Sunday, December 30, 2012

Post Christmas and walking the dog


Christmas festivities done and dusted and despite any reservations about the commercialised craziness, I enjoyed every minute. My 88 yo mum joined the Christmas Eve dinner at Dave and Pauline’s, along with an Italian couple whose friendship dates from Dave’s school days when Matteo was an exchange student. For Matteo’s wife Martina’s first southern hemisphere Christmas the cool, wet weather let Sydney down badly, but we made up for it with Dave’s Hungarian feast, followed by Aussie seafood Christmas lunch. 

      
Dave had been to the fish markets at 4.30 am on Christmas Eve for the best and the freshest and even at that uncivilized hour, the markets were “heaving” showing how far many stray from the regulation turkey and ham. Adding more international flavour to the mix of food and drink we inserted the wicked Irish humour of “Mrs. Brown’s Boys Christmas Special” ... hilarious! 

Another cold wet day in the Blue Mountains on Boxing Day but any outdoor activities we missed were made up for with lunch. Along with the traditional ham, Dave and Pauls treated us to rare roast beef and a plethora of delectable vegetable dishes. A great plate of kale, asparagus, beans and other crisp, bright greens, slow roasted tomatoes, finely sliced and grilled aubergine with sour cream and pomegranate seeds, a salad of artichoke hearts, fennel and roasted almonds, rissoni with nuts and a huge tray of the standby, traditional - roast potatoes!. Wow, a vegie lover’s delight and to hear Dave say “gee I love kale”, made me very optimistic for the health of my future grandchildren!

Then back to my dog-sitting duties in Balmain. While dear friends and their grown children set forth on Christmas Day for Paris, then on to their apartment in Ste. Foy I was commissioned to walk the stay-at-home dog and that was very much George’s modus operandi. Warned that he was stubborn about walking (or not walking more to the point) I was clear about a change of orders. We walked! Christmas and all it brings might mean comatose but George and I are setting a cracking pace heading into the New Year. 



Thursday, December 20, 2012

More power to certified organic


Antibiotic resistance? Blame the food industry! If you’ve ever been diagnosed with an antibiotic-resistant infection you might have pointed to doctors indiscriminately prescribing antibiotics. Sure, they must take some responsibility, but the greater part of the problem rests with the food industry. There, intensively farmed animals and birds are given routine, low doses of antibiotics, which are the surest way to allow organisms to mutate to a resistant form and then to thrive. 
Interestingly, those antibiotics aren’t used to treat infection, but are a cheap way to make livestock grow faster. To get an idea of the scale of the problem, in the US about 13.5 million kg of antibiotics are used annually in food production, that's about 80 percent of total antibiotic sales in the country. Human consumption accounts for about 2.7 million kg, but it’s the humans who are bearing the greater burden. Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), is now responsible for more than 94,000 infections and 18,000 deaths in the US each year.
In the EU, antibiotics as growth promoters have been banned for years, with little or no change in productivity or morbidity of the animal herds or bird flocks. However in Australia, just as in the US the amount of antibiotics used in animals far exceeds that used in humans (500,000 kg compared to 300,000 kg). Not surprisingly, Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs) and Multi Resistant Organisms (MROs) are a huge problem in Australia with an estimated 200,000 HAIs contributing to 7,000 deaths annually. 

So want to avoid those potentially lethal infections? Strengthen your immune system with all the appropriate nutritional and lifestyle choices. Probiotics and organically raised, antibiotic-free, meat and poultry should be at the top of your list. Then make a firm commitment to avoid hospitalisation, especially surgical intervention for anything other than an absolute emergency. Then question even an apparent emergency. The reprieve I got from surgical wiring my shattered kneecap was better than winning Lotto, but the recovery is complete and infection-free! Especially heed this advice if your obstetrician ever mentions, or if you ever contemplate, an elective C-section!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

New baby? Return to work or stay at home?


So the Grattan Institute reports that once a second child arrives, the take home part of a second salary drops to just 20 cents in the dollar. Presumably that’s thanks to the childcare costs, along with all the other expenses associated with having a baby today.

I’m always dismayed that analysts are able reduce the cost of having a child and the cost of a mother working or staying at home to simple dollars and cents. It is so much more complicated and the benefits of having a full-time mum (or dad) in those first 3 formative years can never be extrapolated back to purely financial terms. 


