Too Much of A Good Thing

I'm sure many people think it would be great to have a live-in Doctor. On hand to consult for the most minor sniffles to suspect large pains. Well, I can tell you that on-tap consulting works in reverse and the family thrives mostly on neglect rather than TLC.

I've just been baby-sitting my niece and her new born son.After a week of being surrounded by docs and hearing stuff like 'it cant be pathological;it must be physiological' and 'what's the pharma?' about any tablet and debates about modes of treatment, all I can say is Ignorance is bliss when it comes to medicine.

You put your trust in your doctor and the hospital and the nurse and that things will turn out right.

This poor babe didn't stand a chance of this happening. When mother, father, grandfathers, grandmother and even great grandfather are doctors, then its doubt and questioning and discussion all the way. Throw in an uncle or two who rings up regularly to say ' this is the latest way in the UK/Lancet '. And it gets merrier.
Vanaja put it nicely 'oh, everyone but the baby was a doctor?'

Among the latest techniques is KMT (Kangaroo Mother's touch) In this case, it was more KFT. Young fathers are so much more hands on- with wives and babies, I say yahoo for them.

We who have lived for about half a century know that health tenets are like fashion- they come around in cycles. Mother's milk vs supplements; carry babes around vs leave them alone;on demand feeding vs timed feeds; give rest to mother vs make them exercise fast; strict diets vs eat all - there are so many issues to debate :-)

But this sojourn in hospital really brought home to me that each baby is a miracle - something that I've taken for granted. When you watch tearful parents, some with scan reports in their hands, some with misshaped babies, some with dashed hopes then one realizes just to have a healthy baby itself is a wonderful gift.

A friend in the IT industry was telling me that the fertility clinics these days are filled with young parents. They have no medical problems but stress and lifestyle act as deterrents to conceive. Plans to put off babies are foolish is his opinion - as someone who put off a baby for 3 years and then had to wait an anxious 3 more to hold his own son. Nothing can beat that feeling he says.