Health and medical information

When to see your doctor

Many parents will want to see the doctor early on when their baby begins to get restless and grizzly. The doctor will perform a careful physical and neurological examination to rule out any medical causes, and may also be able to offer practical advice to the parents. If the strategies above fail to improve the symptoms, if the baby develops any other problems, if you are afraid you might hurt your baby, or if you are worried for any other reason, see your doctor.

Prevention

Because ‘colic’ seems to be a maturational phase that most babies go through, it is difficult to prevent. Parents can minimise the amount of stress and tension in the home by preparing themselves for the arrival of their baby, and by having realistic expectations of what a newborn baby means in terms of workload and changes to lifestyle.

*105\90\8*

OUR MARITAL HEALTH/SEX AND PROBLEMS OF DAILY LIVING: THE IDEAS TO CONFRONT THE PROBLEM OF PARENTING PARENTS

The couples used the following ideas to confront the problem of parenting parents:

1. The only approach to resolving the multigenerational family is a systems approach. One sibling cannot do the job. Even in the case of an only child, some type of support system is needed. Nobody can do double-duty daddy-ing or multiple mothering for long.

2. The marriage must deal with the parenting-parents issue. If one spouse takes on the responsibility, then the other will end up in resentment or isolation. Talk the issue over and approach it together. The argument that “Well, it’s your mother or it’s your father” never works. Marriage changes the whole deal. Both spouses owe caring to both sets of parents to a degree of balance that both spouses can agree upon. A key point I have stressed throughout this book is that sexual health, all health, depends on our understanding our lives as inseparable, holistic systems, and the system includes everyone everywhere.

3. Remember that your children can help by “childing” your parents. Get them involved through chores such as driving, calling, visiting, and supporting as their own development needs will allow. Teaching your children to love yîur parents and t0 act on that love is an important sex- and love-6 “^n lesson -

4- You cannot provide total health and financial care for your parents and still raise and develop your own family. Unless you are very well off financially, you will have to spend time planning with someone who knows the laws, insurance, Social Security, legal rights of the aged, and related issues. Time spa” in such planning is as much a part of showing love for your parent as actually providing direct help yourself. It has been said that anyone who has Plough money is not taking good care of his or her family, and parenting parents illustrates the validity of that statement.

5. Finally (here is no amount of caring or helping or loving that will ever prevent you from feeling you could have done more. All children feel some guilt when they lose a parent. It is a natural part of grieving. Don’t work yourself and your marriage to the bone trying to do everything humanly P^ble so that you will have “a clean conscience.” If you love your parent or parents, do what you can do for them and with them, and then invest your love and energy in your own marriage and family. You have given your parents the greatest gift of all, the gift of passing on the love they gave you.

Clarence Darrow wrote, “The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.” In our present society, life is no longer so divided, and parenting parents is a major challenge of living today. Bette Davis reminded us, “If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.” Remember that the reverse of her statement is equally true.

*215\97\8*

Few of us really know much about the sex life of our parents, but we all have formed an opinion, a “sex theory” about it. Even if we find it impossible to believe that our parents are sexual now, we know they have been sexual. What do you remember about your parents’ sexuality as you grew up? What is your sexual theory about your parents’ sexual interaction pattern?

“I would guess maybe they did it when my father was drunk. I could hear it, I think, although I’m not sure. They would fight so much that I was too little to tell if they were fighting or actually doing it, having sex. They never hugged, never kissed. We kids were hugged all the time, but they never hugged each other. I would guess their sex was a biological release, mostly for my father.”

This husband’s report contained several “leftovers” in his own sexual life that related to his memories. He now feared what he thought was too much drinking on his wife’s part. He was so alert to his wife’s sexual needs and the danger that she, too, would accommodate him as his mother might have accommodated his father that he now had sexual problems of his own within his sexual system. He was unable to ejaculate, stating, “I think so much about what’s happening for her, I just can’t let go for me.”

*75\97\8*

Urticaria is redness and swelling of the skin, which comes up in itchy blotches or weals. It may be due to internal or external causes.

