Perspectives… | celebrating multiple points of view

When Cheryl (some of you know her as MsGreene) first asked me to blog about my impressions of the birth of our first child I figured it would be a good chance to offer a dad’s perspective on this amazing experience. I hope this rather long winded, personal account does that…but at a minimum I figured it would help crystallize the experience, so thanks for indulging me.

It took my wife Janet and I almost three years to conceive, so when we got the news in February that we were pregnant, we were pretty well over the moon (well, actually Janet was over the moon, I was more “cautiously optimistic”). My wife loves surprises, so she was adamant that we keep the sex a secret. And we made it through about 50 (or so it seemed) “3D Ultrasounds” without spoiling the surprise. Continue reading »

In a perfect world, we’d all have time to grow our own organic vegetable garden. But if you’re like me, and you’ve got picky eaters, no time and a limited budget, here are a few suggestions that I recently discussed on Good Morning America. Feel free to click on www.drgreene.com and www.AllergyKids.com to learn more:

Get back to basics. Slowly!

My kids were addicted to dino nuggets, blue yogurt and fluorescent orange noodles! So I began by picking ONE THING in an effort to reduce their exposure to the chemicals in their diets, and I considered these my initial options: 

1. Cut the Colors 
2. Less is More 
3. Organic Options 

1) Cut the Colors

A great fist step is to try to reduce the amount of fluorescent colored food products your kids eat. As you try to reduce their exposure to these artificial colors, they might have a bit of a conniption not getting blue yogurt, but you will feel so much better about the choice (and so will they!).

Here are a few examples:

Blue yogurt: Replace blue yogurt with WHITE yogurt and allow your kids to mix in any of the following: jelly, honey, chocolate chips, cheerios, even sprinkles (especially for those of you who have kids (like mine) who may not adjust well to this transition).

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As the population gets sicker, including our kids, the laundry list of chronic conditions grows - diabetes, asthma, allergies and ADHD. On top of that, the cost of health care continues to climb.

Since 2001, the health premiums for a family of four have doubled; health premiums are expected to surge another 6 percent in 2009; and spending on health care has been growing faster than the economy. Among developed countries, the US faces the biggest burden with an estimated cost equivalent of 1.2 percent of GDP in 2007. That means that out of all of the developed countries in the world, we spend the most on health care.

So how much is that exactly? Well, our GDP measures the total market value of all goods and services produced within our country and is estimated to be somewhere around $14 trillion dollars. So if you calculate just one percent of that, you end up with about $140 billion dollars (can’t you hear Dr. Evil saying that?!). That’s how much we spend on health care.

$140 billion dollars. Can you even get your head around how much money that is? Let’s get a feel for how much ONE billion is…

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Today, 1 in 3 American children has autism, allergies, ADHD or asthma.

What is driving these childhood epidemics? Ten years ago, we didn’t have this problem. Today, however, some pediatric specialists view our children as "canaries in the coalmine". So what has changed?

According to our brilliant friends at DrGreene.com, The Organic Center, Healthy Child Healthy World and the Environmental Working Group, there is mounting evidence (actually, colossal evidence!) that increasingly points to the chemical toxicity of our food supply and the impact that these chemicals are having on the health of our children.

Weren’t aware of that connection? Well, neither was I, so here’s what I learned: Continue reading »

I was raised on capitalism and the Wall Street Journal. And I trusted that the political values that my family had instilled in me would serve me well. I believed in the system.

And then one of my children got sick with a blood condition that no one could pronounce and a pediatric mandate requiring immediate enrollment at a Children’s Hospital. And I awoke.

Suddenly, everywhere I turned, there were sick children. Children with diabetes, children with cancer, children with obesity, children with asthma and children with allergies. What had happened?

As headlines in the paper warned me of environmental dangers, I began to pay attention. What was in the food? Wasn’t organics a left-leaning thing? And what about the plastics and the baby bottles and the vaccines? Should I worry? Doesn’t our system protect us from these dangers?

And without realizing it, an internal battle had silently begun.

I lay awake at night after conversations with my father who dismissed my concerns and growing awareness of our system’s shortcomings. Had a generation of grandfathers failed to recognize the health risks associated with capitalism’s profits, unintentionally jeopardizing the well being of their grandchildren?

