Tag Archives: NHS

Sep 30 2014

GIVEAWAY: Win 1 of 5 copies of Guilt-Free Bottle Feeding by Madeleine Morris & Dr Sasha Howard (CD: 31/10/2014)

Posted on by

Capture

I’ve written dozens of posts now about breastfeeding. Although I’d urge mum (that can!) to try and breastfeed, I know better than most that it isn’t easy. I lasted 6 weeks with both of my babies and I’m incredibly proud of myself for lasting that long.

With both children I was hit by crippling depression and anxiety. Although I believe every mother has the capacity to breastfeed, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best thing for her or her baby. My mental health really suffered as a result of breastfeeding and yet I put myself under incredible pressure to continue. Panic attacks ensued and I wound up being hospitalised several times. As a result I wasn’t the best mother I could be, and I didn’t enjoy those first precious weeks with Dexter or Heidi.

But Breast is Best… right?

Maybe not. Madeleine Morris and Dr Sasha Howard have now launched a myth-busting book that shows women they are not bad mothers if they can’t or don’t want to breastfeed; Guilt-Free Bottle Feeding - why your formula-fed baby can be happy, healthy and smart.

036

This isn’t an anti-breastfeeding book, it’s an anti-guilt book

Unfortunately, in the quest to promote breastfeeding, formula and mothers who formula-feed or mix-feed have become demonised… We have all come to believe that ‘good mothers breastfeed, bad mothers bottle feed’. This is not only simply wrong, this ill-founded belief is damaging mothers, and their relationships with their babies, in what should be one of the happiest times of their lives. Madeleine Morris

9781908281777
Half of all British babies will have a bottle of formula before they are a week old and their mothers feel guilty. They feel guilty because every single book, poster and midwife tells them that breastfeeding is the single most important thing they can do for their babies.
.
But for some families, breast isn’t best. Some mums don’t produce enough milk, some have post-natal depression, others are juggling two kids already, or need to go back to work, and some mums simply don’t like breastfeeding. Are they bad mothers? No! But they believe themselves to be.
.
Guilt-Free Bottle Feeding, written by award winning former BBC presenter Madeleine Morris and paediatrician Dr Sasha Howard resets the conversation around infant feeding, revealing how the benefits of breastfeeding have been oversold to British parents, and showing guilt-wracked new mothers they have not failed their babies by giving them formula.
.
With a thorough, yet easy-to-understand analysis of science, parenting sociology and the modern media, Guilt-Free Bottle Feeding provides a balanced, much- needed and long-overdue alternative view to the simplistic message that ‘breast is best’. This practical book proves that despite the huge pressure women feel to breastfeed, it possible to raise perfectly happy, healthy and smart bottle-fed and mixed-fed children.

Breast milk is wonderful stuff… but sometimes breastfeeding doesn’t work out, for a huge number of complex physical and social reasons. We need to show mums they are not failures for giving their babies a bottle. Dr Sasha Howard

Guilt-Free Bottle Feeding:
  • Examines over a hundred original medical journal articles to show the benefits of breastfeeding in the developed world are not as clear cut as women are told
  • Looks at emerging evidence that the immense pressure to breastfeed is now a contributing factor to post-natal depression
  • Shows how sloppy science reporting, ill-informed websites and celebrity culture unfairly demonise bottle feeding, leaving mothers feeling like failures
  • Points out the double standards of a medical system which relentlessly pressures mothers to breastfeed, but doesn’t provide them with the support they need
  • Calls for an individually tailored ‘feeding plan’, to give mothers a realistic feeding goal rather than the blanket 6-month exclusive breastfeeding target, which 98% of UK mums fail to meet
  • Calls for a mother’s physical and mental needs to be valued in the feeding relationship
  • Reveals the ‘X-Factor’ of breastfeeding research, and why we may never know the differences between breastfed and formula-fed babies
  • Gives a large, detailed guide to choosing a formula, safe bottle preparation and how to bottle feed for maximum health and bonding – information which is shamefully lacking in the NHS.
Told with humour and personal experience yet grounded in years of fastidious research, Guilt-Free Bottle Feeding is a much needed real-world counterpoint to the almost religious promotion of breastfeeding which now dominates medical and parenting discourse.
.
As mothers who both breast- and bottle-fed their babies (they met at their NCT class), and decorated professionals in their fields of journalism and paediatrics, Madeleine Morris and Dr Sasha Howard are uniquely placed to provide evidence-based reassurance to mothers they are not failures if they don’t exclusively breastfeed.
.
Guilt-Free Bottle Feeding: Why your formula-fed baby can be happy, healthy and smart By Madeleine Morris & Dr Sasha Howard is available on Amazon for £7.59 (ISBN: 9781908281777), or in e-book format for £6.99 (ISBN: 9781908281784)
.

