Mom gets thrown off plane for breastfeeding her 22mo in Vermont, US

Online article here.

"...Gillette said she was seated in the second-to-last row, next to the window, when she began to breastfeed her daughter. Breastfeeding helps babies with the altitude changes through takeoff and landings, Gillette said. She said she was being discreet -- her husband was seated between her and the aisle -- and no part of her breast was showing.

Gillette said that's when a flight attendant approached her, trying to hand her a blanket and directing her to cover up. Gillette said she told the attendant she was exercising her legal right to breast-feed, declining the blanket. That's when Gillette alleges the attendant told her, "You are offending me," and told her to cover up her daughter's head with the blanket.

"I declined," Gillette said in her complaint.

Moments later, a Delta ticket agent approached the Gillettes and said that the flight attendant was having the family removed from the flight.

Gillette said she didn't raise her voice -- not wanting to make a scene in the current jumpy air travel atmosphere -- and complied with the ticket agent, crying as she exited the plane...."

There are laws to protect mothers' right to breastfeed in public, and they do not mention anything about being discreet. Basically if you want to breastfeed, as long as you have a right to be in that place, you CAN breastfeed.

Freedom Airlines' response in a separate post.

Food Poisoning...

HL started nausea and diarrhoea yesterday, I started this morning. We went to see our family doctor around noon, and were given Lacteol Fort and some medication for anti-spasms. Doc said Buscopan (a common anti-spasms med) should not be taken at this point because my intestines are trying to push the toxin out, which is why I get the spasms. So Buscopan will interfere with that and result is the toxin stays longer in my system.

I have been weak ever since I woke up (but still had to because had to get Ray ready for school) and thankfully my sister is on leave so she came over to entertain the kids (who, thankfully are fine) so we could both sleep. Thanks sis!

Argh... only fluids unless we were hungry and then plain porridge till we can keep things down. I couldn't help adding some pork floss to mine - else how to eat??

H20, here I come.

One Bowl Chocolate Cake

It looked really good... and was moist, not dry at all, and best of all, took me barely half an hour to whip up before putting it in the oven. However, I got a horrible shock when I took my first bite - it was not sweet at all! Whatever happened??

Of course the first thing anyone does is to look at the recipe again and think over what he did. I did a double take when I re-read the recipe - 2 cups of white sugar! I only added 2 tbsps! Whatever possessed me to read it as 2 tbsps instead of 2 cups!

And I'd wanted to give HL a nice chocolate cake as a wedding anniversary gift, after the lovely surprise present he got me last night. After dinner, the guy asked Ray to come alonga him to buy some lozenges, leaving the boy and me at home. They were gone rather long, so I figured they must have gone to Loyang Point to buy snacks or whatever. When they finally got back, Ray came in with a VERY secretive smile and something she was trying to hide (unsuccessfully) behind her back. When asked whether she had something for me, she nodded, grinned very widely, whipped out a plastic bag, handed it to me and said, "Happy Anniversary, Mommy".

Well, I'll be blowed! I'd totally forgotten the date! Heehee. It was a pair of handphone danglies (I dunno watcha call 'em), with a long strap so you can hang it round ya neck, Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise. Yeah, I'm nuts about NBC. One had a little Jack, the other was Sally. One each. And the whole long strap has glow-in-the-dark bats and skullheads on it, with an oblongish metal plaque with the official logo of NBC near the end. Need you ask? I ADORE it. Even more because it was such a pleasant surprise. I'm trying my best to describe it because I don't have any AA batteries to use with my camera now. Photo will be up asap.

So there goes my "pressie" - chocolate cake which does not taste the slightest bit sweet. Mom suggested drizzling honey, HL chocolate sauce, but I just want to CHUCK IT OUT, because I cannot bear anyone to remember this bitter choc cake I made and remember me for it (the way somebody remembers me for cheesecake, you know whom you are). I've spread some extra cream cheese frosting leftover from the carrot cake on it, but it only seems to make the cake taste more bitter.

YARRGH!

To Harvest Or Not To Harvest

from life@riang:

"I REFER to the article, 'Parents pin hopes on cord blood banks' (ST, Oct 12), on the rising number of parents who harvest their babies' cord blood.

As a mother and a childbirth educator, I feel that it is important that parents weigh carefully the risks and benefits of harvesting their baby's cord blood.

Cord blood should not be considered as 'waste', something to be thrown away if not harvested for storage in a cord-blood bank..."

