February 5, 2012
Filed under: New Born — Alan @ 10:33 am
Many parents often wash newborn babies too much as generally they do not get anywhere near dirty as an adult or older child, and therefore do not need to bath so often. However, it is very important that you do wash your baby regularly enough.
One of the most popular ways to wash a newborn baby is in a special baby bath tub. This is something that is much smaller than adult bath and it will allow you to bathe your baby in any room. This can be particularly useful if your bathroom is quite cold and you don’t want to take your baby into it.
One concern that parents have about buying a baby bath is that their child will soon outgrow it but there is a market for these items second-hand so once you are finished with it it is possible to sell it on.
Another popular option for washing a baby is using a bucket bath. This is an upright shaped bucket that your baby will sit in and the water will come up to the shoulders. An advantage of this type is that it takes up less space and requires less hot water but they can generally only be used for babies who are up to 6-month-old, so again parents might be concerned about the expense.
Once your baby is a few months older, support seats for use in an adult bath can be a good option. These can make using the adult bath easier and safer for your baby and they can also be easily transported if you are going somewhere else.
Of course, the most traditional way of washing your baby is in a sink, but this runs the risk that your baby could hurt their head on the side of the sink or that the water being run onto them might vary in temperature suddenly.
December 1, 2011
Filed under: New Born — Alan @ 7:19 am
A recent study of over 3000 mothers has shown that they have less sex after having given birth. Around 40% of those who answered the study said that they felt that their partners found them less attractive since they had had a baby. The survey also showed that around a third of women said that since having a child their partners viewed them as a mother, rather than a sexual partner.
The survey showed that nearly 80% of mothers have less sexual intercourse after the birth of a child and 20% said that since giving birth they were no longer seen as sexual by their partners. This leads to mothers having the additional problem that because of the change in a relationship they see themselves as a different person to who they were before.
Since giving birth nearly half of the mothers said that they have lost touch with fashions and trends and many have said this is because their bodies have been affected by giving birth and they feel less attractive.
The women surveyed said that is not just their sexual partners that make them feel less attractive and more like a mother. Nearly 90% of those surveyed said that since they have become a mother they are treated differently by those closest to them.
Siobhan Freegard is the founder of the website netmums and has recently said, “Being a mother is part of being a woman and while having children is certainly a life changing experience it isn’t something that should cause women to lose their sexuality. There is no reason that mothers should stop spending time on their appearance and interests just because they have had a baby. Mothers should find time for themselves even though they might have less time available.”
September 15, 2011
Filed under: New Born — admin @ 3:49 pm
Le Mystère is bringing Sexy Back to Motherhood with the launch of the SEXY MAMA collection
Never before has nursing been so in fashion! With the offering of two gorgeous styles, the Sexy Mama provides great coverage while growing and contracting during the process of nursing. Style #163 (black pictured) is the wire version with easy one hand clip and pull down construction. The foam pad conceals nursing pads and the 4 rows of hook and eyes enables you to lose the post pregnancy pounds without having to purchase a new bra!
Style #263 (white pictured) is for the woman who prefers a wire free support with a soft feminine style. The #263 can be worn throughout the night to give added support and is designed to provide ultimate comfort and versatility to the nursing mother. Sizes for the Sexy Mama collection range from 32D – 40H.
Website: www.lemystere.com
July 7, 2011
Filed under: New Born — Alan @ 10:38 am
One of the most life changing and happiest times of a woman’s life and definitely a life changing time is entering motherhood, even though it can also be challenging and quite stressful to say the least.
While many mums will feel anxious about the uncertainties and challenges that lie in front of them, constant worry or times of anxiety can have their detrimental effects and could greatly hurt the relationship between mum and her new baby.
Postpartum depression or severe baby blues (PPD) according to studies affects over 13% of mothers. This is caused by a large decrease in the amount of progesterone, estrogen and thyroid hormones that follow a child’s birth. Recognizing what the symptoms are and learning to understand the steps to overcome the depression can allow you to start to make that close-knit relationship with your newborn.
Those that suffer PPD often feel a loss of a connection or bond with their new baby. Have the thoughts ever occurred to you to hurt your baby or yourself? Are there suicidal thoughts and the feeling of increased loneliness and isolation? If the answer was yes to the questions you could be suffering from postpartum depression.
Some of the symptoms of the possible onset of postpartum depression include difficulty sleeping, loss of appetite, recurrent sadness, lost of interest in life, hopelessness, fatigue, guilt and frustration. These may develop at times into something even more serious with sufferers often finding themselves paranoid or frantic over even little things.
Always remember first and foremost that you are not alone. If you realize this suffering of severe baby blues you can start getting better by taking the necessary steps to combat the condition. Leaving it untreated with the hope it will just go away or get better will not help and will get worse before it gets better.
