Stressors in Life

• War
• Poverty
• Racism
• Natural disaster
• Isolation
• Hunger
• Noise
• Chaos
• Disease
• Environmental pollution
• Violence

The above list are all stressors that occur in life.  As a child, I did not grow up in an affluent neighborhood.  Growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan.  I grew up with a loving step mom and dad, and my mom was not really involved in my life.  I lived with 2 brothers and one sister.  I was the second oldest.  We had the basic necessities that every family needed.  Both my step mom and dad worked for Ford Motor Company.  Again, this was a working blue collar community.  I went to public schools in which there were four elementary schools, 1 middle school and 1 high school.  We did not suffer from a substantially high number of violence, but it was more than I would see where I currently live in Phoenix Arizona.  However, looking back, I realize that there was more violence growing up than I realized.  There was a time that we had a lock down in my neighborhood and the SWAT team was going through the homes on my street looking for a fugitive.  Drug deals were happening in the bathrooms of my high school, and gangs were known throughout the community.  I never felt like I was in danger, but I know now that it was not the safest place for me.  My dad did not keep us there for lack of trying.  Homes were not selling and we could not afford to move.  At the time, I compensated by fitting into my community by talking like I fit in.  I used street talk to get around.  Also, my younger brother (unfortunately) was a part of the "bad" crowd, so it kept me safe.  I didn't do anything that would make anyone angry and kept to myself.  I did move myself out of the neighborhood as soon as I was able to.  

A country in which I would be interested in visiting or finding out more about is England.  I have been looking at jobs for teaching in the country and have grown fascinated by its traditions and educational system.  Like any other city, there is violence and poverty that would be stressors for any child.  I enjoyed working in Phoenix last year and am interested if other countries are similar to ours.  Even though London does not seem much different, the more I research, the more I see how different it is.  The country itself is much more beautiful than anything that I have seen in the United States ( I have been to over 30 states).   It has amazing architecture, fascinating people, and beautiful countrysides.  England has a lot to offer in regards to history and education systems.  I would love to see how the children differ from American children.  

1 Little Word 1 Life Changing Impact

One topic that has had an impact in my life is the death of my youngest brother, Elijah, at age of three months.  It was a typical morning where my mother was getting ready for work at 5 am.  She checked on Elijah, changed his diaper, gave him a bottle, and he was falling off to sleep when my mother decided to take a shower.  After the ten minutes that she was in the shower, she came out to check on Elijah again and she immediately noticed his skin had turned and he was not breathing.  EMS was called and Elijah was pronounced dead at the hospital and the cause of death was Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS.  In other words no doctor knew what caused my brother to stop breathing and pass away, and since he was under the age of six months the staff attributed the death to SIDS.  It will be 13 years in September since my family's loss.  My mother still has not been able to cope with this loss.  Angrily my mother tells people that this is not something that you can "get over" as they say.  This death played a huge role in how our family grew from then on.  

Since there is not much know about SIDS, it is extremely important to me that more research is done to discover possible causes and how to take preventative measures.  Sadly, many infants are passing away from a syndrome that has no signs or symptoms of hitting.  This syndrome alone is one of the reasons that I am nervous of having my own children.  

Here is the data from the SIDS website:

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is one of the leading causes of death among infants one month through one year of age in the United States. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) defines SIDS as the sudden death of an infant under one year of age which remains unexplained after a thorough case investigation, including performance of a complete autopsy, examination of the death scene and review of the clinical history. SIDS is a diagnosis of exclusion, assigned only once all known and possible causes of death have been ruled out.

