Trigger Warning: Anxiety¦ If you’ve been with me from the start of my blog and parenting journey, you’ll remember the trauma we went through at the beginning. Our 4 year old daughter had a huge ovarian cyst which sparked sepsis or a similar response. We ended up with her in PICU in St. George’s Hospital, London, where she required open surgery at only 5 weeks old. I was also severely anaemic after losing too much blood at birth and the combination of these had a big impact on my mental health. So much so, that it was years until I felt able to have another child. However, it has still continued to effect me in ways that have surprised me with my newborn son.
Parenting
Pregnancy in a pandemic
Trigger Warning: Miscarriage
My 7 week old son was conceived in early April last year, only a week or two into the first UK lockdown. It was still the very early days of the pandemic. I did have my concerns about having a baby due to what was happening with coronavirus. However, after a couple of months of lockdown things seemed to be much improved in Wuhan, so I assumed that by the time I gave birth things would be a lot better. I was so wrong! Pregnancy is tough at any time, but even more so during a pandemic, as I found out.
Keeping Your Kids Healthy Is Easier Than You Realize
Collaborative Post¦ Are you interested in helping your kids and ensuring that they stay healthy? If so, then there’s a lot to consider Every day it seems there’s a new story in the media about problems that are impacting the health of children. However, it could still be easier than you think to protect your child’s wellbeing. Here are some of the key options that you must keep in mind.
Baby #2: My hypnobirth pandemic birth story
Trigger Warning: This is a positive birth story. However, as a birth story it is fairly graphic at times.
As my due date approached, I was getting more and more restless. It probably didn’t help that only 5 days before my due date, my birth plans had to change. The South East Coast Ambulance Service was struggling due to the new Coronavirus strain in Kent and Medway and were waiting up to 10 hours outside hospitals with patients. As such, I couldn’t have the home birth I had planned as they would be unable to assist the midwives should an emergency happen. After an afternoon of crying, I brought things back into my control. I focused on the things I could have and do at Darent Valley Hospital, where I’d had a waterbirth with my daughter.
Part of my restlessness was because I find it really difficult not knowing when I’m going to go into labour, as I like to be prepared for things! Not only that, but I was so uncomfortable. Walking was incredibly painful and rolling over in bed was agony thanks to my pelvic girdle pain. However, I knew it would all be worth it when I got to meet my little boy. On the evening of 5th January, his due date, labour finally began!
The Autism Journey Doesn’t Have To Be As Difficult
Collaborative Post¦ Parenting is a difficult task – the daily demands of the children, giving up the personal needs, the existential anxieties Parental coping with an autistic child and the endless giving, all of these require a lot of mental resources. When one of the children is autistic, parenting becomes several times more challenging. Parents of autistic children are required to deal with many aspects of developmental delay, which gives its first signs as early as infancy. At this age, initial symptoms of recurrence, communication difficulties, and sensorimotor impairment appear, i.e., hypersensitivity or hypersensitivity of the senses. An autistic child may perform dangerous activities such as contact with fire or a sharp object, without identifying the source of the pain. He will have more difficulty than a normal child in expressing his distress and pointing out the cause of the distress, because of the difficulty in verbal and non-verbal communication, which can lead to tantrums and even sometimes, violence. Kindergarten autistic children tend to congregate within themselves and repeat certain activities, for example clinging to a particular game, or to a stimulus like touch or sound. It is not easy to entice these children to play with new toys or even to lay down a beloved object. At school age, additional difficulties appear, including social difficulties and difficulty in developing and using the language.