children of the Appalachian mountians

As I thought about region that are in needed for many thing like Haiti and Japan with their earthquakes or Libya and Egypt with civil unrest I decide to look closer to home and remember a report I had seen about the children of the Appalachian mountains.  Many of these children live in extreme poverty some with no hope of ever getting out. Many of their parents have low paying jobs or no job at all or the they are addicted to painkiller which they use or sell for money that does not go back to their families but to support the drug habit. The few who do make it out of the mountains and hollows come back to teach or coach at the local school. They make it out through scholarships for grades and athletics. Many of the children suffer from malnutrition or dental disease, teens live in cars or friends just to make to school each day or not have parents steal from them.  
Things have changed in this area but change comes very slowly form them,just like many places in inner cities that have the same problems.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=6865077

Childhood Cancer

I have a niece and nephew who are childhood cancer survivors.  My niece was diagnoses at the age of 5 with cancer and a name to long too write and pronounce, but it was a type that was very rapid in growth. From the time of onset to the time of surgery it had grown from baseball size to large grapefruit size (about 10 days) and that is after removing part of the tumor of biopsy. She is now a college student studying graphic design.  Because of the chemo treatment she had she does have some learning disabilities and was on an IEP throughout her school years, in high school the teachers gave her some strategies to from learning and she has been able to use them in college. Throughout her treatment the doctor tried to make sure she missed as little of school as possible.  She did get upset at the doctors when her hair fell out but what kept her going was the prize she was to get at the end of treatment, plus lot of prayer from me and her paternal grandma church.  I knew with the grace of God everything would turn out the way it needed to be. My niece's mother still has the hardest time dealing with what happened to her daughter but does not seek help with her feelings and is very clinical when she talks about the cancer no feelings emerge and the her father has talked about it with some feeling but not very much.    I know very little about my nephew treatment but he is now a college student too. The only thing I really know is that he can not do very physical things because of the graphed bone he has in his leg from the cancer. 

Breast Feeding

In the reading it mentioned that breast feeding was best for the baby.  It mentioned the first milk to come in which is really milk but colostrum, a thick high calorie fluid.  This milk last about three days.  The breast milk also changes as the baby grow and nutritional needs change.  The CDC reports that children who are breast fed have few colds and have an immunity other infection because immunity is passed through the mother milk to the baby.  Babies that are breast fed have few incident of SIDS, type2 diabetes and being over weight. The CDC as well as the World Health Organization encourage mothers to breast fed for the first year, if that is not possible then the first six months. 
The benefit to the mother are many too.  Lowers the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Return to pre-pregnancy weight faster, reduces uterine bleeding and aids in stopping ovulation(natural family planning).
I have breast-fed in the past with both my daughters, so I feel very comfortable with others feeding their babies this way.  I have encouraged it with my families I care for.  Moms can either pump here or feed  their baby here. I will  use their milk to feed their baby. If the mom is not comfortable feeding in my classroom I have an area set up for a quiet space they can use, the same goes for pumping if needed.  
Many rural area of the world lack clean drinking water making breast feding the best way for an infant to recieve nutrition for the first six month if not the first year of the babies life.
http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/breastfeeding/en/index.html
http://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/research/index.htm 
Stassen Berger,K.(2009) The develping person.Worth Publishers. New York, New York 

Child birth

I have given birth to two wonderful daughters.  Each expeience was very different. My oldest was induce because her heart rate dropped during a contraction and we did not know if this was a new problem or an existing one.  I was given the risk of inducing labor and decided that the risk where livable. I went home to get my bag and husband and it was off to the hospital where my mother and dad meet us.  We called my husband parents to let them know. No extra drugs or medical attention was needed.  No C-section becasue that was one the risk I was informed about.  I was however monitored the whole time with a fetal heartrate monitor both an external and internal monitor. About twelve hours late we had a beautiful daughter named Jessica. Our youngest daughter was all natural  no drugs or monitors.  Woke up with my water breaking first thing in the morning.  About twenty four hours later we had another babys girl Rebecca.  I both deliveries I went from not beign very dilate to a 10 in a matter of  few hours and wanting to push.  And the doctor and midwife who were to attend to each birth did not make it in time. The doctor was because of how fast I went from a 4 to a 10 and the midwife was because it snowed and the roads were icy.