz in the early 1980s coming to grief. Sadly I believe it was simply used as fodder for the printing presses and lost its way in the noughties. And whose to say there is a place for so many magazines with so many other sources of information available to people.
Today a press release about the demise of Gourmet magazine in the US caught my eye. Any Aussie publisher would kill for a circulation of 980,000 - they wouldn't need any advertising, but the stakes are higher in the US - so it seems that the drop in advertising has been instrumental in the closing of this notable American magazine. Buried in the press release was the news that the publishers Conde Naste were also closing a parenting magazine called Cookie.
Unlike Australia's Parents magazine which lasted 18 years under my umbrella, then another 8 or so with the printers... Cookie was only around for 4 years. Begun as the "stylish parenting magazine for the new mom" it too has passed away through lack of advertising I would assume. 'Modern Bridé' and 'Elegant Bride' went too!
The history of magazine publishing is fascinating... they come, they go, they come again!

Homebirth: an essential choice

2009-09-17T01:15:00.000-07:00

Better late than never! I have been following the political developments on homebirth but have not had time to post...nor was I able to join the rally in Canberra - so in a nutshell after a meeting of health Ministers in Canberra on Friday 4th we have
Health Minister Ms Roxon announcing a two-year exemption from holding indemnity insurance for privately-practising midwives who can't obtain cover for attending a homebirth. This means that there is still a fight to be won. Homebirth needs to be included in Medicare and women need to feel that they can choose homebirth as a birthing option knowing that there is support for themselves and their chosen carers from the establishment.
You can find out more from Homebirth Australia and the Australia College of Midwives

Why breastfeed

2009-08-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

I am a strong supporter of breastfeeding and throughout my career of writing about babies I have done my best to promote it. One of the most important factors in successful breastfeeding is a supportive partner!
I have always thought that if more celebrities who breastfed were photographed it would be wonderful PR, so here is one that touched my heart.

Breastfeeding and homebirth in the news

2009-08-05T23:46:00.000-07:00

This week (1-7 August) is World Breastfeeding week...with the objective of raising the profile of breastfeeding. In their campaign to educate everyone that breast milk is truly the best food for baby and that feeding one's baby is not about choice but about doing the best, this year the organisers are focussing on breastfeeding in an emergency. You will find out more on their website.
Homebirth is also in the news in Australia. It has always been a controversial area - sensational stories are often seized upon to persuade women to follow the medical establishment but there will always be women who want to birth at home. Australia is about to take a backwards step and in July 2010 having a homebirth will become illegal with a registered midwife unless they can obtain insurance.
To find out more check out this youtube video

Breastfeeding - getting the message across

2009-07-16T18:25:00.000-07:00

One of my Facebook friends today pointed me to a blog by a breastfeeding mom in which she talks about the insidious campaigns of infant formula manufacturers. Nothing has changed since the days when I began Australia's parents magazine (1981) which was almost 100 years after the anti-breastfeeding lobby took hold in the baby manuals of the western world and breastfeeding was considered out of date. It is a ceaseless battle combatting infant formula's promoters and one that has been going for more than 100 years and has to change with the times.
One of the trends this blogger, Elita, points out, is the proliferation of advertisements in all magazines, not just parenting magazines. When Australia's Parents magazine first began we had the field to ourselves for 8 years. We never took infant formula advertising (though in later years we did take ads for toddler formula (que? why do we need this, I still don't know) because it was not said to violate the WHO International Code of Marketing Breast-Milk Substitutes. However we did take advertisements for bottle-feeding paraphernalia. If we hadn't we wouldn't have survived as long as we did - 18 years in fact until the magazine changed hands. And this is the rub. We couldn't turn down these ads, they were crucial to the magazine's survival, if we had refused them we would also have lost other advertising. So my ploy was to always balance an ad promoting infant formula (be it a bottle, a dummy, a sterilising or whatever) with a page of editorial related to breastfeeding. For example an ad for a dummy might have an article on nipple care when breasfeeding next to it, or a positive story about a mum working and breastfeeding. This required extra work on my part as I needed to establish from the advertising department what the ads were in time to get the editorial organised. But it helped me to feel that I was doing what I could to combat the message.

Homebirth to become freebirth

2009-06-29T21:34:00.000-07:00

In the 30 years I have been writing and researching birth homebirth has been one of The Big Debates (the others being Breastfeeding Versus Bottlefeeding; Circumcision and Working and Caring).
Homebirth is for most a beautiful, rewarding experience yet whenever it hits the general media it is the horrible stories that hit the headlines.
On June 24 the Health Minister Nicola Roxon announced the exclusion of homebirth from insurance schemes for midwives. This will no doubt result in more DIY home births - or freebirths and more births that are not registered. This is despite the National Maternity Service Review receiving submissions from hundreds of women who want access to homebirth services. The Government will not provide indemnity insurance to private practice homebirth midwives which will make these midwives unable to register and make it illegal for them to attend homebirths.
Even if homebirth is not your choice you will no doubt want to be sure that those who want to birth at home have that option. Medical evidence supports planned attended homebirth for low-risk women and its safety when compared with unplanned homebirth and hospital birth. (See the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology)
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Find out more - and sign the petition to enable those who choose to birth at home to do it safely.

Could do better...Australia's children

2009-06-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

What's wrong with our children? - or rather what's wrong with the Australian system when it comes to children and what can we do better?
Lots it seems - and we are very slow to learn. As a mother of some decades!! I remember these issues from way back.

infant and under-5 mortality rates. Our indigenous children are 2 to 3 times more likely to die than their non-indigenous peers. They are also more likely to be of low birthweight and suffer from tooth decay. This was a worry when I was at university, way back in the 1970s studying Aboriginal ethnography - a new and exciting course then, but depressing when it came to learning about how our indigenous people were suffering under Western 'civilization'.

teenage birth rates. My mother was a home-maker and she was also a volunteer. One day a week she would take 'unmarried mothers' as they were called to the doctor from a nearby 'unmarried mothers home' - in those days there was no sex education and no Family Planning Association (which has sadly suffered from funding cuts in recent times). Once again it is the indigenous teenagers who are more likely to be teenage mothers...and they are also 8 to 9 times more likely to be in the child protection system and 24 times!! more likely to be under juvenile justice supervision.

growing numbers of jobless families with children. Sadly this is a growing statistic in the current economic climate and a new one for my generation.

Other problems that are making life far from perfect for Australia's children are:

spending way too much time (more than 2 hours a day) in front of a video screen. Difficult this one as the computer gobbles time and provides hours of fascination. Watching too much TV was a problem for my generation of parents and one solution was to allow them to choose one program of half an hour to watch each night...this could be translated to half an hour watching TV and half an hour on the computer! And to filling the daylight hours with outdoor activities - like playing.

eating too much of the wrong foods. Slowly and insidiously high-fat, high calorie snack foods have crept into children's lunchboxes and the pantries around Australia. Not buying them, replacing them with fruit, vegetable snacks such as carrot sticks, celery sticks, radishes, little tomatoes and healthy sandwiches and water requires a determined parent.

not eating enough vegetables. Replacing snacks with vegetables and going back to that old adage - at least one yellow, one white and one green vegetable with the main evening meal would go a long way to solving this.
You can read more about how our children Could Do Better in the latest report on Australia's children from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, titled 'A picture of Australia's children 2009'.