*** GIVEAWAY ***

I haven’t read this book yet, but a copy is on its way to me. As someone who staunchly believes that breast isn’t always best and advocates pro-choice when it come to feeding your baby, I’m all for it.

If you’re currently bottlefeeding, pregnant, or just interested in the findings, you can win 1 of 5 copies right here. Just enter via the rafflecopter below.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

T&C’s – a.k.a – the boring bit!
    • Only 1 option is mandatory (leave me a comment) – the rest only improve your chances of winning so just complete as many as you feel like
    • UK entrants only – you must be over 18 too (sorry)
    • The winners will be contacted by email and must respond within 1 week of having been emailed (I’ll try all known avenues to contact them) or a new winner will be drawn
    • When the giveaway is closed, Rafflecopter will select the winner completely at random
    • The winners name will be published on this site

Win competitions at ThePrizeFinder.com

Jul 11 2014

Postnatal anxiety attacks

Posted on by

index

Try as I might to take this blog in a serious direction for once, I probably won’t manage it. As I sit down to write this post I have every intention of sharing my experience of post-natal depression, and the debilitating panic attacks I’ve had since having Heidi. However, since this is such a departure from my usual care-free style, I suspect that I’ll wind up making a hash of it!

The truth is, I’ve given people reason to think I’m the biggest hypochondriac on the planet. Not a week goes by where we’re not beset by some disaster or another, or one of the family falls ill. I’m the sort of person who can make a headache sound like a tumor and I’m fully aware of this. But these panic attacks are in a league of their own and have really knocked me.

I’ve always been a bit of a happy loner. I love socialising, but only with people I know. Despite this, I’ve had customer-facing jobs and am a confident public speaker. Some might see this as a contradiction, I can only agree, but this is exactly how I’ve lived my life so far - all 30+ years of it. I’m at my happiest with Craig, Dexter and Heidi, but unfortunately this has a propensity to make me ill.

The whole saga started in 2012 when the midwife handed me Dexter. A bit of agoraphobia kicked in and I hated the faff of taking him out and about. The baby blues just didn’t seem to go away, and I wasn’t able to recover any of the energy I had before I was a mummy. Despite being treated for PND and feeling better emotionally, a little anxiety has stayed with me ever since. Until now this hadn’t manifested itself physically, I just tended to over think things and turn minor things into a drama.

Dexter

The PND came back (as I’m told is often the case) when Heidi was born. This time however I was quick to nip to the doctors and get myself medicated. As was the case with Dexter, the medication has made the world of difference. I now feel happy, confident and more capable with the kiddies. I’m no longer wallowing around the house and tearing up at the prospect of a entire day alone with the two of them. I now enjoy every second with them both and things are exactly as they should be.

So when the panic attacks started 6 weeks ago, I didn’t have a clue what was wrong with me. In fact, I’ve only just accepted anxiety as a diagnosis.

My first ever attack happened in bed with Craig. One minute we were talking about the kids, and they next I was in agony. It felt like I had trapped wind in my chest, yet within seconds I was struggling to breathe and writhing around in bed. I was sweating, my back was aching, and every movement hurt. I kept begging Craig not to let me die as it felt as though I was having a heart attack. After 2 minutes pacing around the bedroom and clutching at Craig in desperation, he called for an ambulance.

Whilst waiting for them to turn up, I was sick. The sense of relief was instantaneous and I felt like an idiot. Despite me trying to reassure the ambulance crew I was okay, they weren’t prepared to take my word for it and gave me oxygen, and an ECG in my living room. To rule out a blood clot and run more tests they took me into hospital. Shortly later my blood results and a chest x-ray suggested I was all-clear and I was sent packing.

index

Believing this to be a one-off, I didn’t give it much thought until it returned 5 days later. Once again, I couldn’t catch my breath, my heart was racing, and I was sweating. Thinking it was a digestive problem, I made myself sick in the hope it would pass over again. But this time it didn’t work, and 10 minutes later we were back on the phone to the emergency services. But, once again, by the time they reached the house, it had abated.4

We had a long chat with the ambulance crew and they urged me to visit my doctor. They thought it could be a damaged esophagus from my c-section or even severe acid reflux. So I duly did as requested and was prescribed Omeprazole which is supposed to reduce the amount of acid in my stomach.

But the attacks have continued.

I’ve had so many now that they’ve become second nature. They seem to be completely random; occurring at any time of the day, and lasting anywhere between 15 minutes and an hour. Having now ruled out a digestive problem, I have little choice but to accept they’re postnatal anxiety attacks despite my feeling better than ever. My doctor is keen for me to try talking therapies but I’ve flat-out refused as I already know this won’t work for me. The next step is CBT which I’m just as dubious about but seems to offer a few practical tips for dealing with them when they arise.