An allergic reaction to plant, insect or jellyfish stings may produce a localised series of angry red blotches.

More commonly, a generalised urticaria is due to some internal stimulus, usually a reaction to a food or drug. Eggs, shellfish, fruits and some food additives, such as dyes, may produce, in susceptible individuals, an acute reaction.

Often the true cause may not be determined until future episodes lead to the incrimination of a particular substance. Although it is rare, urticaria may be precipitated by cold or by light and a familial form also occurs.

Nervous tension is believed to be a cause in some and the mechanism is the same as in allergic urticaria. The noxious factor acts on sensitive cells in the skin and histamine is released and acts on the blood vessels, making them dilate and leak fluid, which causes the swelling.

Allergic urticaria usually responds rapidly to the use of antihistamine drugs which counteract the allergic reaction.

*585/71/1*

When elderly people develop confusion and drowsiness it may be assumed this is only due to the ageing process and they have no problem which can be treated.

Yet, if the onset is moderately sudden and symptoms have been present for only a week or two, there is a strong possibility that it is due to reversible illness.

Drugs are a common cause of such symptoms, particularly sedative or anti-depressant drugs, which may give marked side-effects in doses much lower than would produce similar effects in young adults.

A brain tumor may be responsible for such symptoms and is usually associated with headache while bleeding inside the skull may cause the same rise in pressure as with a tumor and produce similar symptoms.

Shrinkage of the brain occurs with age. In the elderly, even a slight fall may cause the brain to move inside the skull and this may stretch and tear fine veins running through the membranes covering the brain.

Blood may accumulate beneath the dura, the thick covering of the brain. Fluid may be slowly drawn into this blood clot or haematoma so that it slowly swells and compresses the brain.

If this diagnosis is suspected, it can be easily proved by tests. If these show a subdural haematoma, operation and evacuation of the clot should totally relieve the problem.

*328/71/1*

Blood tests can be done to check the numbers of these cells. The fact that the anaemia, low white cell or platelet count is due to cancer in the bone marrow may be suspected when the blood is examined under the microscope. The bone marrow is full of immature forms of each of the blood cells. When this cavity is filled with cancer cells, the immature bone marrow cells can be ‘pushed out’ into the blood before they have differentiated into mature blood cells. If these immature cells were seen in your blood, your doctor would be very suspicious of cancer in the bone marrow. However, other cells in the marrow cavity can also cause this — the most common is scar tissue. Immature cells may also be released into the blood when there are unusually heavy demands for new blood cells. This can happen after bleeding, with severe infections, and when the blood count is recovering after having been reduced by chemotherapy or other drugs. If your doctor thinks cancer is the likely cause, a bone marrow examination might be recommended to make sure.

*102/40/1*

Phenylketonuria is an inborn error of metabolism where the body lacks a specific enzyme so that it cannot deal with the amino acid, phenylalanine.

This amino acid is one of the building blocks of many proteins. The disease is genetically determined and its incidence is about one in 15,000.

The great problem is that, if there is a delay in diagnosis, the child suffers brain damage and becomes mentally retarded.

The Guthrie test involves a simple test on a blood sample taken from the infant by pricking the heel. This is usually done at the hospital before the child leaves or at the Baby Health Centre. If the diagnosis is made early, phenylalanine can be excluded from the diet and these children may then be intellectually normal. ”

As well as a blood test, a special urine test has been devised. In October 1978, the millionth baby was urine tested in NSW.

This screening produced a positive diagnosis in 120 children. The Medical Journal of Australia reported: “The great majority of these are now intellectually normal and the cost benefit of this preventive measure has been enormous, in terms of economic considerations and personal and family handicap and hardship. The cost of a Guthrie test is 85 cents, while it costs about $12,500 a year to institutionalise a retarded child.”

Other rare disorders of amino-acid metabolism are now also included in the screening and blood is checked for evidence of poor thyroid gland function.

Cretinism, which usually results in mental retardation, is due to failure of the thyroid gland to function normally during foetal and early infant life. It can be prevented by giving thryoxine, the active hormone of this gland.