The passing of Australian Parents magazine

2009-05-24T04:26:00.000-07:00

It was with some sadness that I learnt that Australian Parents magazine has been ceased publication as of April 2009. If you have read my bio you will know that I established this magazine way back in 1981 firstly as Parents & Children magazine then as Australia's Parents magazine - and that I left the magazine in 1999. So it is with some sadness that I learnt from my one-time Deputy Editor that the magazine was no longer.
When we began the magazine it was as an annual - but it was so successful that we publisehd the next issue 6 months later - and from there went bi-monthly. For 8 years we were It. The only Australian magazine for parents. And we broke new ground in many ways, fighting for car safety legistlation for babies; working with the Australian Breastfeeding Association (then Nursing Mothers) on establishing Baby Care Rooms; working with Sheila Kitzinger on international research about parenting and being involved with a new band calling themselves The Wiggles at the very first parenting expos.
When I left the magazine - it was with mixed feelings and not of my own doing. The magazine was taken over and I no longer had a job. I had edited it for 18 years, had another baby and breastfed her in the office and grown it into the leading magazine with offshoot publications on Pregnancy, Birth and babies. I had also written two best-selling books on parenting.
So today I went to the website of the magazine to see for myself what the last magazine looked like - and I wasn't surprised that it is no longer.

Way back we learnt that putting babies over the age of 10 months on the cover caused sales to plummet - this cover features a school child. Interesting as an inside story, but the main readers of parenting magazines are pregnant and new mums - school days are so far in the future as to be unimaginable.

So 'Back to School' is hardly a grabby screamer! And how many times has it been used over the years? Too many I would say... where is the benefit to the reader? If you must do back to school how about making it relevant 'Off to School on a budget'

Home-schooling is a major feature!! This is a topic we covered in the 1980s so it is not new - and it is of even less interest to new mums than back to school - I would imagine that the percentage of parents who home-school would have to under 5.

A mum creates an eczema cream. Getting better. Eczema is a horrible condition and parents who have a child with eczema need all the help they can get... but "Inspiring Mum" as the screamer? Surely what parents want to know that someone has invented a cream for eczema that works for many babies??

Mind your manners - 10 tips... we all want well-mannered children, but would this inspire you to buy the magazine?

And I could go on but I'm about to fall asleep. This is not good and with the competition in the parenting market today I am not suprised that readership has plummeted.
Vale Australian Parents magazine - I am sorry you have been brought so low!

Breastfeeding help 24 hours

2009-04-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

1800 MUM 2 MUM, 1800 686 2 686 is the number that every pregnant woman should put into their phone and on the fridge! Getting help when you have problems breastfeeding - and getting the right help from people who have breastfed and understand how it works, what the problems and the solutions - combined with support from those around you - is the very best way of continuing to breastfeed.
Now Australia has a national toll-free 24 hour breastfeeding helpline staffed by volunteers from the Australian Breastfeeding Association1. Fantastic.
Despite all the information and education over the years breastfeeding rates are still dropping. Although 92 per cent of babies are breastfed when they leave hospital, it drops to around 80 per cent after the first week and is down to 56 per cent at 3 months and a frightening 14 per cent at 6 months.
When I breastfed and worked fulltime I found it stressful and difficult - so I understand why some women give up. But the benefits to the baby you have nurtured for 9 months in utero continue through their lives and it is worth every effort to maintain breastfeed at least for 6 months.

Where do you go for parenting advice and information

2009-04-21T05:55:00.000-07:00

I started Australia's Parents magazine way back in 1980 because there was no magazine for Australian parents - and I had discovered the English Parents and thought it was fabulous. Also I was fortunate enough to have a husband who was a publisher!! Then I discovered Parents (U.S) and realised that we needed something really Australian.
Today the internet does a fantastic job providing parenting information and keeping parents in touch with each other. Of course there are some sites, such as immunisation information sites posing as being helpful but actually being anti-immunisation, that parents need to be wary of. But it was the same with the printed word. Where do you go for parenting advice? Fill in the poll and let me know...
Do you find friends or relatives give you unwanted advice? Or do you find the advice and information that is available too much to sift through? Please let me know

Is birth going backwards in Australia?

