Prevent Your Child from Being a Victim of SBS

SBS is a serious injury that often causes long-term brain injury or death in children (1). It can occur from
just a few seconds of shaking (2). It is often the result of frustration from a crying infant and usually
occurs in children under two but can happen to children as old as five (3).

Babies have weak neck muscles and cannot support the weight of their heads. If a baby is forcefully
shaken, their fragile brain moves back and forth inside the skull. This causes bruising, swelling and
bleeding (4).

You can take steps to prevent your child from becoming a victim. The most important thing to recognize
is that you cannot tell if a person would shake your child ahead of time. Trusted sitters, family members,
and friends are often the perpetrators of shaking a child. Sometimes, even parents are the perpetrators.

The first step in prevention is ensuring that you and the child's other parent understand about SBS.
Before your baby is born, sit down with the other parent and devise a plan to handle your frustration
when dealing with a fussy or non-compliant child. No one expects they will ever get that frustrated, but
being unprepared can leave you among the long list of people who regret not being educated and
prepared.

Make a plan of action. Come up with a list of ten things you will do to try to calm your crying infant or to
keep yourself calm when dealing with other situations in child rearing. This can include checking to make
sure the child does not need a diaper change or need to be fed, taking the child for a walk in a stroller,
or calling a friend to give you a break. Make sure that as a last resort, you add putting your child in a safe
room or environment, closing the door, and walking away while letting them cry. Children do not die
from crying, but they can die from being shaken.

These are both valid questions. If you are sexually active, it is important to be tested every 6-12 months for STDs/STIs. You may hear them referred to as STDs or STIs. What is the difference? STD stands for Sexually Transmitted Disease and STI stands for Sexually Transmitted Infection. STD was the standard name previously, but the new standard name is STI due to the fact that some STIs are asymptomatic, meaning they have no symptoms. Infections in general can be both symptomatic and asymptomatic, while a disease is not present without symptoms (1).

STIs have different symptoms depending on the type of infection, but some people experience no symptoms even when they are infected and their infection can still be spread to others. This is why it is so important to be tested for STIs regularly when you are sexually active. 

Your risk of getting infected with a sexually transmitted infection is directly related to the number of partners you have. When you have sex with someone, it is said that you are having sex with everyone they have had sex with for the past ten years(2).  Condoms, when used consistently and correctly for every sexual contact, can reduce your risk, but will not completely eliminate your risk (3). 

April was Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) Awareness Month. This is a good time to be aware of any symptoms you may be feeling but haven’t gotten checked out. At Family Life Center, we provide chlamydia and gonorrhea testing and treatment free of charge. If you are sexually active and have not been tested for STIs recently, give us a call. We also will educate you on other types of STIs and provide referral to a physician if further testing is requested or recommended. We can also discuss eliminating your risk for any STIs by saving all sexual activity for a committed, monogamous relationship, like marriage. This is the only way you can guarantee with 100% certainty that you will not get infected. It is time to focus on you and your health. 

Nearly half of women will have had an abortion by the time they’re 45. One in four already have. If you’re one of them, you probably thought, or were told, that it was the best solution to your problem. That afterwards you could get on with your life – get back on track. Unfortunately, that’s not the experience of many post-abortive women. Whether it was immediately following their procedure, when they were babysitting their niece a few months later, or when they heard some random bad news years down the road, a flood of emotions came rushing in and caught them off guard. They weren’t even sure what they were feeling. Was it a relief? A sense of loss? Guilt? Anger? Worthlessness?

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If this describes you, you may have tried to push such feelings to the back of your mind, only to have them resurface again and again. Being plagued by depression, shame, bouts of crying, anxiety, or regret is very common for women who have had an abortion – especially those who have also experienced negative childhood events or trauma. Some even turn to drugs and alcohol, consider suicide, avoid intimate relationships, or engage in unhealthy relationships – like Toni (read her story below).

Adverse feelings can be compounded if fear and urgency were the driving factors of the abortion decision rather than objective information. Did you know….

• 64% of women having abortions said they felt pressured to abort
• 84% said they were not fully informed
• 52% felt rushed and 54% uncertain beforehand
• 67% received no counseling beforehand
• 79% were not informed about alternatives

Studies also show that women who experienced childhood trauma are more likely to have subsequent unplanned pregnancies and abortions. “When you’ve had trauma early on, an unplanned pregnancy can mimic that trauma in your brain by triggering those memories and emotions of being caught off guard,” says Amber McCutcheon, founder and executive director of HOPE, which serves survivors of sexual trauma. “Where you had no control over your previous trauma, an abortion can make you feel like you have control over the unplanned pregnancy because you can take care of the problem. You may feel that it is better for this child to never experience anything you went through.”

Considering an Abortion?

Are you pregnant? Do you think you may be pregnant? If so, you may find yourself wondering what your options are. At this point, you may begin looking for abortion education and wondering who to trust. The decisions you’re facing are stressful enough as it is. You need to know the risks, benefits, and alternatives of your choices. Otherwise, you can’t give informed consent for your reproductive health decisions. Our goal is to equip you with the facts about the abortion pill, and surgical abortion so you can make an informed decision about your pregnancy.

So how do we start? Well, first things first. You’ll want to confirm whether you’re pregnant or not.

Am I Pregnant? The Urine Test

A urine test will identify the pregnancy hormone, also known as human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). They are highly accurate in their detection of hCG levels. But, if you took the test BEFORE the day you were supposed to get your period, you might not get an accurate result. The hCG concentration increases each day during early pregnancy. Now that time has gone by, you’ll get a more accurate reading.

Two Options for Urine Testing

Your first option is the home pregnancy test. These have been on the market for several decades and tend to be quite accurate. If you go this route, make sure your test is not expired and that you carefully follow the instructions.

Pregnancy Signs and Symptoms

Answer these questions to help determine whether or not you may be pregnant.

Have you been experiencing bodily changes? Do you think you may be pregnant? This can be an exciting time but also a puzzling time. To add to the confusion, many pregnancy signs and symptoms can have causes unlinked to pregnancy.

At Family Life Center we have compiled this list of questions to determine whether or not you may be pregnant. Please contact Family Life Center if you have any other questions or would like to make an appointment for a free and confidential consultation.

Early signs of pregnancy tend to differ from one woman to the next. It is best to wait until the week after your missed period to take a pregnancy test for an accurate result. But paying attention to early symptoms of pregnancy is also important, and these symptoms can start as early as your first month of pregnancy. With that in mind, consider these questions about the early signs of pregnancy: