Stressors on Children

Racism was experienced by my husbands aunt. She lives next door to us right now. As a child she was raised as black but her parents were: Father-black, mother-black and Native American. She is very light complected and looks white. She said the teacher used to call on her and the kids would say, she just calling on you because you look white. That's why you get called on. The kids picked on her and too this day she still has a complex about people telling her she looks white. She is in her 70's now. This happened when she was in Elementary school. We occasionally see the people who taunted her when we walk on the track at the school in the morning and she still has ill feelings toward them. when she talks about them you can hear the built up feelings in her voice. I'm so glad that our nation is waking up and being aware of bullying and trying to do something about it. It has lasting effects on people. I chose to see what Iraqi people are doing about the effects of war on the children.
Every month in Iraq, according to the 1996 UNICEF report, more than 4,500 children under the age of five die from hunger. The children are the most vulnerable in this war. Twenty-three percent of all children in Iraq have stunted growth, approximately twice the percentage before the war. A 1995 FAO report Crop and Nutrition Status Assessment Mission states that child mortality level in Iraq has risen nearly fivefold since 1990. Alarming food shortages are causing irreparable damage to an entire generation of children. Due to the use of depleted uranium (a form of nuclear warfare) in the military campaign against the people of Iraq, there has been a dramatic increase in childhood cancers, particularly leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, and lymphomas. Congenital diseases and deformities in the fetuses-a condition similar to the babies of the Gulf War veterans-have also increased. Infant mortality in a child's first year is expected to reach an unprecedented 20%. More than 2 million children are starving to death in Iraq, and more than 1,500,000 orphans are crying out for help.
In Hamrin, Task Force Liberty soldiers distributed school supplies and toys to the town's children. In all, over 10 boxes of pens, pencils, notebooks, coloring books, crayons and toys were collected by the soldiers, with the help of their families back home, and distributed to children ages 3 to 14. The supplies were gifts from the people of the United States to the children of Hamrin, the soldiers told the children and their families. There isn't a lot of attention being paid to these children individually. I'm sure there are many who are depressed and I read that many of the children have nightmares.

Child nutrition and Malnutrition

I chose this topic because I remember a little boy who went to the babysitter with my daughter. He took so ling to sit up and he would drool like an unusually large amount. he couldn't roll over for a long time and I would constantly ask his mother about his formula. I even talked with her about getting him to the doctor and having him checked and see if he was developmentally delayed. He didn't try to crawl and it took him forever to walk. Well one day I discovered just by accident that she had been adding extra water to his formula to make it go further. Her husband was laid off and they didn't have enough money for groceries so she was adding water to the formula to stretch it out. She didn't realize that he needed those vitamins and minerals in the formula. I talked to her about this and helped her enroll in the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program so she could get the formula at no charge. He soon became a more active and developing child. He is about to turn four years old now and I still see some effects of his what I call Malnutrition.

Malnutrition in Australia
is a major public health issue in Australia. Known as the silent epidemic, malnutrition is estimated to affect 35 - 43 per cent of patients in Australian hospitals.

Estimates of malnutrition in the wider community vary, but a recent Australian study found the prevalence of malnutrition across eight residential aged care facilities ranged from 32-72 per cent.

Malnutrition can have huge implications on quality of life and ultimately lead to poor medical outcomes.

This makes me wonder if there is actually a direct relation to the lack of medical supplies available during childbirth and the malnutrition epidemic. Is it poor medical care and education about the nutrition of the child. Are the parents getting the information from the midwife that a doctor would give them about feeding their child? It definitely gives you something to think about.

Personal birthing experience and childbirth in Australia

I chose to post about the birth of my third and final child Nyla, who is four years old currently. I chose her because it will relate to my post about Australia. When I had Nyla, I had some complications after she was delivered. It was about 3 or 4 hours after she was born that i felt really bad like I was going to vomit and then I had a seizure. I was hemorrhaging badly and if not for the quick response of my medical staff, I would have died.
This leads me to Australia. Many childbirth experiences are done at home with midwives because one, the parent feels like the are more in control of the birth if they are at home, and two, they feel its much more personal than going to the hospital. i just feel that all childbirth should be at the hospital. In my situation I explained above, if I had chose to use a midwife, I wouldn't have survived. Nyla was fine but she would have been raised by husband and my two older boys and she would have gone through life without their mother. I just feel the hospital setting is equipped with whatever you need, whatever may go wrong.