2009-03-10T18:49:00.000-07:00

I was told I have to have an epidural because I was having twins, said one of the guests on Jenny Brockie's Insight program on SBS-TV last night (Tuesday March 10) I first wrote Having a baby in 1997 and it is focussed on information and strategies to help women have a positive, rewarding birth experience. In those days it looked like things were looking up for women who wanted to birth their way - and to avoid medical intervention. By the time I wrote the 2nd edition of Having a baby in 2004 it was not looking good. In fact the experience of giving birth in Australia seems to have gone back to the 1970s when I had my first baby and we were fighting for information and a say in how and where we gave birth.
In 2004 Marsden Wagner, who was a consultant for the WHO on Maternal and Child Health wrote a paper called ''Fish can't see water. The need to humanize birth in Australia." He wrote "Humanizing birth means understanding that the woman giving birth is a human being, not a machine and not just a container for making babies... fish can't see the water they swim in. Birth attendants, be they doctors, midwives or nurses, who have experienced only hospital based, high interventionist, medicalised birth cannot see the profound effect their interventions are having on the birth." And so it seems that is still the case.
Speakers on Insight included Jennifer Gamble, a researcher from Griffith University, whose research into the emotional consequences of medicalised childbirth echoes so much of what was found in the 1970s. The participants reminded me so much of similar TV debates that were held in 1970s and 1980s - different people, but similar experiences and proposals on how birth can be made more 'humanized'.
The Australian government has recently (Feb) been presented with the National Review of Birth Services in which Rosemary Bryant, the Commonwealth's chief nurse and midwifery officer recommends that midwifes should be included in the Medicare rebate schedule, that midwifery based birth should be more widely available and that more needs to be done to smooth the relationship between midwives and obstetricians.
It is so sad that having a baby in Australia is still an obstacle course for most women. That birth is so medicalised and instutionalised that women are still considered to be machines containing babies. I spent 18 years as the editor of Australia's Parents magazine and of Pregnancy magazine promoting woman centred birth. I watched women give birth in many different situations and I observed how much more rewarding and healthy the outcome was when the woman was in control and supported by those who respected her wishes and cared for her as human being. I kinda feel like we made no progress... depressing!

Parental leave - Australians need it now!

2009-03-04T16:43:00.000-08:00

When I became pregnant with my first child it was in the halycon days of the Whitlam government, I was a government employee - and the envy of all my pregnant friends. I had 8 months leave on 1/2 pay... 3 months maternity leave on half pay and 1 month's rec leave on half pay. It made all the difference to me as a new mum, to getting to know my baby and to my partner who was able to continue to grow his new business without worrying too much about the dollars.
In September 2008 the Rudd government's Productivity Commission announced its recommendations for paid parental leave. They recommended 18 weeks leave to mothers and 2 weeks to fathers at $544 a week. This money would be paid by the person's employer who would be reimbursed by the Government - employees would also be required to pay superannuation. The Baby Bonus of $384 per fortnight, currently goes to all mothers whose combined taxable income for the 6 months following the birth of their baby is $75,000. This would become a Maternity Allowance and would only be paid to unemployed women.
Australia and the United States are the only two OECD countries who do not pay parental leave. In Canada women receive 50 weeks leave, in the UK its 39 weeks, other European countries generously give 18 months - Sweden being one. Even poor African nations such as Tanzania give 14 weeks paid maternity leave.
Getup is currently running a campaign to push the Government into introducing parental leave as they promised. So if you feel strongly about now is your chance to sign up.
If you need to know more about parental leave and the benefits it has for everyone - including employers read Getup's fact sheet - it is excellent.

Nightmare parenting

2009-02-23T22:58:00.000-08:00

Where, oh where did the creators of this program get the idea for the program ‘Bringing Up Baby’ that is currently showing on ABC-TV? And why, oh why did they choose disciples of Truby King, Spock and Liedloff as their parenting models?

Over my 18 years as the editor of Australia’s first and highest circulating parenting magazine I was presented with dozens of theories – and I had plenty of time to sift through them – and consider them when bringing up my own three children.

Dr Frederick Truby King’s theories dominated parenting in the 1920s – at least 4 generations ago! King’s theories, like those of his contemporary John Watson, who is fortunately mostly forgotten, ignored the fact that babies are individuals. Both men were discredited in their lifetimes, and I believed that Truby King was firmly on the history shelves until I saw the program notes for this program.