Your family, friends and spouse are always worried about your well being, do not be ashamed to seek support or confide in your loved ones, most of all the baby’s father. Tell him the problems you feel and let him play the major role in helping to combat and beat your depression.
To help cope there are a number of support groups, resources and services at your disposal. Look for a group that meets and its members are postpartum depression sufferers that way you will be with people that know what you are going through and can offer their help, opinions and ideas. At times it may feel difficult to share your thoughts with people that are strangers, but remember they have suffered or are suffering just what you are. Use the help of a group that has the same common goal in order to help get you through the emotional roller coaster of postpartum depression.
April 29, 2011
Filed under: New Born — Alan @ 2:08 am
If there newborn does not have the typical smooth, soft skin it is natural that the parents would be alarmed. But there should not be anything to be alarmed about. It is quite common that babies get various rashes.
A bunch of small red bumps and whiteheads that develop on the face characterizes baby acne and it can also appear on both the back and neck. If there are also scaling on the face then have your pediatrician exam the baby to determine it is not eczema.
Acne in babies is quite commonly transferred from the mother’s hormones and passed in the placenta while pregnant but will not appear until about 3 to 4 weeks afterwards. Hormones trigger the glands that produce the baby’s oil that leads to the acne being developed.
Certain medications can also cause the baby to break out with acne. This condition can worsen over a period of a few weeks if it comes in contact with saliva or milk. Also, when there is an increased blood flow usually caused when a baby cries, can also cause irritation to the skin.
The treatment of baby acne is quite simple. Just using a bit of water or a mild baby soap gently wash the babies face once a day will help tremendously. The condition is not caused by dirt so scrubbing will not help it will only cause the irritation to get worse. Cleaning the babies face with towels may not be a good idea since they may have been washed in a very strong detergent.
By washing with warm water it will help to open the pores of the skin and help to clear out oil and sweat that also are contributors to the acne. Oils and lotions are not good due to the grease and could work negatively towards the condition. At that time the pediatrician will most likely prescribe a mild medicine. But once the acne does clear up and go away it will not be back until the baby has become a teenager.
February 19, 2011
Filed under: New Born — Alan @ 6:21 am
If your baby is having problems sleeping, then chances are that you are too and that cannot be good for either of you. The most important thing to remember in a baby’s early stages of development is that your baby has come from a very specific environment, that of the womb, therefore, in order to keep your baby happy, you should aim to replicate the environment of the womb as much as possible.
It should not surprise you to know, then, that your baby may need noise to sleep and not peace and quiet. It’s not so strange as it sounds. You would think that the womb is a quiet place to be, but you would be wrong. The womb contains plenty of fluid and fluid is a great carrier of sound. Think about it, when you’re under water, you can hear plenty of sound, you may not be able to make out exactly what the sounds are, but you can certainly hear them.
Recreating the right kinds of noises will help your baby to sleep. Think of that time spent under water, think of noises that you cannot make out, in short, white noise. Your vacuum cleaner is a good example. It might even be worth changing your cleaning route to do the vacuuming at the time your baby is settling down to sleep. Fans are also a good idea. Not only will they keep your baby cool but the noise they make is also the right kind of noise. You can also get CDs that play white noise.
Whichever method you choose, the volume level should be about that of the average vacuum cleaner, that is, loud enough to drown out any extraneous noises. You could even try and drown out the noise from a neighbour’s party, but the muffled noise from the party may actually help.
November 23, 2010
Filed under: New Born — Alan @ 10:57 pm
The Apgar score is a point system, which can be standardized to assess the clinical condition of newborns. Using this score, it manages to describe the adjustment to life outside the womb and the release of the foetal to the neonatal condition. Next result is the effect of resuscitation measures. The score was first introduced in 1952 by the American anaesthesiologist Virginia Apgar and was named after her.
Many babies died from undiagnosed prenatal damage that worsened after birth, but also as a result of defects or injuries during the birth process, such as cerebral haemorrhage, oxygen deficiency, or a combination of such damages.
Prior to the universality of the Apgar scores, one newborn was wrapped in a blanket and studied later in the nursery. Respiratory and circulatory problems that could easily be treated if they had been detected immediately after birth, often lead to many complications with lifelong consequences or even death of the child.
Virginia Apgar wrote in her book “Is My Baby All Right?” “The birth is the most dangerous period of life. It is urgent to assess the health status of newborns and quickly diagnose symptoms occurring immediately to take appropriate action.”
Implementation
The Apgar score has five components:
Heart rate
Respiratory effort
Reflex irritability;
Muscle tone;
Skin colour.