So I thought I’d write this post to raise awareness of the problem, and advance the idea that might be a link between PND and anxiety attacks. There seems to real lack of information about it, despite anxiety among new mothers being rife in forums. The physical attacks however seem to be an under-investigated phenomenon.

I’ll let you all know how the CBT goes so you can consider it yourself if you’re in the same boat. Until then, I wondered, have any of you experienced panic attacks after giving birth? If so, I’d be really interested to hear your story.

 

Jul 10 2014

First Immunisations

Posted on by

063

So Heidi had her first set of immunisations this week. We were a little late to take her due to a minor scheduling error by yours truly, but it’s never been in doubt that Heidi will have every jab in the recommended NHS vaccination program.

So on Monday, I dressed her in the most impractical outfit imaginable (I’m talking tights and leggings) and off we went to the doctors. There she had the 5-in-1 (DTaP/IPV/Hib), PCV and Rotavirus vaccines - a delightful little cocktail that appears to have traumatised her ever since.

The two jabs and oral dose of Rotarix is to help protect Heidi from a plethora of scary sounding diseases that most people would be forgiven for thinking had all but died out in the Victorian times… diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio and Haemophilus influenzae type b (a bacterial infection that can cause severe pneumonia or meningitis). Given I have only a limited understanding of what these diseases are (and no desire to research them) I’d rather just book the appointment, turn up and deal with the inevitable fall-out.

Dexter took his first immunisations really well. He did the usual 20 second scream as metal met skin, but that evening he was his usual miserable self; no worse, no better. Call it a sixth sense, but I sensed things might be a little more tricky with Heidi. For a few weeks now she’s been too calm, too happy and too easy. I knew she couldn’t stay chilled-out forever and immunisations would give her a perfect excuse to exercise her lungs again.

I was right.

She had a quick GP check-up before seeing the evil nurse. In an over air-conditioned room, the doctor stripped her, poked her and flexed her limbs in ways that would make any parent wince, and yet Heidi flirted outrageously with him. She offered up tons of smiles and had the doctor wrapped around her little finger. His voice went up several octaves and he dribbled out all the usual much-ridiculed stream of baby-talk that has us all secretly cringing. We almost allowed ourselves to believe that Heidi would shrug off her impending appointment in the treatment room in the same way.

But she was lulling us into a false sense of security.

The nurse started with the oral Rotavirus vaccine. This is because babies are usually too pissed off by the jabs to sit still for the oral vaccine. As the nurse put the dropper to her lips, Heidi raised her eyebrows in disdain. Although she only had to swallow 1.5mls of clear liquid, it seems my daughter has inherited her mums obstinateness and we watched her spit out the lot when the nurse turned her back to prepare the vaccinations. I was too proud of her amused by it to speak up so kept quiet.

So, onto the main event.

The wide eyes and the lip wobbling began when the nurse started to tell Craig and I every single possible side effect of the vaccinations with the syringes primed in her hands. It was as though Heidi was following what the nurse was saying, or maybe she was just transfixed by needles the size of her entire leg in the nurse’s clutches. Even before the nurse delivered the injections Heidi was in full meltdown mode, complete with her first ever real tears and that awful breath-holding thing that stilts babies cries.

Any smidgen of comedy derived from the situation was shortlived. Just an hour later, there were no smiles on anybody’s faces in the Mill’s household. Heidi was hysterical and inconsolable. We pulled out all the big guns and hours worth of rocking, face-stroking and “I know’s” ensued. She didn’t recover from the experience that night, she just screamed herself to sleep.

It’s now Thursday and she’s only just showing signs of feeling better. If I didn’t know any better, Heidi appears to be holding a grudge that we’d allowed such an ordeal to have taken place. Her temperature only flares when she’s treating us to hysterics so I suspect these occasions are brought on by her tantrums rather than anything more sinister - but we’ve still offered her her first tastes of Calpol over the last few days.

***

Oh Heidi-Bum - I am not looking forward to round 2. I feel like I’ve had a taster of what things might look like in 13 years time when you discover boys and make-up, and encounter just how immovable mummy and daddy might have to be.

I hate having to put you through all this, and I know you might think mummy and daddy have let you down, but it sure beats the hell out of having your limbs fall off, or getting a innocent looking rash that could land you in hospital, or worse.

Always and forever, any pain you experience is also experienced by mummy and daddy. That will never change, and will still be the case when you read this very post in ten years time. This is the first time I’ve ever seen you cry, and it won’t be the last - just know that every painful, sad or unjust event you have to go through is always for the greater good. Had you not gone through the bad times you have so far, things could have been much uglier.

For now, just give us your smiles back, and maybe a few early nights. When it all kicks off again in 4 weeks time, mummy will be right there with you to hold your hand.

Love you baby girl,

Mummy xxx

 

 

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...