I think those other factors must include a belief in the importance of being a mum or a dad. When you take the momentous step of becoming a parent, you can be sure that it will outweigh any other role in terms of satisfaction, especially when you know you gave it your very best shot. That shot is the most labour intensive you’ll ever undertake, will outstrip any other in terms of on-the-job training, will be hands-on 24/7 without respite, but definitely doesn’t mean your meaningful contribution and rise and rise in the “real” workplace must be foregone or forgotten. And the reports are in - the single most common regret of parents is that they didn't spend more time with their kids!


Monday, December 17, 2012

The allergy epidemic - what NOT to do


To a recent question “Where do you find writing inspiration?” I answered in part “Sadly the fallout from compromised reproduction, which ranges from infertility to children on the MINDD spectrum (MINDD = metabolic, immune, neurological and digestive disorders), I see all around me around me every day, so I’m inspired to write something most days."

And indeed, the front page news in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph over the weekend was a perfect example of what can set me going.
My frustration levels soared as I read the recommendations to start solids at FOUR months, when WHO recommendations are for exclusive breastfeeding for at least SIX months and many babies who are breastfed exclusively don’t indicate their readiness for solids until 8-9 months.

But the so-called “experts’, concerned about the massive increase in allergies over the last 20 years, believe early introduction of solids will reduce the incidence of allergy. Their reasoning completely defies logic. No account is given of the fact that our children's immune systems are now the victims of trans-generational immune compromise, and that compromise is a legacy of a multitude of factors including:
  • unhealthy gut microbiota: beginning at birth (C-sections, infant formula) and continuing throughout life (80% of immune response is mediated through the gut)
  • nutritional deficits: including zinc, intimately involved in immune formation and function, but now the most widespread deficiency in the Western world
  • vaccinations: introducing a massively toxic and potentially allergenic load to an immature immune system
  • combination of other lifestyle and environmental toxins which are too numerous to mention
What to do? The only answer lies in strengthening the infant’s immune system prior to his entry into the world and that begins with strengthening the immune system of his parents before his conception. I ask the The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy what part of this equation they don’t understand? Their new recommendations are just another knee-jerk reaction that will do nothing to address the underlying issues, but have the potential to make the allergy epidemic even worse!


Thursday, December 13, 2012

NORMAL, but seriously threatened


Infant formula continues to intrude on and disturb my state of equilibrium. It’s the news that China’s hell-bent embrace of Western habits and products now includes an almost unqualified embrace of infant formula. Euromonitor states that China “continues to hold the fate of global baby milk formula in its hands.” The market is predicted to expand to $25 billion by 2017, driven by working women in China and their reluctance to breastfeed.

Having tried with no success (so far) to interest several Chinese entities in the promotion of “healthy parents, healthy baby” (which of course includes the promotion of breastfeeding), through well-established online and retail channels, I know I’m up against it. China has a population of 1 billion, so that means an awful lot of babies and the commercial returns for companies selling infant formula are potentially massive, especially for those providing a clean, green product. Infant formula companies floating on Asian stock exchanges are giving shareholders unheard of returns, takeovers in the infant formula arena are also generating eye-popping figures.

What to do? Just hope that in the helter-skelter embrace of infant formula that will be accompanied by compromises in physical, mental and emotional development, there remain enlightened, committed, attached, nurturing and nursing Asian mothers. I know they’re out their somewhere, may their numbers grow and may their influence spread.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Breastfeeding, not BEST, just NORMAL


I had dinner with an old friend recently. I met Margaret Grove way back when I was a brand new mum and attending Nursing Mothers meetings. Margaret now holds a key post at Australian Breastfeeding Association and as you might expect, our conversation turned to the current breastfeeding rates. In Australia, these are static at around 30 percent at 6 months, falling to a very disappointing 10 percent at 12 months. This despite the WHO recommendations for a minimum breastfeeding period of 2 years.


We pondered the many reasons, the failures of so many in the healthcare system, the rise and rise of the commercial 'alternatives', but also reflected on the new approach which is to emphasise the normality of breastfeeding. After all, breast is the default way of feeding mammals so breast or the bottle should never be a simple choice, even though the formula manufacturers have done their best to make it so. We should never have to read nonsense about breastfeeding being ‘better’, nor do we need any more studies showing its ‘benefits’. Infant formula was designed for those rare occasions when Nature fails, but just as IVF and C-secs were designed as similar last-resorts, the man-made, emergency, fall-back positions are embraced far too frequently and as if they were simple equivalents. The fact of the matter is, they are not!

