There are a lot of articles out there right now about H1N1 and vaccination in particular. With the approval this week of Canada’s H1N1 vaccine, the time for decision-making has come for many of us still on the fence. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking about this – there’s plenty to. This article from the Atlantic offers some good and original insights – not so much into the decision about this particular vaccine, but just in general about how we approach pandemics [...]

It seems like the swine flu (A.K.A. H1N1, aporkalypse, snoutbreak and hamdemic) has lost the collective interest of the media – or perhaps I’ve just stopped listening because there was nothing interesting being printed about it anymore. Like most big crises, the first wave of hysteria passed quickly and time will tell whether it was warranted or not.In the lull, it does end up that something very interesting has come to light that matters whether the swine flu is the next 1918 virus or not. [...]

With all this talk about swine flu, I had a brief moment where I wondered whether I had doomed us all to death by vetoing the flu vaccine – what’s a little mecury compared with a deadly pandemic virus? In my past life as an employee benefits manager, I did lots of planning work on pandemic preparedness. I have had plenty of exposure to the doomsday scenarios that most people are just beginning to think about again. Well, I’m feeling a little better now – [...]

Random news bits.

With the new recommendations out from Health Canada on cold medicines for children under age 6 and then today from other researchers on the dangers of menthol in chest rubs for infants, you may be feeling like there’s nothing you can do to make your ill child feel better.Here are some ideas that we like around here (they’ve been getting lots of use lately): Humidifier: while cool mist humidifiers are often recommended, I like the warm mist humidifiers better. Just be sure to air out [...]

I grew up in an Italian household (well, half) and spent a lot of time with my family as kid and teenager. So, I thought I knew Italy and Italians… but being a parent in a foreign land is an eye-opening experience.Italians pride themselves on their food and the quality of their cuisine. But their infant and child feeding practices are spectacularly different from those in North America.While everyone I met was impressed that I was still nursing Thomas at 18 months, they were genuinely [...]

I woke up this morning with a weird feeling I hadn’t had since I was a kid – my eyes felt like they had sand in them and my left eye was so goopy it was almost sealed shut. (Hey, you don’t want to hear this stuff, go read a blog about garden gnomes: mothering involves a lot of fluids), Pink eye… ewww! And, of course, Thomas is still sick and so am I, so the thought of hauling both the children into the car [...]

Ah, the spring cold…. an annual event ’round here where we don’t do a lot of sickness (warnings about the onslaught pre-school would bring haven’t panned out, yet). But the good news is that it’s a spring cold and the tide is turning on all this snow. It starts with a visit to the home of friends we affectionately call the Petri Dishes. Their home is warm and welcoming – and apparently, chock full of pathogens because a runny nose always follows a visit. Then, [...]