ArmyMommy posts are specific to topics and experiences related to our being an Army family. Civilian readers might not care ;-)
Preparations for our Christmas trip are well underway. As a new mom, I find myself adding a few extra steps in my usual trip prep procedure. One overarching concern is anticipating anything that could happen to our almost one-year-old. On top of that list are, God forbid, medical emergencies.
If you're an Army family, like us, chances are you have Tricare for your health insurance. The good news is that Tricare will cover emergency care for you and any covered person while overseas (please check your coverage). But there are a few things that you should know.
One, make sure that your information is up-to-date with DEERS (Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System). If you have to ask what DEERS is, than you might not want to read the rest of this post!
Second, be sure to carry your military ID with you. For kids without IDs yet, like our baby, request a Tricare beneficiary card to help facilitate things when seeking care overseas. Do so well in advance of your trip as the card processing might take a while (I have to admit that I have not done this yet). Absent a card for the kid, a parent's ID will often be enough, but in case you are traveling with other people who might be the ones who end up taking the child to the hospital or doctor, the child's own card will be necessary. Same goes for when kid is traveling to, say, grandma's, without parents in tow.
Third, collect the names and contact information of providers in the cities or countries you are traveling to. We are going to three cities in Europe. I looked up participating medical and dental providers in these cities here. With their contact info in hand, we will know exactly who to call in case we need a doctor or dentist.
Tricare directs its beneficiaries to get help finding medical care from the US embassy or consulate in whatever city or country one is visiting. But there's also an emergency phone number that one can keep handy. The international SOS number I found off the Tricare Europe web site is 44 - 20 - 8762 8133 (collect).
If you find yourself in a real medical emergency, do not hesitate to rush to the closest emergency room. You may seek care at non-participating providers. Just make sure that you contact Tricare after you get there, and definitely before you leave the hospital or doctor's office. And by all means, keep all records and receipts! Tricare Standard beneficiaries, for example, have to pay out of pocket and are then reimbursed stateside. I'm not too clear on this part since we are on Tricare Prime so please double check.
It might also help to have the contact info for Tricare where you are going. In Europe, its:
TRICARE Area Office: Eurasia-Africa
011-49-6302-67-6314
DSN: 496-6314
teoweb@europe.tricare.osd.mil
www.tricare.mil/eurasiaafrica
For more details, read this June 2010 news release about traveling overseas with Tricare.
Finally, pack a travel medical kit. Our doctor is helping us put one together. It should include items that you usually use to treat your child if he or she has a cold, or a slight fever, as well as dosing instructions. Realize that medicines that we are used to seeing at Walgreens might not be the same as what's available in other countries. There are many sites online that feature packing lists for such kits. Here's one checklist. Add and subtract as applicable. For our baby, for example, we are skipping the teething medicine and sunscreen, and adding saline nasal spray and Vicks Baby Rub.
If you have any medical concerns at all, try to see your doctor before you leave on a trip. Oh, and make sure your kids are up-to-date on all their shots.
Now, you can worry about packing!
Showing posts with label mommyhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mommyhood. Show all posts
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Breaking up is hard to do.
Like many of you, I've been through my share of difficult break-ups. But this one, I didn't see coming.
See, earlier this month, I decided that it was time to stop breastfeeding. And it's been harder that I ever thought it could be.
As a first-time mom, I've been fully indoctrinated on the value of breastfeeding. No one can argue that health-wise, it's best for baby. Some of the benefits include: less gas, diarrhea, and constipation; stronger immune systems; higher IQ; and less risk of childhood obesity. For mom, it helps in more quickly returning your uterus to its original size, and it burns tons of calories, aiding in shedding the pregnancy weight gain.
And while I don't mean to over-romanticize breastfeeding, it does create a kind of bond between mother and child that only the act of nursing can. That for the first months of his life, baby relies on just mom for his sustenance is a powerful thing. So is the feeling of holding baby close--the weight of him, the warmth. It's a unique relationship, and I'm hard-pressed to think of anything that comes close to the breastfeeding experience.