Support and encourage the normality of breastfeeding - lead by example. Nurse your baby or toddler whenever and wherever and so others will see you! 

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Musings on Christmas tucker

As Christmas approaches I’m really glad to be spared a lot of the provisioning hoohaa.  Despite my exhortations to organic, whole and locally grown, my culinary efforts are strictly the common garden variety. Very healthy but entirely lacking in creativity. Dave, number one son has more than made up for my lack in the culinary department, establishing himself as a chef with an innate sense of flavour and balance, his restaurant providing the food version of a date with Jennifer Hawkins (according to one highly-regarded food writer). Dave also steps in to prepare the traditional Christmas Eve feasts, the legacy of his Hungarian grandmother and his Dad. I’m happy to be in Dave’s hands, leaving mounds of golden Wiener schnitzel, fluffy rice, fresh tomatoes with Spanish onion and basil and Fritzi’s famous cucumber salad to him. I provide the champagne and the wine. 

I’ll step up to the plate (?) on Christmas Day with a menu devised by Dave - a cold salad of smoked trout, kipfler potatoes, fennel and dill. 


Boxing Day I’m off the hook again, this time fed by Dave and wife Pauline who take over the kitchen at nineteen23, the restaurant they established at Silvermere, her parents’ beautiful B&B at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains. They’ll feed an extended family and I’ll watch in awe as the prepare the menu (currently under wraps) with consummate ease and familiarity. Christmas fare couldn’t get much better for this mother! 


If you want to sample wonderful food in fresh mountain air while Sydney swelters, Silvermere is the perfect place.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Conversations with kids, a trip down memory lane


It wasn’t just my blog post encouraging parents to spend more time with their kids...

Recently I’ve had reminders of the blessings bestowed when children have a full time ‘someone’ in their early years. An extremely articulate four year old provided an example of the language development fostered by a constant one-on-one. Thoughtful responses to every ‘why’ will prompt more ‘whys’, but that need to understand the world and its workings is a powerful driving force at the age of four. Taking the time to explain, rather than a response to shut down or short circuit more questions pays big dividends. 

Today in the street, I turned in response to a voice. A young mum, baby in a sling and toddlers side by side in a double stroller, was engaged in conversation with her children. She was oblivious to the fact that passers-by might wonder at her stream of consciousness. Made my heart glad - so often mum is plugged into her iPhone, oblivious to the dialogue she could be having with the small person in close proximity. 

Conversations with little kids is never-ending. Apart from the endless Q&A, every activity provides opportunities. When the grandmother of aforementioned four year old produced a wooden puzzle that once belonged to my boys, I was transported back to the many times we’d spent putting it together. Naming the various animals in their rather stylised forms led to the creation of personalities and stories for each one. An image sent to the smart phones of two young men confirmed that their memories of said puzzle were just as clear and as fond as mine. 


Sunday, December 9, 2012

Top 25 Author Moms Who Blog...

Thanks to all the wonderful friends and fans who voted (and voted again) and made sure I finished at Number 11 in Top 25 Mom author bloggers. In a few days you’ll be able to read the associated interview. The question “how did you balance motherhood and writing?” gave me pause ... I never really know how to answer this one. Looking back I wonder. I started writing just after Dave was born, waxing lyrical about the benefits of preconception care, birth at home, family bed and more. I just kept adding odd comments - they all went down on a big tatty notepad. Twenty seven years on, with all the new whizz-bang technology and my embrace thereof, I still jot notes on pieces of paper, napkins, backs of invoices, whatever comes to hand when inspiration strikes.

So my first manuscript, which became four books began as occasional, random jottings. I can also remember trying to transcribe those jottings, using an early Apple Mac with a sleeping baby nestled in a sling - my hands reaching for the keyboard over the top of his head. It was a drawn out process, from Dave’s birth in 1985, to first submission of a complete manuscript in 1990, through rewrites after several rejections, to hook-up with my brilliant co-author, to our first contract in 1994, through another massive re-write, to publication of The Natural Way to Better Babies in 1996. After that the process was much easier, boys were older, I had more free time, I could write and edit while watching their sporting activities, even when Alex took them out and left me blissfully and totally free of interruptions for a few hours. But 'easier' is only relative to what went before... so that means that my most recent books, published this year have been an absolute breeze. Going back to the mass of material I’ve created for multiple channels (I never delete anything), the manuscripts were completed in about 8 weeks. 

