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Medical Scribblings - August 7 / 2001

I recently acquired 2 grandchildren and it brought back to me how much work little ones are and what a worry they can be.

There are loads of books about how to bring up children but I always feel a bit of common sense goes a long way. The big thing is that if parents feel happy in what they are doing then this somehow gets through to the baby who will then relax also. One difficulty is that as families have less children, people no longer have the experience of looking after younger brothers or sisters and so, when faced with a baby of their own, they are unable to judge whether the crying is just a bit of wind or something more serious. We are fortunate locally in having Di Hill, our health visitor, who for many years has been a huge source of reassurance to new mums.

An area of anxiety for parents these days is the question of immunisation. There has been a lot of material produced attacking the immunisation programme. Huge efforts have been put into looking at vaccine safety and the results all point to the very real benefits of immunisation. I fear that I am old enough to remember the days of epidemics, which caused sever illness and sometimes, lifelong disability before we had effective vaccines.

Children are, most of the time, a source of joy and pleasure especially if like me you are able to go home at the end of the day and leave their parents to look after them.

John Schofield