Consequences of Stress on Children's Development

While I personal have never experienced a stressor as a child that I can remember but being that I am the youngest out of 6 children I have heard stories of the struggles and violence my siblings had growing up with our parents until they obtained careers that allowed them to move from one social class to another.  My parents married when my mother was 18 years of age and my father was 23 years of age.  My father had a daughter from a previous marriage but she left him when he went in the service and my sister with my father’s mother, father and his siblings.  During his last tour in the service he met my mother and they married in North Carolina, my mother’s home state, and he moved he to Maryland to live.   Every two years they had a child until I was born with a 13 year gap.  It was due to the fact of my mother not having a fulltime job and my father fresh out of the service seeking employment to take care of his growing family, they struggled financially.  My two older sisters became teenage mothers, and the sister that was born before me joined a gang.  My brothers were bullies and fought just like my sister. 

My oldest brother joined the Army as his way of easing his struggles and obtained a federal job upon his discharge thus never returning home.    My two sisters that were teen moms the oldest one had three more children but all of her children were by the same man, my other sister had one more child and obtained a federal job like our mother.  My next to oldest brother went to the community college receiving a engineering degree and obtained a job as a city building inspector and drafter. The youngest brother was a security guard until his health declined and he lost his sight and died 4 years ago from renal kidney disease.  My gang member sister got married straight out of high school and was physically abused by her husband that became an alcoholic.  Upon my family removing her from the situation she joined the police force. 

By the time my parents had their 3th child, my father got a job as a bus driver and my mother had a career opportunity with the federal government.  This opened the way for financial freedom for my family.  When I was born my family moved from the area in which they lived for nearly 20 years and move uptown to a more elite area where doctors, lawyers, school board officials, school teachers, and politicians. This is why I have no idea on struggles during my childhood.

I chose to look at the way children in Europe handle poverty and violence.  The United Kingdom is considered one of the richest countries in the world.  But even they have poverty issues.  It is reported that 3.6 million children growing up in severe poverty.  In London out of 10 children 4 of them are living in poverty.  “England has higher child poverty rates than other developed European countries with seven of the top 10 worst places in London, a study revealed today (MailOnline, 2011)”.  4in10 is a group created in an effort to look into the poverty situation on children in London.  4in10 group spoke to children and young people last month (October 2012) about living in overcrowded homes and the following was reported:

“Masum aged 12, said: ‘I sleep in a bedroom with my mum, dad and everyone. My mum and dad have a double bed where they sleep and right next to their bed is where my little sister sleeps and just behind her cot is my bed where I sleep and it’s not that big.’

Jordan aged 12, said: ‘I do my homework in the living room but it is very noisy. Sometimes it gets so noisy so sometimes I do my homework in the toilet...it’s not nice.’”

 

The child poverty map below from MailOnline shows a country divided between children born into very different lives, some fortunate, some with much poorer life chances.’

 

References:

4in10. (2012). No Space At Home: Overcrowding in London.  Retreived from www.4in10.org.uk

Daily Mail Reporter. (2011). The Child Poverty Capital of Europe: London Worse for Deprived Towns. MailOnline. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366699/The-child-poverty-capital-Europe-London-worst-deprived-towns.html#ixzz2Cu6YRBCg

SIDS

SIDS is a terrible thing that I hope nobody has to experience.  Evidence of SIDS can be found in the Old Testament and the 18th and 19th century had just as much SIDS death as seen today.  SIDS is an explained death commonly in infants between the ages of two weeks to one year of age. “There is evidence to suggesting that many SIDS infants are born with brain abnormalities that cause a vulnerability to SIDS.  They are found in the ‘arcuate nuclei’ which control the major bodily functions: i.e., heart rate, respiration, temperature and the able to awaken.  The US has the highest rate of SIDS with nearly 2,500 babies die each year from SIDS: 0.7/1000 live births.  This is one death every 3 hours.  Japan has a rate of 0.3; 1000 live births, Hong Kong’s rate is 0.03: 1000 live births, and China has the fewest SIDS cases.  China follows safe practices and infants are never alone.  SIDS rates are highest among American Indians, Alaskan natives, and African Americans, and lowest among Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics.   A 50% decrease in SIDS deaths has been reported in the US since the 1994 and a 90% decrease in England, 50% decrease in New Zealand, Netherlands and Australia from 1981-1992 due to the Back to Sleep campaign (Porter,2006).  The Back to Sleep campaign is where children under the age of 1 years of age are placed on their backs to sleep. 

Sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS as it is commonly referred to is a public health concern in child development because when a child dies from an explained death it is devastating.  It is devastating not just to the child’s parent and family but also to the early childcare professional, the other families within the program as well as the program as a whole.    While I have never had to personally experience a SIDS death within any program that I worked or managed, while working as a State Licensing Specialist there was a death in a home childcare program that affected the office as a whole.  When working as a Licensing Specialist and a child is injured or dies in a child care program it is investigated in order to ensure the early childcare professional did everything they could to not only keep the child safe but to ensure that protocol was followed and everything was done to save the child.  When an investigation is conducted we meet with the early childcare professional, conduct an inspection of the program, child’s record, review police record, and child protective services records as well.  And finally the most dreaded thing of the investigation anybody wants to do is to listen to the 911 recording and what transpires during that call.  It is something that makes everyone cry and heart bleed for the child, family, and childcare professional.  By me not even having had to handle or experience a SIDS death myself just the experience I had while working is enough to not want to experience the lose.

Additional Informational Sources:

Back to Sleep” Campaign

Call 1-800-505-CRIB or visit www.nichd.nih.gov/sids for more information on SIDS and sleep positions.

SIDS Alliance 

www.sidscenter.org

SUDC Program

Sudden Unexplained Death in Children www.sudc.org (affecting 1 year or older)

 

 

References

Porter, Phyllis (2006). SIDS/Shaken Baby Syndrome.  Educarer,Inc.  Retreived from www.educarer.org

 

Childbirth: Personal Experience and Around the World

The births of my two children are memorable to me each in their own way.  I remember everything about both of them. With both of my pregnancies being not stressful nor did I experience any complications but there were a few hiccups along the way.   For this blog post I will tell about my son, Xavier, is my first born.  He was born on Monday, January 18, 1993 at 12:34 pm. My labor started about 3:00am with my stomach hurting and I thought I had to go to the bathroom but I didn’t.  After about the third trip to the bathroom and nothing happening I figured out that I was in labor.  I chose to go back to bed because first is was not hurting that bad, secondly I did not want to go to the hospital and they send me back home, and thirdly I had an appointment at 8:00am for a stress test because my son was two weeks past his due date.  Well by 7:00am I was in the bathroom using the toilet for one thing and the sink for vomiting. By the time I arrived at the hospital I was more pain and informed the tech that I was in labor and she was ok just get undressed and we will get started.  I got undressed and laid on the bed she came to hook up the monitors and ran to the telephone informing the labor/delivery that she needed a doctor stat. When the doctor arrived she said that I was dilated 5 cm. and in full labor.  I told the doctor that I had informed the tech that I was in labor the doctor looked at my chart and said this can’t be your first pregnancy.  I told her it was, why. She said because you are not screaming or anything. I told her it does not hurt that bad yet. It hurts the most when I walk.  By 10am, I was informing the nurse and doctors that it was hurting and that I needed that epidural for pain.  When I received the epidural my labor slowed down and I could not feel my contractions.  The nurse told me when I was having a contraction and they were causing me to shake.  By 11am I had shot from 7 cm. to 12 in just 10 minutes.  My son was born at 11:34am on the first federal observation of Dr. Martin L. King Jr.’s Birthday.  He was kept in the hospital an extra day for breathing issues but was released the next day.  While he was diagnosed with asthma during infancy, his father nor I have it but it does run in my family. This doctor said that he could not be out in extreme heat nor extreme cold and had the Asthma Foundation deliver him a portable nebulizer machine for his breathing treatments.  Today nearly 20 years later I have a young man that has graduated from high school and currently attending a prep cook program that he is to graduate from the week after Thanksgiving.  With his asthma triggering only when he gets a cold and has no major problems in any weather climate but heat is still not a best friend to him.

 

I decided to read about the birth practices is England.  In an online article, Study backs home births for mothers (Belfast Telegraph, 2012), I read that it is cost effective to have a child at home or by midwife.  This is only for mothers that have no indicators or are not at risk of complications.  The cost associated with having a child in a hospital environment is considered several hundred UK pounds more expensive than a home birth.  While most of the information I read on births on England compared the style in which is cost effective for child births. I can say that all women experience birth risks whether it be health wise or deliver.  We are all the same despite where you live and this is explained and pointed out in Kimmelin Hull’s (2012) blog article.  .

 

 

 

References

Belfast Telegraph. (2012). Study backs home births for mothers.  Beleast Telegraph.  Retrieved October 5, 2012 from www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Hull, Kimmelin. (2011). Birth Outcomes by Birth Locations: The Latest Study. Science & Sensibility. Retrieved October 5, 2012 from www.scienceandsensibility.org