But the greatest joy in their creation was the contribution of Dave (Better Baby #1) and his wife Pauline, both hugely talented chefs. Their recipes bring a fabulous element to both Healthy Parents, Healthy Baby and Healthy Parents, Healthy Toddler - an element which neither Francesca nor I were ever able to tackle. Another element of the new books, their integration with an interactive casual game, was helped along by many discussions and brain-storming sessions with Mikey, (Better Baby #2)! So my writing has really come full circle ... those years of trying to write while kids were underfoot are long gone and my latest writings have been hugely enhanced by those two young men who were once underfoot. Given that the boys inspired my books, I can see there's a wonderful balance between my writing and motherhood, in ways that I could never have anticipated and in ways I'm sure the Circle of Moms interviewer never intended when she asked the question!

Thursday, December 6, 2012

"The Menopause Trap"??

On my soapbox about the other end of a woman’s reproductive life today and I do get angry when journalists and health writers talk about menopause in terms that surely leave women wondering what they’re in for...

Today's SMH article really lays it on “it's something women dread”, “10 years of hot flushes”, “50 hot flushes a day”, “a time for anti-depressants” and so on. 

Nothing for it but to ignore the $1 billion Women's Health Initiative study and reach for the HRT!

I’m trusting Sydney Morning Herald won’t reject my comment which mentions Femmenessence by name, as a clinically researched natural alternative to HRT with documented positive effects on hormone levels (together with positive effects on hot flushes and all the other things that make this a trying time for so many women). 


But as usual, a product can only do so much and even though I plan to continue taking Femmenessence into the sunset (for my bones, heart and neurological function) I’m working hard at all the dietary, lifestyle and exercise elements that have made menopause not much more than a cessation of my menstrual cycle. And if I manage to find a publisher who isn’t terrified of the word menopause you’ll be able to read all about those self-help measures in a new book. Meanwhile, those measures are pretty much the same as the ones that support healthy conception and pregnancy

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Give us our daily bread

Good grief, now we have bread that will stay mould-free for 60 days! This "innovation" is the work of a research team looking to prevent food-borne illness. Apparently 48 million Americans become ill every year from eating contaminated food. The sterilisation process that can extend the shelf life of bread into the never-never is also being touted as a solution to the highly resistant bugs (e.g. Staph aureus) that inhabit hospitals. At the risk of sounding like a record stuck in a crack, I wonder if better gut health prevailed, would such large numbers fall ill from eating crook food? And another question? If the mould won't flourish on the sterilised bread, how would we fare? Commercially baked bread is already a victim of reduced protein content, refining, additives, preservatives and "extenders" - why anyone would want all of that then save it for 60 days is beyond me. I'm sticking to my freshly baked artisan loaf - organic, whole grain, all that good stuff. 

If you want to go one better, my son and beautiful daughter-in-law give you a recipe for Pauline’s Bread for Beginners
Nothing smells better and more appetising than freshly baked bread. If you’ve always thought bread making required the hand of an expert or at least a special bread-making machine, you’ll love this easy recipe that allows you to experiment with different flours and to add yummy seeds to the mix. You can find that recipe and lots more in Healthy Parents Healthy Baby. Click here, then click on Open the Book for a sample chapter



Tuesday, December 4, 2012

More good gut news

and great news for any breastfeeding Mum who has ever suffered from mastitis. Now a world-first, retail, probiotic product, isolated from breastmilk has been released in Australia. Even better is the fact that medicos are promoting it as an alternative to antibiotics. Mastitis is an extremely painful inflammation of the breast and a major reason that women stop breastfeeding, so a natural, immune-boosting product to treat it is a real advance. 

But I’m a great believer that prevention is a better way to go, even if treatment with probiotic is preferable to antibiotics, so I advocate establishing optimal gut health before conception and maintaining it during pregnancy. In fact, this was the subject of my February 2012 paper presented at the International Symposium: Probiotics and Prebiotics in Pediatrics, held in Istanbul Turkey. 


Prevention of mastitis aside, healthy gut microbiota is also a powerful contributing factor to optimal fertility and a full-term pregnancy, with other studies confirming that those optimal healthy bacteria in the mother have a role in reducing obesity and diabetes in her offspring.

Is your family getting your daily quota of the good guys that grow in the gut? Look for my best-of-breed product at Jan’s Picks.