This "feeling" is what has me yoyo-ing between weaning and not. It has me resenting baby bottles, throwing dirty looks at the canister of formula, and longing for the lulling sound of my Medela. Strange. And difficult.
Unlike many others (I hope), my breastfeeding experience has been difficult from the start. There was pain, physically and emotionally. Baby lost an alarming amount of weight a few days after coming home from the hospital because he wasn't getting enough milk. Without the prodding of our then-pediatrician, a man who likened baby formula to junk food, I would have popped a bottle into my son's mouth right then.
Over the course of the seven months of nursing, I saw lactation consultants, attended support group meetings, got acupuncture, bought both heating and cooling implements, used a Boppy and a My Brest Friend, and pumped, pumped, pumped.
But in the end, only one thing led to my decision to stop nursing, my arch nemesis since the beginning: mastitis.
Mastitis is an infection of the breast tissue that results in breast pain, swelling, warmth and redness of the breast. And pain, did I mention pain? And fevers, chills, body aches, and some more pain. I got mastitis a total of five times in seven months, the last one coming at the end of July.
Mastitis alone is no reason to stop breastfeeding. Moms can, and are in fact encouraged, to continue nursing while being treated for mastitis. Nursing clears the milk ducts, and keeps the milk flowing. And if you feel iffy about giving baby the "infected" milk, docs say that baby's stomach acids can effectively kill any bugs that might pass through. I nursed my wee one through all five bouts of mastitis and he's never gotten sick.
So why stop now? First, and perhaps most selfishly, I want to feel normal again. By normal, I mean pain-free. Breastfeeding for me has also always been about managing levels of discomfort. Maybe I have faulty equipment, but my equipment have always been so sensitive that I couldn't wear anything but a thin cotton bra. So sensitive in fact, that I've had to encase them in plastic shells for days on end.
Second, I'm done passing harsh antibiotics on to baby. The frequency of these infections have caused doctors to give me more and more drugs to fight the infections. While all of these antibiotics have been deemed okay for breastfeeding moms, they also are always prescribed with warnings that baby will likely get diarrhea or suffer some other side effect. We've managed to avoid those (baby is on a daily regimen of acidophilus), but I just can't keep exposing him to such drugs.
Finally, I simply don't want to keep getting sick. I've gotten sick and seen more doctors in the past few months than I have in all my years pre-pregnancy. And when you can hardly lift baby because you are so weak and tired, well, that's just not good all around.
Upon reading what I've written so far, it sounds a bit like I'm justifying my decision to stop breastfeeding. And maybe I am, to myself mostly, and to other moms out there I suppose. Having gotten past the the recommended six months of breastfeeding, I feel a little bit better about my decision. Still, I think I needed this mental exercise to mollify the emotional uncertainty I have over the whole thing.
It's taken me weeks to wean baby, and we are still working on it. He's taken the bottle like a champ and seems to be doing well enough on organic formula. But at night, when he goes to sleep with dad and a bottle, I feel a little stab. He doesn't "need" me now, at least not in this sense, and it's more than just a little heartbreaking.
This feeling, the hurt of breaking up with the boob and with my baby, is a recurring theme in parenthood, I've been told. As baby grows up and becomes more independent, he will need us less and less. I look forward to it, and dread it as well.
For now, I will relish the last remaining days of this breastfeeding experience. I know I should give him a bottle now, but maybe I'll nurse him, just this once today, instead.
See, earlier this month, I decided that it was time to stop breastfeeding. And it's been harder that I ever thought it could be.
As a first-time mom, I've been fully indoctrinated on the value of breastfeeding. No one can argue that health-wise, it's best for baby. Some of the benefits include: less gas, diarrhea, and constipation; stronger immune systems; higher IQ; and less risk of childhood obesity. For mom, it helps in more quickly returning your uterus to its original size, and it burns tons of calories, aiding in shedding the pregnancy weight gain.
And while I don't mean to over-romanticize breastfeeding, it does create a kind of bond between mother and child that only the act of nursing can. That for the first months of his life, baby relies on just mom for his sustenance is a powerful thing. So is the feeling of holding baby close--the weight of him, the warmth. It's a unique relationship, and I'm hard-pressed to think of anything that comes close to the breastfeeding experience.
This "feeling" is what has me yoyo-ing between weaning and not. It has me resenting baby bottles, throwing dirty looks at the canister of formula, and longing for the lulling sound of my Medela. Strange. And difficult.
Unlike many others (I hope), my breastfeeding experience has been difficult from the start. There was pain, physically and emotionally. Baby lost an alarming amount of weight a few days after coming home from the hospital because he wasn't getting enough milk. Without the prodding of our then-pediatrician, a man who likened baby formula to junk food, I would have popped a bottle into my son's mouth right then.
Over the course of the seven months of nursing, I saw lactation consultants, attended support group meetings, got acupuncture, bought both heating and cooling implements, used a Boppy and a My Brest Friend, and pumped, pumped, pumped.
But in the end, only one thing led to my decision to stop nursing, my arch nemesis since the beginning: mastitis.
Mastitis is an infection of the breast tissue that results in breast pain, swelling, warmth and redness of the breast. And pain, did I mention pain? And fevers, chills, body aches, and some more pain. I got mastitis a total of five times in seven months, the last one coming at the end of July.
Mastitis alone is no reason to stop breastfeeding. Moms can, and are in fact encouraged, to continue nursing while being treated for mastitis. Nursing clears the milk ducts, and keeps the milk flowing. And if you feel iffy about giving baby the "infected" milk, docs say that baby's stomach acids can effectively kill any bugs that might pass through. I nursed my wee one through all five bouts of mastitis and he's never gotten sick.
So why stop now? First, and perhaps most selfishly, I want to feel normal again. By normal, I mean pain-free. Breastfeeding for me has also always been about managing levels of discomfort. Maybe I have faulty equipment, but my equipment have always been so sensitive that I couldn't wear anything but a thin cotton bra. So sensitive in fact, that I've had to encase them in plastic shells for days on end.
Second, I'm done passing harsh antibiotics on to baby. The frequency of these infections have caused doctors to give me more and more drugs to fight the infections. While all of these antibiotics have been deemed okay for breastfeeding moms, they also are always prescribed with warnings that baby will likely get diarrhea or suffer some other side effect. We've managed to avoid those (baby is on a daily regimen of acidophilus), but I just can't keep exposing him to such drugs.
Finally, I simply don't want to keep getting sick. I've gotten sick and seen more doctors in the past few months than I have in all my years pre-pregnancy. And when you can hardly lift baby because you are so weak and tired, well, that's just not good all around.
Upon reading what I've written so far, it sounds a bit like I'm justifying my decision to stop breastfeeding. And maybe I am, to myself mostly, and to other moms out there I suppose. Having gotten past the the recommended six months of breastfeeding, I feel a little bit better about my decision. Still, I think I needed this mental exercise to mollify the emotional uncertainty I have over the whole thing.
It's taken me weeks to wean baby, and we are still working on it. He's taken the bottle like a champ and seems to be doing well enough on organic formula. But at night, when he goes to sleep with dad and a bottle, I feel a little stab. He doesn't "need" me now, at least not in this sense, and it's more than just a little heartbreaking.
This feeling, the hurt of breaking up with the boob and with my baby, is a recurring theme in parenthood, I've been told. As baby grows up and becomes more independent, he will need us less and less. I look forward to it, and dread it as well.
For now, I will relish the last remaining days of this breastfeeding experience. I know I should give him a bottle now, but maybe I'll nurse him, just this once today, instead.
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