Experiencing Stress as a Military Family child

Experiencing Stress as a child

            Earlier this year on June 27, 2011 in the small city of Minot ND there was a massive flood effecting most of the school buildings within the town. Below is a link to their website with additional links to pictures and video on the town’s dedication to rebuilding the city. Within 15 miles away from the city is a military base. Not all military families live on base; a majority of the families had houses within the small city of Minot. So many people and military families were affected by the flooding. Within the city of Minot there was a need of shelter, clean water to use for drinking and eating, and a need for children to learn. The flooding affected the military base too. Even the water was not safe to drink or use because it was contaminated from the flooding within the city. Working on the base at one of the child care facilities there was a base wide order to boil the water before drinking or using it to prepare meals for the youth. The contaminated water affected the water lines. At the time I worked with children as young as 5 years old. This happened to be summer vacation for most of the youth. Their stresses began with just transitioning from the child development center to a School Age Program, making the transitioning from maybe staying at home to beginning kindergarten and starting to make connections of having more choices at the program or what’s sort of normal for children of military families are dual service families (meaning mom and dad are both in the military) and handling a situation where one parent or both parents getting deployed.  If these transitioning situations wasn’t enough what added to this was the realization that some of the children that lived in a house in town lost their homes and all of their belongings. I saw a major change in the behaviors of these children in frustration such as:  being clingy, defiant, destructive, some sad, unhappy and uncontrollable. I believe this is partly because when flooding happens it is an event that even adults have no control over, I knew it was a very tough time for them and their behaviors became a difficult time for the parents and caregivers. These children would ask questions such as “Why did my house get flooded?” and other children that lived on base would ask “What does flooding mean?”   I housed one of my co-workers who lost his house. He slept in my 4 year old daughter’s room.  She was asking questions about why he was staying with us and I did my best to explain it to her why. This was a difficult time for everyone here and because of the flooding school started later. Even now some of these families are still struggling, winter is here and these families are living in trailers, hotel rooms, staying with other family friends’ houses that are located miles away from town. I even witness families that made a choice of not staying in the state and decided to move away to other place. I also know a family that flew their children to a relative’s house to stay for w while because the children could not stay with the military parent because they lost their house in the flood and one parent were being deployed.  

            Nearly after the flooding the children participated in a “Masters of Disasters” Program” That taught the kids what to do in case a natural disaster happens where they live for example: fire safety, storm and tornado safety tips and how to prepare a disaster survival kit. On the other side of the program as a caregiver looking after the kids during the summer program the only thing that we could do in this situation was to provide fun activities for the children at the program so they would have a mindset that when they attend our program they feel safe and know this is a place where they can play.

            When participating in researching on natural disasters for children living in china and japan I came across a slide show from the Roland Catellier Disasters Relief Foundation titled “We’ve got a New Project” written and posted around the same day flooding was happening in the city of Minot. They are in the process of rebuilding their small town as well. I found similarities within Minot and China/Japan, with water shortages, floor plans for new homes, and ideas for placement for children attending schools.

Links:

The first two  link is to the flooding rebuilding of the city of Minot

http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/556140/Flooding-makes-victims-of-Minot-schools.html?nav=5642

Before the flooding and after the flooding pictures of Minot

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/environment/minot-nd-flood/10252/

The last link is to Disaster Reflief Foundations and pictures and information on disasters in china and japan.

http://disaster-relief-shelters.org/

Breastfeeding

It is said that breastfeeding immediately after birth is the best way for a newborn to get enough nutrition for the infant’s brain and body. This topic became so important to me while I was pregnant with my child and I was determined to breastfeed my child immediately after having her, however on the day she was born and the week after  she did not latch. I became frustrated because I had to result in bottle feeding her formula the first two days and (it may have been part of post-partum depression kicking in) but I cried. I knew she was getting nutrition from another source but I wanted her nutrition to come from my milk because it contains many nutrients that formula does not have. Thinking back from attending the parenting classes and watching the videos of mothers breastfeeding their babies and reading pamphlet after pamphlet on the “Benefits of Breastfeeding” I just cried because I felt the bonding between mother and child was not going to happen. The one way I kind of still “breastfed” her, was pumping the milk and bottle feeding it to her. It eased the pain of knowing she was getting her nutrition from me one way or another.  The nurses told me to keep trying. Then finally a breakthrough! After two weeks of trying she finally latched. I was so happy I couldn’t believe it.  The downside of this situation is that I had to do a mixed feeding (formula and breast milk) for a while because of the timing and amount of milk she would drink and how much I would produce.

