So i was led to believe that exclusively breastfed babies below the age of one had excellent immunity against germs and viruses. Or perhaps it is true for most but here is four month old Asher, coughing away sounding exactly like me in one of my 100 day cough episodes. Poor boy :(
We brought him in to the doctor yesterday and he received a standard issue of cough mixture and nosedrops. The doctor said that very young children tend to be at higher risk of having the cough spread downwards to the lungs and developing infections simply because they are weaker and also have a shorter windpipe. Thank goodness Asher's lungs were clear for now and we were instructed to bring him back in case he starts to make wheezing sounds. So we are really praying he gets better soon!
I know its a bit silly to blog about a mild cough but it just made me think about whether it was true that the first child in the family gets the better genes (not necessarily in terms of looks or intellect but more in relation to health). Asher has definitely had more run-ins with the paedatrician as compared to Aly so far. I myself also thankfully avoided inheritting my dad's asthma that my younger sister and brother got.
Asher had jaundice after birth (though not uncommon and not at levels requiring treatment) so we had to bring him back for checks every other day in his first 2-3 weeks. When he reached 2 months, he developed bad ezcema and we went back to the pd once again where he was prescribed cream and shower foam. Both the items were not available in retail pharmacies and cost a whopping 75 bucks in all excluding pd consultation costs which were always in the 80-120 dollar range. We were also instructed to discontinue usage of mass market brands for Asher like Johnson and Johnson and kodomo as they would likely exacerbate the ezcema. We joke that Asher was such an sk-2 baby but i certainly hope for him that this ezcema is childhood related and would go away as he gets older...
It is quite interesting that with Asher being a boy, i seem to be worrying much more because with any minute illness, i would immediately start thinking about how he would cope in the Army next time e.g. With Asher's ezcema i immediately worry about the associated risks of asthma (with the family history) and reading about a recruit dying from an asthma attack in a gas training just freaks me out. I know army days are not for another 18 years but its funny how i can't prevent such random thoughts from creeping in.
With Aly, the daddy definitely bears the brunt of all the worrying. Daddy freaks out at every single fall, bump or scratch. Aly is only two now but i can imagine all sorts of nightmares the daddy has or will have including those involving Aly's future boyfriends and him walloping every single one of them for not being good enough. The terms "daddy's girl" and "mommy's boy" ring so true...sigh.
So anyway, i hear horror stories all the time that once kids start school, the whole family take turns to get sick and the cycle never stops. Aly starts school in January and i shudder at the high potential of flu, chicken pox, hfmd and whatever onslaughts coming our way. It seriously sucks when your kids are sick, no matter how big or small the illness is. There are simply no appropriate words to describe it especially even more so when the illness is a serious and life threatening one. Never have i been so morbid and paranoid until i became a parent...fear is an understatement.
Well...enough about the topic and i hope Asher springs back to his smiley healthy self very soon. I know there was a huge gap between this and my last post because i accidently deleted a very long post on i was writing on breastfeeding by mistake...fat fingers on the mobile phone sucks. I will try to reconstruct that post soon...
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