MenGetPregnantToo

From Voiceboks.com: A Parental Airlock Can Work Wonders

As an invited blogger to Voiceboks.com:

A Parental Airlock Can Work Wonders

"What Do I Do While You're Pregnant?" Encourages Understanding of the Parent-In-Waiting

My new book, "What Do I Do While You're Pregnant?" is now available on Amazon.com (paperback and Kindle).
It is a refurbished, reworked and updated version of a previous publication, which originally took the name of this blog, "Men Get Pregnant, Too."
One of my primary reasons for undertaking the updating of the book ,which I had spend so many hours writing and babying through the publishing process, was, in fact, the title. 
If I were nearby to explain the story to moms in the store, or they gratefully took the time to read it, they found it was like no other parenting book they had read. "I had no idea dads felt that way!" was a common reaction. Otherwise, upon seeing a book, writing by a dad, titled "Men Get Pregnant, Too," they would guffaw, drop it back on the table , and pronounce, "No they don't!"

Indeed, we don't. But male pregnancy was a metaphor for the angst felt by any first-time parent, be they adoptive, or expecting a baby being carried by a same-sex partner or a surrogate.
There is no such thing as feeling detached while waiting to become a mom or a dad.
Hopefully, this relaunch will encourage moms and dads to read the book together, and spark a new discussion about how men, or other parents-to-be who are not carrying their child through pregnancy, experiences those nine months of gestation.
To order for yourself, or as a gift, just click below!

"What Do I Do While You're Pregnant?"

Many parenting books deal with pregnancy and mothers-to-be.
Some mention fatherhood or focus on the humorous side of a dad who is all thumbs.
This book is a unique story by an expectant dad who is remarkably candid about how terrifying and overwhelming it is for BOTH parents to become responsible for a baby for the first time. It is respectful of both sexes; remarkably aware of of the incomparable experience of physically carrying a baby for nine months, as well as how confusing it is for a father-to-be on the sidelines wrestling with how to voice his insecurities.
How does he encourage and comfort his wife, while also balancing and expressing his own worries about becoming a first-time parent? When he is told he should be 100% involved in the pregnancy, what does that mean? Can he insist on knowing the baby's sex? Should he be planning his own baby shower? Who can he talk to about the overwhelming job of being the source of information for an entire extended family?

"What Do I Do While You're Pregnant?" is an honest and touching book by a dad-to-be wrestling to find his place. He balances news of his possible infertility and his pregnant wife's medical emergencies with his own phantoms symptoms and sleepless nights. This funny and poignant story respects an experience which is unique to both first-time parents.

 

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My Daughter and I React to James Harrison's Trophy Return - CTV National

CTV National News reporter Vanessa Lee stopped by my home yesterday to talk to my daughter and me about James Harrison.
The NFLer returned his sons' participation trophies because he felt they hadn't really earned them; after all, real men don't get trophies for showing up; they have to beat somebody first.

In Ms. Lee's report, my daughter and I share our views. In addition to what was said on camera, here are some additional benefits/philosophies, in my opinion, regarding participation awards:

• AVOIDING SHAME: When a child sits in a group at the end of a sporting season, there are few things more shame-inducing than being left with your legs crossed watching others receive awards while you are reminded you didn't make the grade.
  
  
• PRIDE OFF THE FIELD: As those small medals and trophies accumulate, not only will it encourage a child to participate the following year. They are a badge of honour to be recognized by peers and friends and family. Though you may not have won the championship, the hardware on the book shelf still make you feel like a player, which feels good.

• DISAPPOINTMENT WILL COME, DON'T WORRY: If the kid has real potential, disappointment will be part of the learning process, don't worry. If he or she starts ascending to an elite level, at some point they will be hitting .348, but be fighting a kid hitting .350 for a spot in the line up. If a child scores 9.25, there will be one spot left on the team for someone who can manage a 9.50. Want to feel pressure? Talk to someone just missed making it out of the NFL combine because their 40-yard dash was a couple of tenths too slow. They won't need Dad to explain their failures, but they will need him for a comforting ride home.
   
• RETURNING THE TROPHY = DAD'S NOT REALLY PROUD: "My dad's making me give this back." Nice. If a child learns that, unless they win, they are not worthy of recognition by their parents, how will they feel the next time they drop the ball, or miss the dive, or fall during the routine? "Boy, I hope my dad wasn't watching," or, "Boy, I hope Mom doesn't find out."

