Stressful time in a child’s life

I had a stressful childhood, but nothing happened to me that would disrupt my growth that was from the list.  The only person that I was able to get any information from that had something impact them was my husband.  Without going through very many explicit details, he was molested when he was six years old by a babysitter.  He walked in on her masturbating with a pickle.  She then wanted him to eat it in front of her.  She told him not to say anything about it to anyone.  He didn’t eat the pickle, he just ran and hid someplace.  He really wasn’t sure what had happened at age six.  He didn’t talk about it until he randomly told me a little bit about it when he and I were dating.  He has since opened up about with his mother and me talking a little bit more about what had happened.  

The area that I looked into was Germany and what they are doing to counteract child abuse.  Annually there are 14,000 cases of abuse recorded but the number is significantly higher than that.  There have been no laws made to help the victims of childhood sexual abuse and many of the victims that had come forward when the call had gone out, the abuse that happened to them was decades old.  There isn’t even funding available to help with therapy for the victims.  While no laws have been put in place there is something that is being done to help.  A theater project was opened up to teach the children what was right and wrong.  There was a law focusing on prevention and intervention went into effect in 2012.  Guidelines have been issued but they aren’t laws.  

 

Reference:

Scholz, K. A. (2013).  Little progress on tackling German child abuse.  DW.  Retrieved from http://www.dw.de/little-progress-on-tackling-german-child-abuse/a-16615798.

 

 

Why SIDS prevention is so important

As I was looking through all of the health topics that we have covered in the reading for this week, the one that stood out the most to me was the one on SIDS.  I realized that this one hit incredibly close to home for me as it impacted an uncle of mine and still impacts him to this day.  My uncle Bob (everyone has an uncle Bob, right) has never been able to get over the death of his little girl Ashley.  I remember seeing her when she was a months old laying on her back on the couch at my house asleep.  My dad videotaped her sleeping.  She was so cute.  Anyway, my uncle’s first wife had a drug problem.  I don’t know if this was one of the factors that led up to Ashley dying of SIDS or not, but she died when she was six months old.  I read about it in the news paper when I was in third grade.  Everyone blamed the mother for her death.  I don’t know if she contributed to the problem or not but to this day my uncle still has a hard time with her death.  Just before it happened, my uncle had gone to basic training in Georgia.  He was home a week before his daughter passed away.  My uncle and his family, as well as my family and I were living in Fallon, NV when all of this transpired.  

I was looking up information regarding SIDS and the factors that can impact it.  One article in particular stood out to me.  It was on a study that was done in the Netherlands regarding postnatal smoking and if this is a factor for SIDS.  The article written by Liebrechts-Akkerman, Lao, & Kayser (2011) they explain that an infant that slept on its tummy (prone position) was “the most significant risk factor for SIDS” according to their study.  They also found that postnatal smoking was a major risk factor (pp. 1284-85).  They had looked at whether it was more of an impact when the mother or the father smoked postnatal.  This completely surprised me because when I was looking things up, I actually had no intention initially of looking at the Netherlands.  I had wanted to do Germany but sometimes when you are doing research, it ends up taking you in a direction that you really didn’t mean to go.  Sometimes the path you take ends up giving you more information.   Liebrechts-Akkerman, Lao, & Kayser (2011) concluded that prone sleeping, positioning an infant in a position where they will end up in a prone sleeping position, and postnatal smoking from the father are all risk factors for SIDS in the Netherlands.  

Reference:

Liebrechts-Akkerman, G., Lao, O., & Kayser, M. (2011, October).  Postnatal parental smoking: an important risk factor for SIDS.  European Journal of Pediatrics, 170(10), 1281-1291.  

 

Musings on childbirth

As I look back at my life I am reminded of the only birth that I would personally know something about: my own.  While I have been told about it on occasion in the past, not all of the details will need to be shared as I can’t remember every detail.  I will just try and hit the highlights.  

Personal Birth

In the early hours of June 17, 1983 (somewhere between 4-6 am would be my guess) my mother went into the hospital where she was induced into labor.  After 8 hours of hard labor, her blood pressure dropped and I still wasn’t coming out so they had to do an emergency C-section.  After I was born I had such small features and the almond eyes there was a fear that I would be a downs baby.  I was pricked on the bottom of my feet and my chromosome number was checked.  When my grandmother saw the bottom of my feet she knew I was going to be ok.  It turns out my chromosome count was normal as well.  The reason that I mentioned the feet was, as I have learned, is that a child born with Down Syndrome does not have lines on the bottoms of their feet or on their hands.  My grandmother had seen the lines on the bottom of my feet.  Also I was born with a heart murmur (Pulmonary Stenosis)*.  When I was doing research on my condition when I was in College, I saw a picture of a little girl that had the same heart condition that I do and she also had Downs.  I am wondering if there is a connection with the two.  As I have grown up, I have had to deal with my heart problem my whole life.  I almost had open heart surgery at the age of 5 years old.

Birth elsewhere

I looked at the area of Germany to see how the birthing process is concerned there.  In Germany, you can choose to give birth in a hospital, birthing center, or at home with the help of a doctor or a midwife.  To German women, the act of having a baby is more important than the actual birth itself.  If a mother has a C-section it can be viewed as a failure, even for a healthy child (which was interesting to learn).  In this country you can pretty much name your child what ever you want, including naming a boy sue** if you really have a sadistic sense of humor.  In Germany, there is an approved list of names available for the family’s use.  If, for some reason, the parents want to name the child something from the approved list that is a little different, they have to give a very compelling reason why they have chosen that name.  In the hospital or birthing center in Germany, you can choose to give birth in water, in bed or on a birthing stool.  As far as I know, in the US you can give birth in water if you choose to do a home birth, not really sure about the hospital, though. 

*Pulmonary Stenosis is where the pulmonary artery going from the heart to the lungs gets a kink in it and it makes blood flow a lot harder for it to get to its destination.  The problem can be anywhere from mild to severe, but the good thing is that it is treatable.  

**I was referencing a song from Johnny Cash, “A Boy Named Sue”.  I just couldn’t help myself.