Read more here.

Carrot Cake - 2nd try

It looks better after fridging - the cream cheese frosting didn't look so melty. Turned out great - except perhaps a little too moist or underbaked. I feel I could have drained the carrot, pineapple and raisins a little more so they weren't so... wet. But I dread to imagine what would have happened if I hadn't read the reviews and learnt that I have to drain the carrots. Recipe is Best Carrot Cake Ever from Allrecipes.com, with cream cheese frosting from somewhere on the same site.

My horrid first try at carrot cake was Awesome Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting which turned out so yucky that nobody could eat another bite after the first try and we threw the lot away. And we made a double batch! Moral of the story: always read the reviews first and try a single batch. Only attempt a bigger batch if you succeed at the first try.

Medical Knowledge Chapter 1

The first doc we saw at KKCH - Lydia Cheong, told us that children of women who have asthma will usually get it. If Dad has it but not Mom, then the likelihood is lower. So I, who still have asthma to this day, must not have any more children d:) (Ok this last part is my own, not the doctor's.)

I also learnt that:

1. Steroids eg. Prednisolone can help to suppress inflammation, but a side effect is that they also suppress your immune system.

2. Salbutamol (aka Ventolin) MDI (metered dose inhaler) cannot be addictive, although a lot of people, especially old folks, seem to believe so, and also that, once you start using that, you're done for and will be totally reliant on it. Instead, it is the steroids which are addictive.

3. The Chamber is definitely better than the Nebuliser when it comes to children, simply because a dose of the Neb will take at least 10-15 min, whereas the Chamber will only need less than 5. And when you have a Hercules who refuses to have anything put to his face, it makes all the difference. We would still be in trouble if KKCH did not use the Chamber.

4. Promethazine, amongst its other uses, is most commonly used as a cough suppressant, but this can only be given for dry cough. If the child has phlegm, suppressing the cough is a no-no.

5. Mucosol dissolves the phlegm and also works as an expectorant, so some people actually cough more after taking this.

6. Fluimucil dissolves the phlegm totally away, so it is more ideal for children (and perhaps adults too). We had to pay for this at the Emergency Pharmacy, so it is definitely outside the range of standard drugs. We didn't have to pay for the Salbutamol (MDI and syrup), Pred, Promethazine, or nose drops.

Yi - The Hospital Hours

On Monday, Ray was audibly wheezing and very breathless (lips pale), so we brought her to KKCH for emergency treatment. She was treated and fine from then on, except for the occasional cough and residual runny nose.

Then yesterday (Tuesday), Ruvie, who had been coughing and sniffling quite a bit the day before, suddenly seemed to be breathing very hard, so I fetched my stethoscope and, to my horror, heard wheezing in his lungs! After making a few calls to my family clinic and a family friend because HL was not reachable, I decided to pick the girls up early, send Faith home and head for CGH A&E. Thankfully, their teacher offered to send Faith home so I hauled Ray away. HL, who by this time had managed to get to his mobile, called and said he would try to get leave.

However, when we got to CGH, Ruvie simply refused to put on the nebuliser mask. But we managed, with a lot of fuss and crying as well as with the help of the orderly, to get him to take the prednisolone orally. Then the doctor decided she would pass our case to KKCH, so HL, who had arrived, drove us there.

It took a total of four adults to administer the Ventolin in the chamber. HL held his legs, I cradled him and held onto his arms, a nurse held his head firmly and another nurse held and administered the drug. He was so strong, and his face turned red from screaming and kicking. There was such a fuss that when we came back for the second cycle 20 min later, another group of nurses who were at the station knew that we would need reinforcements.

But it was worth going through the trauma (both Ruvie's and ours), because he was obviously very well after that. We were discharged with instructions to puff him and oral meds (more rounds to fight, not looking forward to it).

But later, shortly after the next puff at home, he was breathing very rapidly again, and after a bout of coughing, I detected wheezing, so we packed our bags, expecting to be admitted, and headed for KKCH AGAIN on this day. Now what was most UNexpected, was that Ruvie was totally fine by the time we got there. The senior doc decided we could go back, but gave us Prednisolone for the next few days, something which the earlier doc did not give, because she felt he didn't respond to the CGH dose, but instead was very receptive to Ventolin.

And since he fell asleep in the car on the way back, we decided not to wake him up and go through all the trauma of giving him the pred. He's been fine all night long.

So now it's time to wake him up and have round 5 or so of The Chamber.