I would be very surprised if any Australian parent knew of him or his theories before this program, unless they had been handed his manual by their grandmother. Truby King’s theories are based on forced feeding, ruthless treatment of crying, sleeping and caring and a total misunderstanding of mothering or parenting. He fiercely advocated rather than encouraged breastfeeding – but this had to be done four hourly – no more, no less! It was important to avoid over-feeding a baby at all costs.

A ‘good’ baby preferred his own company to that of his parents – or anyone else.

His background was the scientific rearing of animals and in the early 20th century came to the conclusion that if a scientific feeding system worked with animals then it would work with human babies. In 1907 the Plunket Society was formed in New Zealand to promote his methods.

Truby King’s ruthless approach led to a generation of hungry, underfed babies, thwarted in their need for affection and exhausted from crying and being ignored. Truby King was annoyed at mothers who were distressed by their baby’s non-acceptance of his methods and believed that a trained nurse, who could ignore the baby’s (real) needs was ideal. He also believed that in the ideal world men would produce milk and then there would be none of this emotional rubbish.

A book produced in 1938 created a huge stir in the baby-rearing worldIt is also worth noting that Truby King never took hold in the USA – the infant formula industry made sure of that!

Dr. Spock

First published in 1946, Dr Spock’s Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care has sold over 50 million copies – and is amongst the top best-selling books ever, it ranks with Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and Anne of Green Gables!!

One of the reasons Spock’s book was such a huge success when first published was because it opposed so much that Truby King stood for. Another reason is its brilliant index which enable carers to find the answers to their problems quickly! It featured two basic pieces of advice ‘ don’t worry this is normal’ and ‘if you don’t know ask your doctor’. It was easy for just about everyone to understand.

On sleep Spock advocated that a baby would take as much as sleep as he needed. He advocated breastfeeding from the first edition right up to the last edition in 1998 and he encouraged parents to seek the reasons for why their baby was crying – and offered solutions.

Jean Liedloff’s disciple is the third ‘expert’ chosen by the makers of ‘Bringing up Baby’. Liedloff was an anthropologist before she became a psychotherapist. She is not married and has no children and used to have an anteater as a pet! Liedloff is the opposite of Truby King. She tells parents that babies rule – they must be with their mother all the time until they struggle to get away. She is very evangelical in her tone and is said to be proud that her theories have brought mothers to tears!

So where is the happy medium in this trio. Spock could be said to be the closest, but he is hardly the guru for today’s busy parents who are desperately keen to the right thing by their baby – and themselves.

How could the producers of this program been so cruel as to even suggest that parents put themselves under the tutelage of a Truby King disciple. This disciple, Claire Verity, I have discovered on the internet, causes huge controversy in the UK and there is even a Facebook page called Parents Against Claire Verity.

I am horrified that the ABC would even consider running this program and I hope there is a huge outcry from parents and those who care about babies welfare that has it taken off the air.

If you want to see for yourself go the the ABC website and look for the program Bringing up Baby on ABC1 but be warned it’s gruelling stuff.

What is the point of a stroller cover?

2009-02-16T23:53:00.000-08:00

I hate stroller covers - especially when poor baby ise facing away from the person pushing!

Today I once again saw a poor little mite struggling with a muslin wrap that had been draped over the front of the stroller and was flapping in her face (I presume it was a girl she was wearing pink). Why? She was not making a noise but she was clearly annoyed by this piece of cloth - and wouldn't you be?
What is it with these drapes over the front of strollers? I don't like strollers that face the baby away from the pusher anyway. Going for a walk with baby is a wonderful opportunity for interaction with your child - unless he or she is asleep - and then it is an opportunity for you to enjoy the satisfaction of gazing at and pushing a sleeping baby! When baby faces you she can interact with you - but not if there is a great piece of cloth - or worse a huge black shadecloth cover clipped firmly between you and she. When baby faces the pusher she generally doesn't have the sun in her eyes - and if she does then she can wear a hat - and most strollers have a shade. Whatever happened to stroller parasols? These clip to the side of the stroller and can be moved to shade baby's face or body without blocking her away from the outside world.
I would like to see stroller shade cloths go right out of fashion! For the sake of the babies of Australia I would like to see pushers and babies enjoying each other's company. The only worse thing than a baby screaming behind a black shade cloth stroller cover is the pusher on the mobile phone at the same time! What an awful way to treat your little person who is so inquisitive about the world around her, who would love to be talked or sung to as she was pushed along - and who will learn so much about the world around her from her stroller if only her parents would let her.
I believe the use of these things amounts to sensory deprivation! and I think they should be banned.

