Accountability.... part two

As promised......

My own lesson on accountability in parenting happened during and after Eoin's birth.   He was the catalyst in taking responsibility for my own parenting and in turn owning and being accountable for my choices.   His birth was the beginning.   First I chose a homebirth for him.   That wasn't much of a stretch for me as I was interested in a homebirth even when I was pregnant with Seamus and had done my research.  There were no midwives in our area for neither his or Liam's birth.   With Eoin there were still no midwives in our area but a friend called me out when I complained that I want a homebirth and I couldn't have one.....waaaa waaa waaaa.  She told me I could have a homebirth but it wouldn't be conventional. I could hire a midwife from across the border.   EEEEEEKKKKKK.   That sounded scary.  What if something went wrong, how would I explain it to the hospital if we needed to go?  It was not illegal for me to have a homebirth, even if I had chosen to not have it attended at all...which I would not do.  It was not legal however for a midwife in a different country to come and attend a birth.  I am more of a "this is wrong and that is right" sort of person so if it was illegal for her then it felt illegal for me.  If there were complications and we required hospital transfer during the birth it would mean that I would have to answer to my choice.  If he was injured or became ill due to our choice, even if had been something that would have happened in hospital and turned out fine we would have had to face the judgement of the people we would need to turn to to take over our care. We didn't jump in to it right away but in considering it we felt comfortable with much research that homebirth was safe, safer even than hospital birth in our situation and so ultimately chose to hire a midwife to attend our birth.... which was beautiful.

The next lesson came when Eoin became ill at 6 weeks of age.  It was terrifying.  He became lethargic and wouldn't nurse, but when he turned blue I was scared.   In hospital we learned that he had a urinary tract infection.   Sounds simple enough.  With infants it is not simple.  It is serious when a newborn has a urinary tract infection (UTI).  After a hosptial stay and many invasive tests we learned that the urine was backing up into his kidneys from his bladder due to a 'vavle' that was not working properly.  If there is an infection in the bladder then the bacteria causes scarring in the kidney which is dangerous.   He immediately went on antibiotics.  He got better but an infection recurred a few weeks later and he went back on medication.  Until he was older all we could do was visit the doctor every few months and give medication to hope it would keep his infections away.  He would be on antibiotics for years.   I am not a medication giver, we don't bring the boys to the doctor with every sniffle, snuff and fever.   It was hard for me to give him antibiotics everyday when I knew giving them was not without risk itself. 

In researching his condition I learned that breastmilk can be protective against UTIs.   In simple terms the immunological effect of breastfeeding lowers the prevalence of UTIs in infants and is believed to cause the bacteria responsible to be less adhering to the tissue in the bladder system.  Study  We chose to stop giving our son antibiotics as a precautionary treatment.   We lost a specialist because of it,  he would not treat my son because he felt we were being irresponsible by not medicating.  He was not willing to see Eoin as an individual situation nor was he willing to look at the information about breastfeeding and UTIs.  We were not against medicating we simply chose to not medicate as he was not getting infections.   If he had begun to get infections after the medication was removed we would have resumed the prophylactic treatment of antibiotics.  Simple.  We didn't want to put our son in harms way.   Our next specialist didn't necessarily agree with our choice but he didn't drop us either.   Eoin didn't get another UTI.......ever.  In fact he is no longer even seeing a urologist for the condition since he has not had an infection since his first month.   Is it because they underestimated his condition?  No, his testing still showed throughout that urine was backing up into his kidney but since it was not infected with harmful bacteria it was not an issue.   He was breastfed for a long period of time.... a really long period of time.   

Both situations made me realize that in order to make the best decision for our family we had to go against the flow.  We had to buck the advice of the medical care in order to make the right decision.  It wasn't easy because if we failed we were accountable.   If we had chosen a hospital birth and our son would have required the vacuum extractor instead of the midwives able hands to 'help' him out when he got 'stuck' and there had been complications because of the extractor would we have been held accountable?  No.  Would we had been just as accountable?  Yes, we would made that decision to birth in the hospital birth instead of the home birth putting us at higher risk for intervention.   Had Eoin began getting infections again and had scarring in his kidney would we have been responsible?  Yes.  Had we continued the antibiotic but he had still gotten an infection...which happens would we have been held accountable?  No.   Somehow taking the advice of the doctor without doing our own learning and research makes us less accountable.  It doesn't.   

These experiences have given me the courage to trust myself to make the right decisions for my family.  Of course we take what the professionals say seriously and most times will follow their advice but it has to make sense for our family.