Home should be a safe place; a place where, regardless of failures through childhood (or adulthood), our sons and daughters can drag their hanging chins through the front door and be welcomed and consoled. The participation trophy is a hug from a coach. Dad's should be allowed to return hugs to the league's head office. 

CTV report: NFLer Harrison returns participation trophies his sons received for 'nothing'. 

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CTV Montreal: Beaconsfield Boys Turn the Tables on Syncro Swiming

Here is a report from CTV Montreal's Kevin Gallagher featuring a group of young boys from the Beaconsfield area who insisted on forming their own syncro team.
As someone who grew up trying to fit in as young male figure skater, I think this is a fantastic example of how shifting gender roles can empower both sexes.

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What Parents Don't Know About About Concussions Could Be Life-Threatening

This week, the NFL and the CFL have announced they will introduce a new sideline concussion test this season. The NFL was founded 1922. The CFL had its genesis as the Canadian Rugby Football Union in 1884.
These sports have been around for more than a century. Finally, with a not-so-delicate push by documentaries such as League of Denial  and lawsuits brought by former players suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., professional sports organizations are beginning to admit what they don't know about concussions.

Now, children should hope there is a trickle-down effect to coaches, and especially parents.

I suffered a concussion at the age of 12. I regained cognitive function while standing in my living room, unable to explain the scrapes down the right side of my body. 
I had apparently been in a bicycle accident. After spending 24 hours in a hospital observation room—being awoken every hour—I returned home, and resumed my regular sporting activities a short while later.
That course of treatment could have killed me.
It would not really have been anybody's fault. Little was understood about concussions in 1984, or 1994, or even 2004.
But, in 2015, there are fewer and fewer excuses for coaches, doctors, trainers, and parents to rely on when they send an athlete back onto the field after they've suffered a head injury, as minor as it may seem at the time.
Knowing that, there will still be young hockey, rugby, and football players (three of the most violent sports as far as concussions are concerned) who will be told to "Man up!" or to "Get back out there!" because "Everybody gets hit; it's part of the game."

John Boulay is a certified athletic therapist, a part-time professor at Concordia University's Department of Exercise Science and Athletic Therapy, and teaches Advanced Emergency Care in Sports.  
He is also part of an provincial body studying concussions.
His first suggestion, even before I began the interview, was to post this great YouTube concussion primer, put together by Doctor Mike Evans: 

 

 

Mr. Boulay emphasizes how difficult it is to diagnose a concussion, especially for parents. The real problem is, if you aren't careful, you could be ignoring a dangerous situation.

As hard as it may be, it cannot be left up to (parents) to decide when our children are free to return to the field.
Why? Because a concussion hides a potential life-threatening entity.

Somebody hits their head, and they have all these concussion signs. Is it a concussion? We’re not sure, we’ll tell you in one week if it was.
If you survive the next 20 or 30 minutes, you’re okay.
The next timeline is the next 3 to 4 hours; you’re okay.
The next 24 hours? You’re okay.
This continues for up to 4 to 5 to 6 days.

These guidelines, he mentions, are in place for anyone, over the age of 25.
For anyone younger than that, the wait period extends to two weeks because the frontal area of the brain only matures between the ages of 20 and 30.
It is imperative that parents and coaches are able to identify the signs and symptoms of a concussion in children.
There are 22 of them:

    - Headache                                 - Nausea
    - Balance Problems                 - Dizziness
    - Fatigue                                     - Sleep more than usual
    - Drowsiness                             - Sensitivity to Light
    - Sensitivity to Noise               - Irritability
    - Sadness                                   - Nervousness
    - Feeling more Emotional      - Feeling slowed down
    - Feeling "foggy"                       - Difficulty Concentrating
    - Difficulty Remembering      - Visual Problems
    - Getting confused                   - Clumsy
    - Answering questions more slowly.

Of course, John Boulay explains, it's important to understand how these symptoms compare to your child's baseline behavior. If your son or daughter normally gets headaches in a moving car, or has a habit of being a little clumsy, you would look for these signs to be worse than usual.
So, you child gets tackled heavily, or is the recipient of some other form of head trauma on the field, and they exhibits any of these signs or symptoms for only a day or two, Boulay warns against shrugging it off and saying "Oh, they're fine. They can play again on Sunday."