The determination is now 1, 5 and 10 minutes after birth. For the characters there are each 0 points (features missing), 1 point (features not developed) or 2 points (features existent) and this is entered in the study protocol, the maximum achievable score being 10. “Mature” babies, i.e. after 37 weeks of gestation, have no abnormalities and have adapted well, and remain on the maternity ward with their mother.
Criterion 0 points 1 point 2 points
Heart rate over 100/min with no heartbeat
No irregular respiratory drive, child cries
No strong reflections grimacing screaming
Limp muscle tone, slight flexion of the limb, active movement of the extremities
Blue in colour, pale pink trunk, extremities blue, whole body rosy
The optimal score for newborns are 90 – 10 points. With scores between 5 – 8 the newborn is considered impaired.
The Apgar score describes the physiological and path physiological condition of the newborn within a limited period of time. It also includes subjective components. The score can be affected by drugs, infections, birth trauma, congenital abnormalities and other factors.
The maturity of the child also affects the Apgar score. Premature babies can not sufficiently assess the score, with features such as breathing, muscle tone and reflexes which are dependent on gestational age.
Thus a healthy preterm infant without signs of asphyxia may be able to get a low Apgar score, because it is immature. The frequency of low Apgar scores is inversely proportional to birth weight.
The score alone is not enough also to make the diagnosis of asphyxia. A low Apgar score therefore allows no prediction regarding morbidity and mortality. There is a clear difference between an Apgar score, which is charged during resuscitation, and a score in a spontaneously breathing newborn, because the components of the score will be influenced largely by the resuscitation.
September 26, 2010
Filed under: New Born — Alan @ 4:28 am
The survival rate is the percentage of babies who live a certain length of time after a disease is diagnosed. This term is used in most cases in diseases that have a poor prognosis by causing high mortality in a given period, such as cancer. The survival rates of five years are used to establish a conventional wisdom to establish the prognosis.
The survival rate can be of two types:
Relative survival rate or specific to five years of statistical calculations exclude patients who have died from other diseases and is considered a more accurate way to describe the prognosis of baby’s with particular types and stages of cancer (although death from other causes does not mean that in that period they could not have died of this disease in particular).
Rate or actuarial overall survival at five years: Refers to the percentage of children alive after five years.
The inverse of the survival rate is the rate of mortality. Because 5-year rates are based on patients being diagnosed and initially treated more than five years ago, it is probably no longer correct today. Improvements in treatment often result in a more favorable prognosis for newly diagnosed patients. Terms related to survival rate, although they are not synonyms are:
Median survival
Survival time
Survival function
August 25, 2010
Filed under: Baby health,New Born,Premature babies — admin @ 8:59 pm
As part of the First Cut strand, showcasing, bold, bright and original documentaries by up-and-coming film-makers, Lucy Morgan directs The Incubator a film that sensitively considers the story of children born too early to survive outside an incubator. For the 50,000 children who are born prematurely each year, the incubator provides them with a chance of survival. With unique access to a neonatal intensive care ward, this film follows the journey of four different families. In a world of high emotions The Incubator shares personal family moments as parents hold their babies for the first time, see their children through life saving surgery and, after many months of sitting beside an incubator, get to take their children home.
The Incubator is being shown on Friday 24th August at 7.30pm on Channel 4. More information available here – http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-incubator/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1.
June 3, 2010
Filed under: New Born — Alan @ 11:21 am
When Richard Roden found out that he would be the oldest father of twins in 2009 at the age of 72, he and his wife started to discuss the possibility of more children. This week it was revealed that their wish was granted quickly with Lisa Roden already two months pregnant within very little time.
The incoming child will be the 13th child for Richard who has been married three times before and her third. Similar to the twins, the child was conceived without any fertility treatments.
Richard stated that he is overjoyed at the news and while it is a bit more tiring to be a father at 72 versus in his twenties he is pleased at the idea. He was 71 when his twins were born in 2009, making them 50 years younger than his first child.
Often, Richard says that he is confused for the children’s grandfather while he is out in public with the twins and also is hassled with shouts of ‘cradle snatcher’ while out with his 26 year old wife.
The couple met at an adult education college in 2005 and became lovers one short year later marrying in September of 2009.
Lisa said she was surprised by how quickly the pregnancy occurred and that there will be three babies in the home under the age of three once the new baby is born but that Richard and her are soul mates and the age gap does not matter.
She added that he is great with the twins and she expects that he will be just as excellent when her next child arrives. Lisa has one child from a previous child also age 8.
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Many parents often wash newborn babies too much as generally they do not get anywhere near dirty as an adult or older child, and therefore do not need to bath so often. However, it is very important that you do wash your baby regularly enough.
