How confident are you in this parenting lark? Illness in particular

[PacificDogwod]

I tried to start a similar thread a year or two ago. In AIBU. And got my arse handed to me - fair enough.

But I cannot help myself as I think about this a fair bit and over and over again, but am unsure whether it's just me or a general change in society:

The vast majority of young children (say, under 10 years old) will have childhood illnesses, cough, colds, upset stomachs, chicken pox and the likes. How well prepared do you feel to parent your DCs though these episodes of what in the greater scheme of things are minor illnesses, but can be jolly miserable for ALL concerned? How confident are you that you can differentiate the 'miserable, but not dangerously ill' child from 'needs to be checked out' to 'I better call 999 now' situation?

Personally, I find unwell children quite scary - personally and professionally. The younger, the more scary, because the younger they are the more unstable their state can be and the quicker they can change (from good to bad, and from bad to good). It is always better to err on the side of caution, but I have experience of quite serious parental anxiety at the first cough or spike of temperature.
I wonder how our forebears felt about their unwell children? When they had less opportunity to have them checked out or do anything much about their symptoms? Where they as frightened?

I dunno.
Give me your perspective.

Well, our forebears would have 12 children and hope for four to make it to adulthood.
I have an only. Something awful might happen to him but generally I feel it's reasonable to expect him to survive childhood illnesses.

I'm pretty laid back but I think that's cause I know there's a children's hospital with a&e barely a 15min drive away. I know kids can go downhill quickly but help isn't far away here.
If I lived on a remote island in the Hebrides I'd be more alert I think.
Also I always double check with dh and I trust him as another sensible pov.

I don't tend to panic and am quite rational in a crisis (I've done cpr on a traffic accident victim in the street). I'm quite amazed how panicky people on mn can get about everything in life, not just children's health.

I am not very anxious about my DC, possibly verging on underreacting. They seem quite unusual amongst my friends (oldest is 6) for never having been to A&E.
I've rarely taken them to the GP - a couple of times it has been 'justified' (antibiotics for an ear infection and once for impetigo), a couple of times I was very worried about them and just got reassurance/they were essentially fine - once a small baby with a fever and dramatic rash, but it was a fairly harmless virus, and once one of them had vomitted for a few days and was refusing to drink anything, and had become floppy, but we were sent on our way and told to syringe water into his mouth.

Hopefully I would recognise if they were seriously ill or injured.

george your posts were really interesting to read, there is a definitely an element in my own under reactiveness of no longer wanting to engage with GPs.

Part of this does stem from taking DTD2 to the GP, as they have on many occasions been extremely dismissive. Then when she is seen by the consultant at the hospital (seen for ongoing complications related to extreme prematurity) the consultant then questions WHY I haven't sorted out any of these minor niggles with the GP. Basically because they always imply that I am exaggerating the very health problems that she still sees the consultant for!

I would have to be in quite a lot of pain before I tried to get a GP appointment for myself. I so often find the experience to be belittling or unpleasant. I can never forget some of the things that were said to me by GPs and health visitors in the wake of the twins' birth, so unnecessarily cruel.

So I am now under reactive in health matters, yet wracked with guilt over every single other field especially when it comes to DTD2. Despite having had four children in total now, I always feel that I am messing up every single aspect. Happy days!

Is it because medicine can achieve so much? If we were living in a world where all we can do is make then as comfortable as possible and hope for the best, we wouldn't have to worry about if we (or the doctor) are doing the best thing for them

I'm a worrier and I go into almost panic mode when my children are unwell. Although in getting better.

I tend to watch them constantly when they are unwell, the thermometer and calpol in reach at all times.

Everyone else seem to cope much better with this than me

I'm relatively calm now that they are older. I found working out what was wrong with an inconsolable baby very hard, and in retrospect ended up with a couple of emergency GP appointments unnecessarily. I've only gone to A&E three times. Once on the advice of my GP (foreign body in foot, couldn't stand on it), once for an infected injection site that was spreading up her leg as I watched, and once for a fall on to her head from a climbing frame.