Viral meningitis - and finding out health information

2009-02-02T19:33:00.000-08:00

I have just come back from the hospital visiting my second son who has been diagnosed with viral meningitis. He is an adult and how he came to contract this illness is unknown. Meningitis can affect anyone, any time. His main symptom was the worst headache he had ever had and fortunately his girlfriend took him to a city hospital - just round the corner from their flat. My son is nearly 30 and works in hospitality - he has contact with many hundreds of people a week so how he got this virus will never be known. It is believed that it is passed on via coughs and sneezes - respiratory secretions - and poor hygiene.
It is worth knowing that the symptoms are similar to the more deadly bacterial meningitis and include

headache,
nausea or vomiting,
fever,
general malaise,
neck stiffness,
an aversion to bright lights,
joint aches and pains,
muscle aches,
drowsiness or confusion,
and also may include a rash, sore throat, stomach pains and diarrhoea.

The symptoms may occur in any order and may not all be present at the same time or during the course of the illness.
Treatment is rest and treating the symptoms.
Viral meningitis is an uncommon complication of mumps, measles and chicken pox - childhood diseases that can be immunised against. You can find out about these immunisations on The Immunisation Infoline 800 671 811, or visit Immunise Australia.
In seeking information about meningitis I went to my favourite health website - Health Insite. This is a government site that sifts and provides trustworth information from health sites around the country. Well worth book marking. I also found the Meningitis Centre website for The Meningitis Centre. whose mission statment includes: "By making all parents aware of the symptoms and the need to immunise their children, we believe the present impact of meningitis on the nation can be dramatically reduced. This is a vision we share with our foundation partner, the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research."

Immunisation and whooping cough

2009-01-28T17:33:00.000-08:00

One of my regular yoga mates, a man in his 50s, has been absent for the last month because he has whooping cough (pertussis). It made me aware that whooping cough is always with us and this was reinforced by the ABC Health Online Bulletin I received last week which announced that about 13,000 cases of this potentially fatal illness in babies had been diagnosed in 2008!
When I was the editor of Australia's Parents magazine immunisation was an ongoing issue - there will always be those who can't accept the evidence in its favour - or those who simply don't want to know. There are no denying the facts. Whooping cough:

is highly infectious - coughing spreads it through droplets in the air
can become so bad it can stop the affected person from breathing - this leads to a sharp intake of air and the 'whoop' sound that gives the illness it's common name
is a killer - it can can kill babies because it causes such severe breathing problem
can lead to other severe complications including pneumonia and encephalitis, convulsions and brain damage
can be immunised against - it is part of multi-vaccine in the National Immunisation Program and most babies in Australia (95%) are immunised.

Margaret Throsby on ABC Classic FM interviewed Professor Robert Booy on Immunisation on Wednesday 28 January - find out more.

Parenting now

2009-01-14T19:56:00.000-08:00

I became concerned about the issues that parents face when I was pregnant with my first child in the1970s. A long time ago... maybe you are younger than my first child... but many of the issues that parents faced then, they face today. Of course there are new dilemmas but the isolation in which many parent, away from family and sometimes friends, the constant bombardment of information and advice, and the feelings of guilt that many battle with, are the same.
So this blog is about putting parenting into perspective. I hope it helps some.. and that you will comment, ask questions, criticise. I have a huge resource of parenting information and I am happy to pass on information if I can.