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Since when did it get so hard to be a mom? Ten years ago, we didn’t worry about sending a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into school with our children; we didn’t medicate our eight year olds to get them through the school day; and the movie, Rain Man, was all we knew of autism. Today it is estimated that 50 per cent of Hispanic and African-American children will develop diabetes, that 1 in 90 boys has autism, and that 1 in 4 children has asthma. Pediatrics just reported that from 2002-2005, there was a 103 percent increase in diabetes medication for children, a 47 per cent increase in asthma medication, a 41 per cent increase in ADHD medication and a 15 per cent increase in high cholesterol medicine.

How did our children get so sick?

 As a proud, American mother of four children, I was stunned to learn that chemicals that have been added to the U.S. food supply over the last ten years that have either been banned or labeled in countries like Australia, Europe, the UK, Japan….even Russia because of the health risks they present. I was stunned to learn that no human studies have ever been conducted on the long term safety of these chemical additives, so our children have literally been engaged in a live human trial for the last ten years without our informed consent!

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Most parents of multiples agree that each year with twins become exponentially easier. I can personally attest to that fact now that my twins are two years old.

I once met a mother of twins who was an anomaly. She told me that things only get harder with time. I wanted to ask her, “Why would you tell a sleep-deprived, new mother of twins that?” Now that Faith and Hope are two, I can confidently and vehemently refute her claim. It’s true that every stage in a child’s life brings new parenting challenges. But there is no physical challenge like parenting newborn multiples. Things DO get easier with time!

As children mature, they naturally become more independent and easier to care for. Faith and Hope can now obey instructions. They can express their needs and wants in words rather than just crying or throwing a fit. They have learned to feed themselves, sleep through the night, play together, and attend to family activities such as reading, crafts, interactive games, and outdoor play. My husband, Chris, and I both admit we are now on Easy Street (or at least Easier Street!).

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There’s no question about it—caring for twins is hard work. In addition to the physical demands, there are unique challenges that you simply don’t encounter with singletons, like how to identify similar-looking twins, how to feed two hungry babies at the same time, and how to calm two crying babies at once.

That being said, there are many ways to make parenting tasks easier and fun to do. In Twins 101, I provide parents with advice on how to make the daily duties of caring for twins highly enjoyable and less challenging. People often ask me which of the fifty tips in Twins 101 is the most important one for new parents of multiples. Without hesitation, I would say Tip #43, which encourages new mothers of multiples to accept all the help they can get.

Caring for twin babies is an incredibly joyous and rewarding experience, but it can also be physically demanding. I encourage mothers of multiples to accept all offers of help from people they trust. Even a short break to take a nap can have profound, positive effects on a parent’s physical and emotional sense of well-being. If parents don’t want others to directly care for their babies, they can still ask willing volunteers for assistance with preparing meals or completing household chores.

One the best things about asking for help is the lifelong affection and bond that develops between you, your babies, and others as a result. As a mother of twins, I am extremely grateful for all the friends and family that have played such a major role in our lives.

Faith and Hope were born at 33 weeks and both initially required care in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Ironically Hope, the smaller twin that we worried about throughout the pregnancy, turned out to have no major problems. She stayed in the NICU mainly to learn to feed and to grow. Faith, on the other hand, initially required the help of a ventilator to breathe. After a rocky start, Faith eventually came off the ventilator and both babies were able to go home after 3 weeks.

Not every set of twins will require care in the NICU. However, because the average gestational age for twins is 35 weeks (and even less for high order multiples), many multiples do make a pit stop in the NICU before going home.

The NICU is a high-tech hospital unit with doctors, nurses, and medical staff who specialize in caring for sick and premature newborn babies. It’s normal for parents to initially feel a sense of powerlessness in the NICU. After months of being the sole provider and lifeline for their babies, mothers may feel helpless in a setting where babies are cared for by medical staff twenty-four hours a day.

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No two pregnancies are alike. This is especially true for pregnancy with twins.

During my pregnancy with Faith and Hope, I experienced a number of pregnancy complications. I had vaginal bleeding and pregnancy-associated diabetes. In my third trimester, I was forced to go on bed rest due to a shortening cervix (a risk factor for preterm labor) and poor fetal growth (Hope was not growing well). I was later hospitalized for preterm labor, and Faith and Hope arrived early at 33 weeks.

Contrast that with a friend’s experience as a mother of twins. She worked close to the end of her pregnancy and delivered her twins full-term. My friend and her babies went home after a few days in the hospital.

Today, we are both thankful parents of healthy twins.

There are two reasons why I like to share about my pregnancy:  Continue reading »