I think what I have, and not everyone does, is a partner who is calm and sensible. In the middle of the night when dd2's temperature hits 40 and won't go below 39 even with Calpol and Calprofen, he reminds me this is what she does when she's ill. We monitor every three hours and keep her topped up with medicine. But if I was on my own with no advice and that happened for the first time, I think I would be tempted call OOH.

I think I have a pretty good grasp of what constitutes a GP visit worthy event. DS(7) has had a variety of fairly standard childhood illnesses: Chickenpox, slapped cheek and a variety of other viral rashy-type illnesses, vomiting bugs and colds.
I've only taken him to the gp twice - once because an attempt to remove a verruca went a bit wrong and he ended up with an infected toe (too much bazuka=chemical burn + public swimming baths and leaky verruca sock...)

The first time I took him though it took 3 visits before I was taken seriously. He was 14 mths and had had a cold for over a week and was getting some pretty alarming temp spikes (39.8 and not really dipping below 37.6/7 even when cycling ibuprofen and paracetamol 2hrly), massively reduced appetite and wheezy/rattley breathing. I was told viruses don't need ABS - which I said I knew but surely there was more going on. Nope - 'give it 24hrs'. Next day I went back - exactly the same presentation, except possibly even more difficult to get his temp down. Sent away again. Went in the next day and purposely didn't give DS his ibuprofen dose so he had a temp spike in the appointment of 40. GP got a snr gp in who packed us off to a&e. Chest xray etc: DS had pneumonia. Given ABS and was already rallying after 4hrs so we could go home.
I just wish I'd pushed harder at the earlier visits.

I do use the Internet to help me diagnose - however my education was mostly in scientific subjects so I think I'm fairly well balanced at weighing evidence etc. If I wasn't as sciency it could become pretty overwhelming and it's easy to see how people focus on the worst possible outcomes and end up 'overusing' the NHS.

Colleague told a story... as a fellow parent he was asked to look at a very poorly 2yr old. Within seconds, Colleague knew the child was gravely ill, quelled his own alarm to calmly say:
"Yes I agree your son is very ill. You must take him to hospital right now."
Turned out the boy had meningitis, lot of treatment, but came thru ok.

Colleague says that having established a benchmark for Dangerously Ill, he's now a lot more relaxed when his own kids are unwell.

You sound like a great GP Pacific

Pacific I think I find it harder as a HCP to know what to do with my DD. (Day job is as a gas monkey). I only see the ABSOLUTELY sickest people in resus or theatres in emergencies, so if DD isn't at that stage, I usually think that she's ok. It's totally screwed my POV. I only ended up taking her to A&E once with wheeze when her resp rate was dangerously high and I texted a friend, who prompted me to take her in. She was admitted for 2 days .

From what I have read, our forbears often panicked far more quickly and were more worried by even minor colds. Understandably so- with no antiobiotics, anything that might turn into pneumonia or blood-poisoning takes on a whole different aspect.

Living in a world where the best you can hope for is for 4 out of 12 children to survive doesn't make you care any less about the actual baby that is languishing in your arms.

Living in a world where the best you can hope for is for 4 out of 12 children to survive doesn't make you care any less about the actual baby that is languishing in your arms.

That's for sure

But it's the paradox I mean: we are far more likely to see all our children reach adulthood, but worry more over less serious illnesses IYSWIM?

TheTombsone, I try, I do. It's a great job.

Avatar, yes, I have done similar, only took DS2 in when I realised his hr was so fast I could not count it...

Just pondering a bit more about forebears: one of my grandmothers had each and every one of us grandchildren dead and buried at the first sneeze. But it would never have occurred to her to rock up at a doctors - instead she subjected us to her hot onion juice - nobody dared cough in her presence.
She never went near a doctor either AFAIK - and died v quickly in her 70s of an advanced stomach cancer that she had concealed as it turned out for a long time.
Hm.
Nothing as complex and fascinating as people.

Pacific, I suppose whether you rocked up at a doctor's or not would depend partly on whether you could afford it pre-NHS and partly on how much you trusted doctors.