• SIDS claims the lives of almost 2,500 infants in the US each year - that's nearly 7 babies every day.
• SIDS is not caused by "baby shots."
• SIDS deaths occur unexpectedly and quickly to apparently healthy infants, usually during periods of sleep.
• SIDS is not caused by suffocation, choking, or smothering.
• SIDS is not caused by child abuse or neglect.
• SIDS is not contagious.
• SIDS occurs in families of all races and socioeconomic levels.
• SIDS cannot be predicted or prevented and can claim any baby, in spite of parents doing everything right.

http://www.cjsids.org/resource-center/what-is-sids-suid.html

American SIDS Website:  http://www.sids.org/

SIDS Statistics


International Statistics:

Compared to rates in other developed countries, the U.S. SIDS rate remains high. For example, in 2005, the U.S. rate ranked second highest (after New Zealand) among 13 countries in a research study by Fern Hauck and Kawai Tanabe. The lowest SIDS rates among these countries were in the Netherlands and Japan.

It is important to note that the age of inclusion for SIDS varies from country to country, with some countries defining SIDS as occurring from age 1 week to age 1 year, while others use a range from birth to age 1 year or another range. The authors state that it is likely to be a small effect because the number of SIDS deaths occurring in the first week of life and after age 1 year are very small.

Since SUID rates are not provided in these research findings, it is also unclear whether those rates may have increased as the SIDS rates declined (as has happened in the United States in recent years).

The decline in the SIDS rate in all of these countries is reflected in the overall decline in postneonatal mortality, and, as with the United States, higher rates of these declines occurred earlier in the risk-reduction campaigns in those respective countries.

http://www.sidscenter.org/Statistics.html

Since this has been such a deadly syndrome without any cause or much data on it, I would consider studying this at a future date.  SIDS is not thought about a lot, because it seems like it will never affect you.  It always happens to "those" people and you feel bad.  With the personal experience there is a drive to find out what caused my brother's death and what can be done to prevent it from happening to another family.  

Wonderful World of Child Birth

Thus far in my life, I have not had the joy or experience to give birth to a child.  Many of my friends have had children, my siblings all have at least one child, but I have never experienced a live childbirth.  I have been in the waiting room for multiple nieces and nephews.  I have been to the hospital several hours after a child was born and even once in a NICU for several days.  Thus I cannot say that I have personally experienced this miracle of life as it is proclaimed to be.  However the most recent birth that I was in the hospital waiting room for was my nephew, who just turned one in January.  This was my sister in laws third child, but she was having many complications.  She was not gaining much weight, but the baby was growing larger and larger.  She developed gestational diabetes, but she herself only gained 10 pounds.  Her blood pressure was high and she was constantly in pain.  In the beginning of December my nephew was already at the size he should have been for birth.  He was not due until the end of January.  Two months early the doctors were going to take him.  One thing led to another and the doctors decided to have my sister in law keep in the baby in.  After a few more weeks of this, my nephew was finally educed 3 weeks early.  He was having problems breathing and heart issues so he was placed in the NICU.  He was the largest baby in there, but was having so many complications.  As I sat with him for hours in the unit and looking at him compared to the other babies, I wondered what would happen to him.  Would these heart and lung issues prevent him from doing many childhood activities such as sports?  Would he be able to breathe at night without the worry of him stopping and not starting again?  I wondered what critical weeks of development he was missing and what it would mean for health issues in the future.  As of today, my nephew is a healthy baby boy.  He is actually in the top percentile for weight and height.  He is developing normally (he took his first steps today!) and could not be a happier baby!

In America we have the luxury of giving birth in a hospital, many pre-natal visits and pre-natal vitamins.  Along with the comforts of the hospital, women are able to choose to get an epidural for the pain, thus making childbirth even easier.  There is the option for home birth and mid wives that are trained to do so, but many Americans prefer the hospital route.
In poorer countries, hospitals are not an option.  Children are delivered at home without the use of medical tools or equipment, there are no vitamins or multiple doctor visits, and yet these children survive as well.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0017155

Note of Thanks

Thank you to all of my colleagues for your kind words and support throughout this course.  It has been a pleasure and a delight to work with professionals that have the same passion for children as I do.  All of you have been extremely influential and informative with various aspects of Early Childhood.