*77/71/1*

These are known best as the ‘plastic surgery’ techniques. They involve removing fat by (a) cutting it off (called ‘lipectomy’ or Ob) ‘sucking’ it out (called ‘liposuction’). These techniques have typically been used on females, but up to 25 per cent of patients are now male, particularly looking for abdominal fat reductions.

Lipectomy. Fat is removed from under the skin through a surgical incision, and the skin pulled tighter over the area. The process is used on the thighs, arms, abdomen and breasts and up to 5kg of fat can be removed at a time. There is a concern though that fat may return to other parts of the body and that post-operative care must be paid to diet and exercise.

Liposuction. Liposuction involves ‘sucking’ fat cells from a small incision with a vacuum-like apparatus. Only small amounts can be taken at a time (e.g. up to 1kg) and for this reason it is used as a ‘body sculpting’ procedure rather than a significant fat loss operation. Liposuction causes bruising and can leave an uneven result in the hands of less skilled surgeons, although scarring from cutting is less.

There have been a number of other surgical techniques used to deal with obesity over the years, many in an experimental attempt to find an appropriate procedure. By 1993 there were 43 different operational procedures or modifications used in such a way. Recently, criteria have been established for accepting such procedures, and these have resulted in a number now being regarded as of questionable value including the following:

. . . tooth wiring, acupuncture, hypothalamic centre manipulation, liposuction, balloon insertion, unhanded gastric partitioning, vagotomy, gastrogastrostomy, horizontal gastroplasty, gastric wrap, gastrodip and any variety of gastroplasty without a reinforced stoma, intestinal bypass, duodenal bypass and biliointestinal bypass.

Surgical treatment of obesity is therefore limited, but some procedures may be of use in intractable cases of obesity in combination with other standard fat loss procedures.

*216\186\4*

ON THE G.I. FACTOR The effect of fibre on the G.L factor of a food depends on the type of fibre. Finely ground cereal fibre, such as in wholemeal bread has no effect whatsoever on the rate of starch digestion and subsequent blood sugar response. Similarly, any cereal product made with wholemeal flour will have a G.L factor similar to that of its white counterpart. Breakfast cereals made with wholemeal flours will also tend to have high G.L factors unless there are other influencing factors. Puffed wheat (80) and Weet-Bix™ (69) which are made from well cooked whole wheat grains have high G.L factors.

If the fibre is still intact it can act as a physical barrier to digestion and then the G.I. factor will tend to be lower. This is one of the reasons why legumes have exceptionally low G.L factors (30 to 40). It is also one of the reasons why whole (intact) grains usually have low G.I. factors, although rice is the exception. Many varieties of rice, whether brown or white, have G.L factors over 80.

Viscous fibre Viscous fibre thickens the viscosity or thickness of the mixture in the digestive tract. This slows the passage of food and restricts the movement of enzymes, thereby slowing digestion. The end result is a lower blood sugar response. Legumes contain high levels of viscous fibre, as do oats and psyllium (a seed which is a major ingredient in some breakfast cereals and laxatives). These foods all have low G.I. factors.

*29\33\4*

Food is part of our culture and way of life. Our food choices are determined by many factors ranging from religious beliefs to the deliriously sensual role that food plays in our lives. For babies, food has a comforting role to play, beyond meeting the immediate physical need. For adults, food reflects status—we prepare special meals for special occasions and for special guests to show respect or friendship.

It is no wonder that with so many factors influencing our food choices, we tend to overlook the very basic role food plays in the nourishment and growth of our bodies. In a busy lifestyle, it’s easy to see food simply as a solution to overcoming hunger. In other circumstances we focus on the social aspects of food and eat too much.

Australia’s CSIRO Division of Human Nutrition has developed a food model which guides us on the types and amounts of foods we should be eating daily for health. For many reasons our eating habits today fall very short of these recommendations.

Kilojoule-laden foods (sometimes called energy dense foods), such as alcohol, chocolate, chips and confectionery, provide few nutrients for a lot of kilojoules. For this reason they are referred to as ‘indulgences’ and are best limited to no more than one to two serves per day.

*5\33\4*