My FIL used to tell anecdotes about how his doctor diagnosed his pneumonia as broken ribs and prescribed whisky as the treatment. Under those circumstances there might not be a direct correlation between worrying about health= visiting doctor.

Yes, quite.

Cost would have been a huge deterrent, but also the perception that seeing the doctor = being at death's door.

Thank goodness none of us here have to chose between feeding out children or seeing a doctor.
Can you imagine?!

our

Try living in a country without the nhs . Op you will never not be able to seek treatment. Children and old people die from lack of treatment. Stop being so introspective judging, intolerant and condescending

Interesting question In the "old" days they definitely had more friends and neighbours and communities and "common knowledge" around them.

They also had fewer identified diseases and simply no way to look or treat them. It was all a great unknown, so mostly they'd have had folk remedies and then people in authority telling them to pray about it, pay money to priests, leave it to god's will etc.

There are medieval poems and Tudor diaries which I read yonks ago which showed that at least some parents worried frantically at most things - they wrote the symptoms down and any "remedies" they knew of. And they were heartbroken when they lost their little ones.

They didn't have access to doctors like we do, but I bet if they did they'd have used them the same way.

So I don't think people have necessarily got more anxious, they just have different, scientific ways of tackling it now, and they know that a physical or emotional problem fixed in childhood can change someone's whole life.

(And of course they didn't have social services potentially on their doorstep if they didn't look after their kids.)

myoriginal3, eh?

So I don't think people have necessarily got more anxious, they just have different, scientific ways of tackling it now, and they know that a physical or emotional problem fixed in childhood can change someone's whole life.

Yes, I think that's true.

We are quite relaxed about our dds in general including health, but most of my family are doctors so we could always call someone for advice! Also I think I have more idea of what to look for than most people.

My dp were typical doctors growing up, no sympathy and never a day off school. They didn't notice I'd broken a bone! They do help out lots now when I've been in/just out of hospital with my asthma.

The dog is very good at telling when someone needs urgent treatment! Doesn't care about minor illnesses/man flu etc. wasn't that bothered after DH had surgery. So if she is worried- I would be too!! Anyone else find this?

odfo myoriginal
there is plenty of middleground between nhs and no health system at all.
tbh across europe the nhs has a pretty dire reputation.

DP is anxious, I am calm. But then DP genuinely does have Ishoos with health worries - he has OCD tendencies (I mean he has actually been diagnosed, not a cute way of saying he's a worrier) but is pretty functional and has been for decades. I am fairly pragmatic by nature and knowing DP will be the other end of the spectrum, I know I need to be the calm one. I try to be the one who Googles so that it doesn't Feed The Anxiety Beast.

Between us, we probably make up one fairly balanced view. When DS had an issue that really did require A&E, DP wanted to keep pushing and going to the GP, I was inclined to wait & watch. DP was right, and after a couple of days of GP visits they referred us on to A&E where DS was then admitted and spent the next week in hospital. I felt bad about that, but I am not sure in hindsight how close it was - if we'd taken him to the GP a day later, then I don't know if they'd have referred to A&E on first visit, or if it took the repeated visits where he was getting worse.

tbh across europe the nhs has a pretty dire reputation

Yes, that is true.
Some of it is deliberate, politically motivated misinformation.
But yes, there are lots of possible health care models worldwide.

I'll just leave this here - but the relative merits or demerits of the NHS is not what this thread is about.

The nanny coldsore thread has a lot of the (for lack of a better word) anxiety that I mean on it.

Thinking about the good old/bad old days, I think you are all right: people probably worried just the same but had less access to healthcare, or could not afford it, or there was nothing anybody could have done anyway.

Sorry to derail but wanted to say thanks awhistlingwoman for your comments you summed up how I feel in your post, much better than I could! I too feel a lot of guilt now that I don't probably seek treatment for minor things for dd when other parents probably do. I'm like you, completely scarred by the things said to me by hcps when I was very vulnerable. It's not a nice situation is it? And I'm guessing none of them even know the affect they had on us, or indeed that they were completely wrong on their assessment of us as neurotic mums (how would they ever find out that months later you were diagnosed or you child was diagnosed with x?)