A welcome addition - with a bang!

Yesterday morning I had a bit of a shock!

I was getting ready for work, hubby was in the bathroom, and his phone goes off.  I checked it, it was my brother-in-law, he'd rang twice.  I rang him back, no answer.  Weird.  Jokingly I said "Maybe they're having a baby now!"

My sister-in-law (SIL) was due last Monday but if they baby hadn't come by today, they were going into hospital to get induced.  My SIL and I had worked out what was happening with my nephew who goes to school with my daughter, and the plan was that he stay with us.

So I got into my car and my SIL calls me, hangs up.  I call her back, no reply.  I only drive another 50m down the road and hubby calls.  "They just had a baby at home, on the floor!  There's no ambulance or anything, can you go over?"

"OMG!" I said, and did an about turn, and headed to their house.  I rang work to tell them I would be a bit late, and rushed to their house.

Fortunately, everything had gone well, but it was a bit of a shock.  She had woken up with some pain, and told my brother-in-law that they were 5 minutes apart.  He didn't know you could call 000 from your mobile phone (that's our emergency dial number in Australia) and so he went downstairs to make the phone call.  My sis-in-law yelled out "The baby's coming!  The baby's coming out!"  and my brother-in-law thought "Yeah right, not that quick," but a minute later he heard a baby crying.  He told me he was a bit stunned - he wanted to go up and see the baby but he was on the phone to the ambulance!  He wished that he had helped  deliver his own son.

By the time I arrived the paramedics had arrived and they had packed her up in a stretcher.  I took my new nephew from my SIL and did a quick check and he seemed fine - good tone, good colour, breathing was a bit grunty but no sucking in of the chest, and his heart beat was good.  I hugged my SIL telling her how clever she was and quickly went to put on my shoes and ran out with the baby in my arms to give it back to her in the ambulance (I went out the side door, they took her out the back door).  I took a photo of her and the baby and of us and the baby and then I was all grins and smiles as I drove to work as I relayed the exciting story of my nephew's entry into the world to all my workmates.

My SIL told me that it was so quick - she woke up, and had the contractions and she timed it, and they were close together, she went to the toilet, her waters broke and then she felt like she needed to push and 1 or 2 contractions later, she had a baby.  All up - 7 contractions.  She couldn't believe it. And she said it was about 10-15 minutes from pain to baby.  So quick she couldn't even get in the car to get to hospital.

We visited her later that evening with all the kids, and she was so happy to see all the kids, and I asked her a bit more about it.  She said that she went to the toilet and her waters broke and then she stood up and she felt the head coming!  She tried to awkwardly catch the head while standing/squatting and she said it was so strange, she felt the hair, it didn't seem real!  There was blood all over the floor, and then he was out, and she was holding the baby.

Her screams had woken up her son who walked out sleepily to the bathroom and he saw his mum holding the baby.  He asked her why there was blood on the floor.  My SIL told him to go to the drawer and get the blanket for the baby and he did and he handed it to her.  She wrapped the baby and by that time her hubby had come back upstairs to the spectacle.

He told me that she looked like Daenarys Stormborn with her baby dragons, when he saw her kneeling there on the floor with a baby in her hands.  He wished that he had hung up on 000 so that he could have seen the birth of his own son.  I felt bad for him, I imagine that would have been so miraculous for him to see.

But I am an aunty again!  I have been so excited all day and it's always wonderful to have such a happy miracle occur in such an amazing way.

New Vaccination Laws in NSW

Recently the government introduced some tough new vaccination laws.  Under the new laws, unvaccinated children will be excluded from child care centres unless they can provide evidence from their GPs why their children cannot be vaccinated OR for religious reasons, the child cannot be vaccinated.

This has sparked a huge debate, and there are many opinions about this matter.

What is interesting is what some people have done to exploit loopholes in this system.

Recently in the news, a group of anti-vaccination campaigners have decided to create their own religion to use this loophole to circumvent the government's new law.  This will negate the government's attempt to boost public health awareness in preventable diseases.

Why are people refusing to vaccinate?

1. In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published a paper in the Lancet suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.  This was later found to be fraudulent, with Wakefield found to have fixed and manipulated data, as well as having a conflict of interest in publishing the paper by receiving £55000 from lawyers looking for evidence against vaccine manufacturers.  Since then, there have been multiple research papers with no link between autism and the MMR vaccine.
2. Herd immunity - if the vaccination rate is 95% then the 5% who are not vaccinated will be protected.  This is often the case for cancer patients and young babies as their immunity is low and it is they who will be put at risk.  If everyone is immune, then they will be protected as the disease will be unable to get a foothold.  Those parents who choose not to vaccinate believe that the herd immunity will help protect their child, which is probably true.
3. Building immunity naturally without chemicals and toxins.  Vaccines used to contain heavy metals, formaldehyde - things which nobody would want injected into them.  Our body was made with an immune system to fight disease - we should use it.  (though it's funny - vaccines stimulate your immune system to fight the disease, not give immunity passively)
4. Belief that vaccines don't work.

I am a health care professional, so perhaps my opinion is skewed.  Of course I will be a believer in the modern vaccine.  Giving your child a weak strain of a disease so that they can build up immunity to the strong strain is a great advance in modern medicine.

Measles is a childhood illness but the most serious complications can be panencephalitis (infection of the brain) which can cause permanent brain damage or death.  The risk of that is low - maybe 1:100,000.  It can also cause pneumonia which is very serious in adults - in 1920, the death rate from measles pneumonia was 30%. Of course with modern medicine that would be a lot less.

Mumps is generally a benign illness but can cause unilateral deafness in 1:2000 patients.  Panencephalitis can also occur.

Rubella is not a serious illness in childhood, but it causes significant problems in pregnancy.  Rubella is responsible for stillbirth in early pregnancy, and significant congenital defects in the heart, brain, eyes and ears, resulting in congenital heart defects, congenital cataracts, and deafness.  The vaccine was mainly developed to prevent infection during pregnancy.

I am not sure that restricting unvaccinated from childcare is the correct decision.  I agree that reducing their welfare payments for unvaccinated children as well as increasing health insurance premiums would be a better way to deal with the problem.  Drop the child care rebate for unvaccinated children.  They can still go to childcare but the government isn't going to help pay for them to go when they are disregarding publich health and safety.  The unvaccinated child should have the same rights as a vaccinated one - but just as we cannot force people to drive with their headlights on, we should be aware that they are compromising the safety of others, and they should be penalised for that.

I remember the case of the 4 week old baby who died from whooping cough in one of the lowest areas of vaccination in the state - that was 4 years ago.  That news item prompted a big push for vaccination. However, what I did not realise is that the anti-vaccinaters had a hate compaign against that family, who had already suffered enough.  Some of the comments or letters they received included:

• "harden the f*** up"
• "I could walk through a ward of babies dying of whooping cough or any other infectious disease and it would not affect my decision to vaccinate my children."

It must be hard enough to lose your own child without having to endure this insensitive barrage as well.

They are not the only ones.  Another father, whose son died of chicken pox, was rung by anti-vaccination campaigners who said this:

• His son must have been weak, to have succumbed to such a harmless disease.  These things are a matter of survival of the fittest.

I urge everyone, to consider vaccinating your child - if not for their own safety, for the safety of others - including your own unborn children.