For your information, I can sometimes turn into an hypochondriac freak. Since I'm well aware of the situation, "logical Claudia" generally takes over quickly. However, last week, I found myself calling Dan in complete panic: "I can't find Alice's vajayjay!!!"When Alice had her 2 week appointment our doctor gave us the generic baby girl speech. Part of it was regarding a condition called Fused Labia or, as I called it "closed vajayjay".
Basically, the labia are the lips of skin that are located on either side of the vaginal opening. Fused labia are when the lips grow together either partially or completely. This usually does not cause any problems. The labia generally separate as a girl gets older but pediatricians prefer to treat it as soon as possible with a bit of hormone cream.
Long story short, Dan came back home, we did a little investigation on poor Alice and things turned out to be normal. The day after I was sharing my hypochondriac tale to a friend who called me a few hours later: "My baby has a closed vajayjay!"
My mother's comment concerning this story: "I didn't know any of that stuff when you were a baby. Your generation knows too much".
Although there is such thing as too much information, I do not think that knowing about closed labia is futile. However, this made me think about motherhood in 2011. I talked a lot about mom's instinct and how we should embrace it. Does this easy access to information (ex: online baby poop picture dictionary) unable us to believe in our capacity to know what is good for our babies or, at the opposite, does it make us better parents because we have the tools to help us understand and take actions?
Personally, I think that it is all a question of balance and that we can get the best of both worlds. What do you think? Have you also had a case of "hypochondriac mother"?
Oh, my friend's baby really had closed labia...yes, we all need an hypochondriac friend ;)
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Daniela: The zombies were sssooo nice! It was hilarious :)
7 comments:
I've never heard of this before. What!?! Kellie xx PS I think knowledge is power, but you need to make sure you don't let fear overtake the rationality of a situation. Very hard to do when they are so precious!
Okay, this is sick but the hubby and I weren't cleaning our first child too well in her private area until one day at the doctor's office, the doctor told us that we need to spread the labia and clean the area well or the labia will fuse together. I know how you felt. And I was freaking out. Lesson learned.
LOL too funny, you really tickle my funny bone with your stories! After 4 kids (3 girls!) I had no idea what a closed "vajayjay" was - clearly some of us are not as well researched, hehe.
Do we know too much? Perhaps. My friend is a doctor, and he gets so many parents bringing in their children and telling him what the diagnosis is "Hi, I brought my daughter in because she has atopic eczma, lactose intolerance, cleft lip and german measles". It always makes him chuckle, most times the parents diagnosis is wrong, and he politely tells them that a/their child is healthy (thank goodness!) and b/ They should really stop looking up every spot and pimple on the internet.
I am the opposite of hypochondriac mother, I let them eat dirt (if they must), snails and slugs and when they have the sniffles I give them calpol and a chest rubbing of eucalyptus, they have to be virtually comatose before I take them to the doctors, touch wood, they are all fine and healthy, apart from the odd sniffle. The only time I freak out is when I see blood, my eldest daughter smashed her head open when she was a toddler and I called an ambulance, they only gave her butterfly stitches and told me an ambulance was quite uneccessary, it was the blood I tell you, blood freaks me out!
Wow! I ha no idea that existed!! My little girl has been getting constipated a lot with the introduction of solid foods and I have been what my husband refers to as a "poop freak". I have literally done everything to try to get her to go normally but, nothing has worked. I just realized that I should probably stop worrying, as she is her normal, happy self and it doesn't seem to bother her too much. I think we know too much and we try to DO too much to fix something that really might not even be wrong in the first place. Great post! You always have the best topics!!
How adorable is Alice in those photos! I want to squeeze her!
I am trying so hard to trust my instincts with my little girl, then I find myself reading so many, so many opinions and I feel this huge internal conflict. It is tough, this motherhood.
i'm with hoola tallulah on this one. let them eat bugs!
i wish more mothers would trust their intuition. if we did more of that then i think we could sense more efficiently when something is REALLY wrong and continue to let kids be kids.
i googled way too much when i was pregnant, which caused undue stress. now, i won't let myself google anything until we've given whatever it is some time and discussed it as parents (thankfully, there hasn't been anything but sniffles yet).
though a fused labia does seem freak-out worthy ;)
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