Strollerderby : emergency

Swine Flu: What you need to know

editors — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:37:00 GMT

The CDC has confirmed 109 cases of Swine flu in the U.S. and states have reported several more, prompting the Department of Health and Human services to declare a Public Health Emergency. While government officials try to halt this outbreak, what do you need to know?

Check out CNN's extensive swine flu Q&A to learn about past swine flu outbreaks, why health officials are concerned, and the preventive measures you can take, plus more. Some quick facts:

Swine wine influenza, or flu, is a contagious respiratory disease that affects pigs. It is caused by a type-A influenza virus. Outbreaks in pigs occur year-round.
Humans aren't usually infected and researchers have yet to determine the cause behind this outbreak.
Symptoms are very similar to the common flu: fever, runny nose, sore throat, nausea, etc.
Swine flu is contracted the same way the flu is: If an infected person coughs or sneezes, the virus passes. Or if you touch something with the virus on it, then touch your eyes or mouth.
To prevent it: wash hands, avoid close contact with people that are sick and touching surfaces that may be dirty.

More info:

Bloomberg.com tackles similar questions, from flu vaccinations to how to tell if your child is sick.

Head to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention for their key facts on swine flu.

The Plain Dealer asks the question on everyone's mind: Is this the next global flu epidemic?

What lessons we can learn from SARS and the bird flu.

Also check out Brett's post "Are You Worried About Your Kids?" and let us know how freaked out you think us parents should get over this.

What's Wrong with "Women and Children First?"

JeanneSager — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:02:00 GMT

The crash of Flight 1549 came just when the nation needed it - a crisis averted, a hero in our midst, nearly two hundred people saved. Next to the inaguration, it's the brightest spot what's been an otherwise bleak American horizon of late.

But we're a country that thrives on some sort of scandal - so it's no surprise the heroism of Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger has quickly turned to criticism of the age-old (at least one hundred and fifty-some year-old) standard of evacuating people in case of tragedy: "women and children first."

To be fair, I'm biased. I am, after all, a woman. I'm also a mother. So women and children rank pretty high on my list. By all accounts, I should be rushing to the defense of the mandate Jezebel aptly dubbed "strangely quaint" and "old fashioned."

A lot of what Jezebel's Sadie said made sense - there has to be some organizational basis for getting people moved from here to there, and few would argue with a child's right to be cut the line in light of a tragedy. Children first, at least, is almost irrefutable. They still have a chance at a life. They still have time left to make a difference.

But Sadie makes one very salient point - kids need caregivers when they're rescued. And last I checked, caregivers come in all forms - daddies too. So what happens when we stick to "women and children first?" If a child is traveling with their Dad in tow, is the screaming tot ripped from his arms and thrust into those of a stranger, wriggling and crying? Add a toddler torquing his body in frustration to an already stressful situation, and you've just lost precious moments.The organizaton you're striving for can be dealt that fatal blow with the moments lost calming them down.

Yes, I would want to get off a sinking plane as quickly as possible - and with my daughter in my arms. But as important as I would hope someone thinks I am in my daughter's life, so too is my husband, my father, my brother . . . I am not a he-man hating feminist (yes, some of them still exist). If one of them were there with my child, I would hope that an able-bodied adult would be willing to let child and "male relative caregiver" take the place of "mother/woman."

Perhaps the more appropriate choice is children - with appropriate caregiver - first, to be followed by whomever the pilot and his crew thinks can be gotten to next in the most organized fashion?

Image: AP

Fire Starts While Toddler has Mom Locked in the Basement

Zimbabwe Releases Jailed Toddler

Mom Says Hospital Fouled Childbirth - Twice

Survey Time: How Will Becoming a Mother Change You?

Postman Revives Unconscious Toddler

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:41:00 GMT

In case anyone doubted whether the small town romance of the postal work profession was still alive in this age of email, here’s a story to remind you just how important your neighborhood postman is.

For at least the second time this year, a postal worker has saved a baby’s life. (The first time happened when a postal worker caught a baby after she fell out of a second-story window.) Postman Robert Sweeney was delivering mail along his Sacramento route when a mother ran screaming out of her house, holding a seemingly lifeless toddler. “My baby, my baby!” she kept shrieking. Sweeney grabbed 19-month-old Kelly Jimenez out of her mother’s arms, laid her on the grass, and performed CPR.

Meanwhile, neighbors called 911. By the time the ambulance arrived, Sweeney had succeeded in reviving the little girl. She is still at the hospital, but is listed in good condition. Sweeney, who says that he burst into tears immediately after the rescue, is anxiously awaiting news on Kelly. "Her still being in the hospital concerns me," he said, "but at least I know she's in good hands."

Photo: KCRA.com

Male Blogger: Laboring Mom Not a 'True Emergency'

JeanneSager — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:56:00 GMT

You're about to give birth to your second child. Your contractions are three minutes apart and holding steady. Oh yeah, and your car is stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. What are you going to do now?

According to a blogger at the Volokh Conspiracy, you call an ambulance and meet them at the next exit because, well, he doesn't consider this a "true emergency." Excuse me, David Bernstein, do you want to deliver a baby in the middle of the Mass Turnpike? Methinks you'd be yelling "help, emergency," about then.