Your job as a parent is to recognize these signs and symptoms of a concussion. If they abide within 15 minutes, don’t worry about it (they don't need to go to a hospital). But they’re still off for two weeks. Even if he’s fine after 15 minutes.
We don’t know if it’s an evolving catastrophe or not. And we don’t know if those symptoms are going to pile onto each other.
The new protocol is to have an asymptomatic week, and it is now "Return to Learn" before "Return to Play".
"Return to Learn" is a return to cognitive function. (After one week) you have to be able to read, you have to be able to focus, you have to able to do homework assignments, and exams (symptom free).
There’s another phenomenon, which is outside the concussion realm, it’s called “Second Impact Syndrome.”
It’s not a bleed, because bleeds are what we usually die of. You don’t die from a concussion, except for this rare phenomenon.
What happens is, when a child hits their head a second time while they still have symptoms, there is a great amount of swelling to the point where it’s pushing so hard it’s herniating the brain and causing extreme congestion….intracranial pressure.
The second impact only happens if you play with symptoms.

IGNORING THE SYMPTOMS, OR HIDING THEM FROM PARENTS OR COACHES CAN BE FATAL

I’ve been a therapist at judo camp for 22 years. In my 22 years we’ve had 2 deaths—a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old—exactly for the reason I’m talking about. Not a second impact, but rather going back and not being monitored. The 16-year-old in Manitoba hit his head, told his parents, but never told the coach. He went back, hit his head again two days later and died. An epidural bleed.
The second one, in Alma, Quebec in 1997, hit his head, told his parents, but never told the coach. He went back. He didn’t hit his head again, he just started jogging to warm up for judo, and the clot dislodged and he died.
In those two cases, if they had been withheld, they would have been alive. So that’s why we only know after a week.
It used to be, since 2001, a six to seven day layoff. As of last year, more literature is coming, it’s changing all the time. It’s now two weeks for anyone under 25-years-old. One week "Return to Learn" before "Return to Play."

If the symptoms continue to worsen within the first fifteen minutes, or the child vomits three times within the first twenty-four hours, he or she should be taken to the hospital.
Otherwise, they can be kept at home, and monitored. But, even how parents should monitor their child has evolved. No more waking them up every hour or two overnight.

At the time of injury, you take the signs and symptoms. If they’re okay 2 or 3 hours later, they’re probably okay to go to bed. Two hours later you go and see that they’re okay, that they’re not seizing, that they don’t have one eye open. Or, if they’re awake, you’ll know why they don’t feel well the next day; because they didn’t sleep well all night.
For now, you leave them be, you go and check on them in two hours, and then you go and check on them in four hours.
Then 24, 48, and 72 hours. It takes six or seven days to find the evolution. What you want is to see the symptoms (improving). If they’re not doing well, then you have to get yourself to a concussion clinic.

BUT WHAT ABOUT PARENTS WHO SAY, "BUT LOOK AT HIM, HE'S FINE!"

There’s two things. If he has active symptoms, he could dislodge a clot; he could recommence a bleed. So you can have an acute evolving catastrophe. Or you’re adding more sub-concussive hits to an already accumulating problem. After they’ve had two or three in a row, it doesn’t take much; the threshold decreases. The next hit they have, instead of having a little concussion, they’re going to have a big one, and this can throw a kid’s life out of whack for weeks, for months, for years.

DO HELMETS PREVENT CONCUSSIONS?

Helmets can help reduce the impact, but there is no helmet that will help reduce the incidents of a concussions. You can still get skull fractures, too. If you're skiing at 30 km/h and hit a tree (with a helmet), you’re going to get a concussion. Maybe it helps with a reduction, but is won’t prevent it 100%. With the mechanisms of injury, you don’t have to hit your helmet; you can hit your chin, you can fall on your buttocks. It’s the brain hitting against the inside of its cell.

John mentions a frightening statistic: two out of three concussions are not properly diagnosed and treated. Which means those children are returning to play before their brains have healed. 
It's one thing to be your child's cheerleader, it's another to push them past the point of what is safe and logical.

Listen, concussions happen. We’re not going to put the kids in a padded room. Play rugby, and football, and all that. But, play by the rules. And the rules are: you cross the line, you’re out. You have concussion signs? You’re out for two weeks. It’s only 2 weeks! It’s only a game.
Especially elite athletes. Why are they going to school? You want to leave with a degree, right? You want to leave with more intelligence than you came in with.
It is not worth it. I’ve worked at the professional and the Olympic level. I will pull my kid out. It’s an Olympic Games? I don’t care. People will look at me, “You can’t. This is so important.” I’m the advocate for the kid, I should protect the kid; I should be sued if I don’t do that.
Parents should be even more careful than I am.

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