Poverty

     The stressor I chose was poverty, I chose this stressor because of a person that I knew in jr high and high school. My friend, Luna, grew up very poor in a 1 bedroom apartment in a poor part of town with her mom and her two sisters. I met this family through my church, and I got along well with Luna, I chose this family because my family helped them out a lot. My family gave Luna weekly rides to church and youth group bought food for and helped them out when we could. I believe in a normal situation like this, the person would be grateful for the help and appreciate a good friend, that was not the case. Luna eventually became a spoiled brat, she was consistently expecting my family to buy her food and give her rides whenever she wanted. She would complain when we had to leave somewhere when the event ended instead of hanging out more with friends. It got to the point where I did not want to hang out with her because I just felt like she just wanted things from me. I was by no means rich or necessarily had money, but my parents always made sure we could afford food and special stuff once in a while. Eventually, I started to tell her no when she asked for a ride or when she wanted something from me, I just wasn’t able to support both of us. Once I stopped giving Luna everything she wanted, we drifted apart, and slowly, we were no longer friends. I share this story because I think it is important to understand that sometimes people aren’t always grateful, and we can’t just continue to give them what they want. Luna coped with poverty by finding someone to help her and then taking advantage of them, it has been so long now that I don’t remember if they received any help from the state.

     I chose to look more into Ireland about poverty, I discovered that over 760,000 are living in poverty, with 230,000 of those being children (https://www.socialjustice.ie/content/policy-issues/more-760000-people-are-living-poverty-ireland-which-over-230000-are-children). Social welfare has helped decrease the amount of poverty in Ireland a lot, and they are still trying to come up with a solution to poverty. Ireland has published 10 policy proposals in order to help reduce poverty (https://www.socialjustice.ie/content/policy-issues/more-760000-people-are-living-poverty-ireland-which-over-230000-are-children). The recommendation to address children poverty is as follows:

* Maintaining adequate adult welfare rates is vital to ensure that low-income families do not fall below the poverty line.

* Child benefit remains a key route to tackling child poverty, especially for those families on the lowest incomes.  It is also a very effective component in any strategy to improve equality and childcare.

* Decent rates of pay and conditions are extremely important to support working parent.   Individuals working full time should be able to earn enough income to provide a decent standard of living for their families – a minimum acceptable standard of living.

* Many working families on low earnings struggle to achieve a basic standard of living.  Making tax credits refundable is an efficient and cost-effective solution to help working families on low earnings (https://www.socialjustice.ie/content/policy-issues/effects-child-poverty-are-deep-and-long-lasting).

           Poverty and homelessness has a lasting on effect on children, a study showed that children in poverty have a varied and complex issues (https://www.socialjustice.ie/content/policy-issues/effects-child-poverty-are-deep-and-long-lasting). I was shocked to learn this information when I think of poverty, I typically have not thought of the effect on the children. I was surprised to learn how much poverty can affect children, not just temporarily but for life. I am glad to see that Ireland is working on their poverty and are making children a priority.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

I choose to focus on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), this is a public health topic that is meaningful to me. This is meaningful to me because it is something that suddenly happens with no warning. When I had my first child I was terrified of SIDS, I was consistently checking on my child to make sure he was still breathing. The first few weeks of his life, my husband and I took shift; I stayed up until about 2am with him, and my husband was up with him after 2am. Now we are both able to sleep while our child is sleeping, and we trust he is safe. I believe it is vital to raise awareness about SIDS and things that can be done to prevent SIDS. Things that parents can do that helps prevent SIDS is placing the infant on their back to sleep, having nothing in the crib with the infant, keeping the room at a comfortable temperature to prevent overheating, breastfeed the infant, and offer them a pacifier (https://safetosleep.nichd.nih.gov/). Those are just a few things that can be done to prevent SIDS, although nothing is guaranteed prevention.  In 2017 about 1,400 children died from SIDS in the United States, the United States has a 6.2 deaths per 1,000 live births. (https://www.cdc.gov/sids/data.htm). After much research, I found that Japan and the Netherlands have the lowest SIDS rate of 2.8 pre 1,000 live births. The reason that the SIDS rates are so low is from breastfeeding and shared sleeping (https://www.romper.com/p/why-are-asian-babies-least-likely-to-die-of-sids-all-cultures-are-different-49423). Shared sleeping is frowned upon in the United States, but in Japan, it is encouraged and has many beneficial factors and does not affect the child’s independence (https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-levine-cosleeping-bedsharing-global-20160916-snap-story.html). This is important to know in for my future work because I work at a preschool that has children from 6 weeks- 5 years old. As an educator, it is my job to educate parents on safe sleep and how to do it. After learning that Japan has lowered SIDS rates, and they share sleep, I will be sharing this information with the parents I work with. I believe they should be educated on this topic so that they can choose what is best for them. This information is also essential to know for the children sleeping at the preschool, this way I can help prevent SIDS there as well.

My Birthing Experience

I recently had a baby about 5 months ago at the end of July, my pregnancy was a healthy pregnancy until about 30 weeks when I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Due to this, I was induced at 40 weeks, my baby did not want to come out on his own. I had to go into the hospital at night to try to get me to at least 1 or 2cm dilated before starting me on Pitocin. I slept through the night as much as I could for being in a hospital, and the nurse checking on me every 2 hours. My doctor came in to check on me and decided I was far enough to break my water and start the Pitocin. Once this happened, my contractions came on strong every two minutes, at this point, I decided to get an epidural because I had no idea how long this would last. From the time they broke my water to me, giving birth was 11 ½ hours, which I am grateful it wasn’t longer than that. It was such an amazing experience; it was unlike anything I had experienced. I remember hearing his cry for the first time and thinking that I was so happy he was crying an healthy.

I chose this experience because it is my own birthing experience as well as it is the most recent one. I also like putting it out there that I had gestational diabetes so that I can be a resource for anyone else who is going through it. Birth impacts child development because what happens during birth can change the child’s life forever, the baby could get dropped when it comes out and get damaged. I think that it can also predict how a child is going to act, my child was too stubborn to come out, and he’s only 5 months and acts stubborn.

I chose to look into births from Thailand, I learned that most deliveries do happen in a hospital or a clinic, but home births are quite popular as well. A home birth is different then what I chose, I chose to have my baby at the hospital. I find home births quite interesting, but also scary I am terrified that something might go wrong. If something goes wrong in a hospital, I am already there to receive immediate treatment, whereas if something goes wrong at home, I have to wait until I arrive at the hospital for treatment. No two births are the same, and each women’s birthing story is unique, I find it interesting hearing others birth stories and comparing it to mine and seeing the difference. For some women, childbirth is traumatic, and for others, it is a cakewalk, I find it interesting hearing about both situations.