                I decided to research breastfeeding in the country of the Philippines and found a link to explain a change in “pro-breastfeeding laws” in the countries government. I was unaware that midwifes created an alliance to communicate around the world about child nutrition.

Retrieved November 6, 2011

http://midwiferytoday.com/international/Philippines.asp

     Here is another link to unicef.org listing data on the benefits of breastfeeding in the Philippines and other tabs explaining breast feeding benefits.

Retrieved November 12, 2011

http://www.unicef.org/philippines/children/breastfeeding_2.html

This information impact my future work by maybe giving mothers an “intervention” should their newborn not latch right away.  To encourage them to keep trying until they see progress.  (Of course the choice is up to the mother) Breast feeding is important for a developing child.  As a new mother breastfeeding at first looked easy and I assumed my baby would latch right away. I know that day I felt I was the only mother that experienced this situation but should I decided to have another child I’m prepared and I would hope to prepare those who may experience the same situation.

Childbirth: Different Point of View

                The only birth I can explain from personal experience is my daughters. She was born on a military base at a hospital. I was also born on a military base but at the time the “hospital” was not really considered a “hospital” but a clinic. For the purpose of this week’s topic on childbirth (not to sound self-centered) I want to talk about my own

 I was sort of confused as to why the place I was born at was considered a clinic and not a hospital so I called my parents to figure out what exactly happened because I was born premature. According to my dad I was born two months early. The Air Force base I was born at did not have a premature ward so as soon as I was born (he said I was about 3 pounds 3 ounces) the clinic placed me on a helicopter and flew me to the nearest military base that has premature ward. The nearest base was an Army base. My dad explained the doctors said my hemoglobin levels were low and needed blood. He said I was not brought home until I reached five pounds. All along this conversation I wondered “Why was I born so early?” I kept thinking there must have been something that may have triggered my mom going into preterm labor. According to my mom hours before she had me she was having pains in her teeth. My mom kept saying to me (talking to me in her belly) “You are not coming today!”  “Repeating it over and over” says my dad. Then my dad said the doctors did not want to give my mom anything for her teeth pains because she was pregnant. My mom said she was having contractions and the doctors injected her with something to stop the contractions. “Obviously it didn’t work because you were born within the hour” says my dad. He also explained that as I was flown to the nearest base toward the preemie ward my mom had to stay at the clinic so that they could work on her teeth.

 My mom claims I’m  a stubborn child for  not listening to her and coming out  anyway but according to my view and the readings from this week I believe at the time of my birth my mom was stressed and in pain. Not just from being pregnant with me but with other pains in her body such as from the pain in her teeth. I don’t know what the doctors injected my mom with. Whether it was to stop or induce labor pains all I know is I am alive today to share this story with everyone.

I was not surprised to read that the united States have almost 100% in births that take place in a controlled environment partly because I was born in the united states in a controlled environment then moved to the next controlled environment so that I could survive. I chose my birth as an example to show some of the other factors that may contribute to child development. Such as changes in the mothers health conditions.  According to my knowledge my mom never smoked or had an alcoholic addiction. I believe at the time of my birth my parents concern was if I was going to be healthy. I don’t think they were any other concerns at the time.

I chose the Philippines as the other country to find out how births happen there.  Below is a link to Midwifery Today which is an article, a short story of a mother going to a place to have her child for free.

http://www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/philippinesnight.asp

                In a sense there is one similarity between the United States births and the Philippine births. mine was at a controlled environment. I would consider the mother in the story having her child in a controlled environment also because she went to a place where women have children most of the time. The midwives knew what they are doing and had the right tools. . I came to a conclusion from this comparison is that if a mother thinks the place to go to have her child (home, hospital, a provided no birth fee clinic) and she determines the place has the right tools and the right people by her side she can very well make that choice. Although child births sometimes do happen unexpectedly hopefully the goal is to have a healthy child(ren).