I'm a full-time mummy

I came across this article which I must definitely share with you all. For your convenience, I have copied the excerpts from the article here.

"A baby is seen poking its tongue out in an amazing ultrasound scan. But while the image may appear to capture a cheeky pose, Ocea Varney was unable to close her mouth after being born with a congenital defect which meant her tongue was enlarged.

Medics diagnosed the potentially fatal condition after she was born and Ocea, now 18-months, has undergone surgery to shrink its size. But the condition was only picked up after the baby's mum Melanie Varney insisted to doctors that was something wrong with her daughter.

 Melanie 28, said: "You could even see Ocea's tongue sticking out on the ultrasound. I remember the technician saying 'look how cute she is, she's sticking her tongue out at you'. "When she was born it was the first thing I noticed - I thought it was cute at first, but it caused some serious complications."

Melanie, from Vancouver, Canada said doctors, nurses and even strangers told her it looked cute, but she was bigger than her twin sister and her oversized tongue caused complications with feeding. After her birth, along with twin sister Indigo, nurses kept her in the NICU for a week to monitor her low glucose levels.

 Melanie added: "The moment I gave birth to Ocea I thought she looked different to my other kids. Obviously she had her tongue sticking out, but she was bigger than her sister. When we were out at the store we would get comments about her tongue poking out - most of them said she was cute but others thought she was being rude.

"A couple of times people said it looked like she was thirsty and panting, as if she was some sort of dog. But she was miserable with it - I would try and breast feed her but she just couldn't latch on. It kept me up all night either trying or worrying."

 Melanie claimed after three months of doctors telling her and husband Gabby Mason, 30, it was just a phase, the family resorted to their own research. From Googling her symptoms they came across another girl with a similar story who had been diagnosed with Beckwith Wiedemann Syndrome- a congenital overgrowth disorder.

Despite it being a common condition - affecting one in 14,000 babies worldwide - very few doctors knew about it. Thanks to some further research, Melanie found a specialist in Brisbane, Australia where she was living at the time and made the trip to see him. She said: "As soon as the doctor saw her, he told us it was BWS - it was heart-breaking to hear she had the condition. But after three months, at least we finally had a diagnosis and could start doing something about it. She instantly had blood tests to check whether she had any tumours, which she didn't."

The most common characteristics of BWS are:

• a large body size,
  
• enlarged organs,
  
• enlarged tongue,
  
• midline abdominal wall defects and
  
• neonatal hypoglycaemia.

Melanie and Gabby moved their twins and their two-year-old son Joey back to Canada so they could be closer to family. At just seven months old, Ocea had tongue corrective surgery in Missouri and continues to visit the hospital every six weeks to be screened for tumours.

Children with BWS are at an increased risk for developing various types of tumours, particularly liver and kidney tumours, and as many as 20 per cent of babies born with the disorder will develop cancer. Shortly after Ocea's diagnosis, Melanie created the website How Big BWS with the help of her friend Tricia Surles - whose two-year-old daughter Lane also has the condition - to inform and educate families and medical professionals.

They have already arranged a How Big Is Yours? day which encourages people to post selfies of themselves sticking their tongues out. Melanie added: Our goal is to raise awareness about this syndrome. Up to a quarter of sufferers develop cancer so it's important that an early diagnosis is made. We want doctors to recognise BWS and ensure families know there is a support network out there for them. If that means getting people to pull a silly face then that's worth it.""

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I came across this article which I must definitely share with you all. For your convenience, I have copied the excerpts from the article here. You can watch the original source video by clicking on the image below or just load the video I embedded at the end of this post.

I am definitely not a swimming expert so I don't know whether this technique is good or not. On one hand I could see how if a child is able to learn this skill will help in the event of accidental drowning but watching this video just gave me mix feelings. I was already gasping as the baby fell head first (what if she hits her head on the steps??!!!) and then hearing her muffled cries (it sounded like that to me) and then the long wait for her to be rescued... oh dear... it's really hard to watch this video.

Captioned "So hard to watch but every kid should learn this young," a viral video of a baby who appears to be struggling to swim is stirring up mixed reactions from viewers.

Uploaded to Facebook on May 2 by user "DOV," the roughly two-minute clip shows a baby girl being lured into a pool, then falling face-first into the water. The baby appears to struggle to keep her head up and is heard making soft, muffled cries as adults off-camera encourage her, repeating "Good girl!" She eventually flips onto her back and floats. The adults still do not pick her up.

After roughly 90 seconds, a woman lifts the baby out of the water and is heard saying "I've got you, baby." Keri Morrison, the Palm Beach County, Florida mom behind the viral video, swears by the method known as Infant Swimming Resource. The baby in the video is her daughter.

The ISR method starts with babies as young as 6 months. Infants are taught to roll onto their backs to float, rest and breathe, and maintain that position until help arrives.

"You're seeing a 6-month-old sitting on the steps playing, which can be a real-life situation, she falls in and she turns over and saves herself and floats for over a minute and a half," Morrison told NBC's "Today" show about the video. "I don't see how there could be anything negative about that."

Morrison lost her son three years ago in a drowning accident in Orlando. She started the Live Like Jake Foundation to promote drowning prevention and awareness, as well as to provide scholarships for swimming lessons. She and the organization strongly support the ISR method, providing videos and information on ISR on the Live Like Jake website.

"Children are curious, capable, and have an uncanny ability to overcome obstacles like pool fences," ISR says on its website. "At ISR we take that ability and teach them skills to potentially save themselves if they find themselves in the water alone."

So what do you think?

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I came across this article which I must definitely share with you all. Personally, I could only spot 8 things that I feel could hurt the child. For your convenience, I have copied the excerpts from the article here.

Think you have a safe home for your baby to crawl around and play without harm? You might want to think again.

While the dangers in a seemingly innocent living room such as the one below may not be obvious, there are in fact eleven hazards present in this home which need to be managed.

That's right. Eleven. How many did you spot?

Christine Erskine from Kidsafe NSW says her number one tip for parents looking to keep their children safe is to manage your environment. 'Make sure it's good for the age and stage of your child, so that when you turn your head, which you will do once, even if it's just for a few seconds, they're as safe as possible. The under fives are the biggest demographic at risk,' she says. 'But it's all about mitigating that risk.'

Depending on the age of your child, Ms Erskine says that there are different dangers, some of which may not immediately be apparent:

'At the crawling stage, so you're talking around eight months, it's everything at ground level that poses the biggest risk,' she says. 'Power points, over-spilling handbags, heaters, animals, animal food and water from either a dogs bowl, or a paddling pool. 'Babies at this stage have heavy heads and can often fall in and drown,' she warns.

For those who can walk, Ms Erskine says there are additional dangers. 'Blind cords are one of the biggest health hazards. Every year one to two Australian children die from being strangled by blind or curtain cords. 'Coffee tables with things on them, TVs and toppling furniture are all potentially unsafe,' she says.

According to the Kidsafe executive officer, some of the most common accidents are falls from windows or drowning or near-drowning incidents:

'Poison is also a big cause of accidents,' she says. 'Whether it's from accessing something medicinal in a handbag or getting their hands on some household cleaning products, it's important to remember these things need to be managed. A new laundry detergent advert from Tide showcases several of the above potential dangers, as well as others which might be commonplace in your living room.

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.