I hate to take anything into the "man" vs. "woman" range, but this is one of those examples of a guy climbing on his high horse to tell us how a pregnant woman's body is going to work. Hate to tell you buddy, even WE don't know how the whole birth process is going to go. Bernstein's prime evidence for why he thinks Jennifer and John Davis were reckless and refused to just call an ambulance? The baby didn't come for another five hours.

Think of that. A baby that came in its own darn good time. No wonder they call the site the Volokh CONSPIRACY.

Alright, maybe I'm taking this a little hard. I actually have never had the frantic drive to the hospital. My labor had to be induced to encourage my daughter to come out of her comfy little cave. I agonized about the possibilities because of the area where I live and the timing of my due date: we're nearly a half hour from the hospital, and I was set to deliver right around the Memorial Day holiday in a highly trafficked tourist area.

I also dealt with a highly put out male co-worker who wanted to plan a vacation, and couldn't believe that our editor couldn't pin down a date when I'd begin my maternity leave. I was still working the day before I went into the hospital to have a nurse begin my pitocin drip. Trust me, I tried my darndest to get her moving earlier. She had the same stubborn streak then that makes for such pleasant morning interactions now.

Or maybe it's simply being a parent that made me feel for the Davises. In the Boston Herald article Bernstein took to task for its pro-parent tone, Jennifer Davis says her husband maneuvered into the breakdown lane to continue the rush to the hospital. Two state troopers gave them the go-ahead to keep going. A third, however, detained the couple and went back to his cruiser to look up John Davis' driving record (six traffic infractions in twenty years, by the way), and made them wait until he was done writing out another motorist's ticket. He then quizzed the contracting Jennifer, making her unzip her jacket to prove she really had a pregnant belly under there. He finally issued a citation before letting the couple go - the $100 bill arrived in the mail the other day.

The Davises, by the way, had actually pulled over to ask the trooper if they could continue in the lane to the exit where they'd get off and choose another route to the hospital. This was hardly the case of a trooper pulling over a speeding driver in the breakdown lane and diligently investigating suspicious activity. This was a police officer forgetting his mission is to protect AND serve.

Yes, I'm taking the side of the parents in this one too. Now what do you want to bet David Bernstein will find a conspiracy here?

Image: Boston Herald

They Say: Prenatal Folic Acid Not So Good After All

Christian Parents Opt for Religious Circumcision . . . Even if It's Jewish

Say Hi To Grandma Through the Screen

No, the Vagina Doesn't 'Heal Up and Close' from Disuse

When is Too Young to Teach Them 911?

JeanneSager — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 12:41:00 GMT

Where my cell phone is, my 3-year-old usually isn’t. I’m not ready to pay the New York-to-Hong Kong rate. But news that a little boy in Scotland not only called emergency services on a cell phone when his mother collapsed but found a new mobile when the battery cut out makes me wonder.

Should my daughter be logging more time on the phone?

Three-year-old Jack Thomson called the UK version of 911 – 999 – when he found his mother lying unconscious on the hallway floor. With his father at work, the only other people in the house were his sisters, both younger. When the first phone went dead, Jack didn’t give up. He found another phone and dialed 999. Emergency workers broke into the apartment and saved Jack’s mom, Leanne, but they said she might have died if it weren’t for the 3-year-old’s fast thinking.

It’s made me start thinking about when we should start teaching our daughter how to act in an emergency. Jack Thomson is proof enough that 3 isn’t too young.

The biggest concern, of course, is how to convey when and where a 911-call is appropriate. We don’t need her calling police because Mommy has said no lollipops before dinner, and we don’t want her trying to call her grandparents by dialing 9 . . . 1 . . Kids need to understand the “emergency” concept and the dire consequences of prank calls to the emergency control center, something a 3-year-old isn’t likely to understand.

At this age it’s about teaching them the basics of how to place a call and what numbers to dial (always say nine, one, one rather than nine, eleven so they don’t start looking for an eleven on the phone), telling them it’s OK to be scared, telling them Mommy and Daddy sometimes need help from the police or the firemen, and then crossing our fingers that they never need to make that call.

Source: BBC News

Image: Phil Scoville

Preschooler Calls 911 and Saves His Mom

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Tue, 01 May 2007 17:03:00 GMT

Thanks to some quick thinking on the part of four-year-old Tony Sharpe, his mother Courtnay is alive and well after collapsing during a gall bladder attack.

Little Tony learned to call 911 from a book sent to him by his grandparents, so when his mom fell unconscious he immediately knew what to do—he called for an ambulance. Apparently the little dude was thinking so calmly and clearly that he was able to describe his apartment building for the paramedics. I haven't had the "911 talk" with my own four-year-old yet, but after reading about Tony Sharpe, we're going to have a sit-down later today.

Tony told the dispatcher:

"Mommy is sick. Mommy needs an ambulance. Mommy fell over. She is sleeping. Can you call the ambulance? When Daddy gets here, Daddy will see if there's something wrong with mommy."

Brave kid. I'd like to give him a hug and kiss right now! Oh, and the name of that book (cuz I know you want to know): It's Time to Call 911: What to do in an Emergency.