Friday, June 10, 2011

Momma's use all their senses! Women's bodies are AMAZING!

       I was thinking today about my nephew because my sister had to take him to the doctor today to make sure his little incision site wasn't infected.  He is a week and a half old now, and when he was 3 days old he had surgery to repair a hernia.  She called me last night to ask if I thought what she was seeing was an infection, and I told her to smell it.  This morning I was wondering if she thought I was weird for saying that.  That led me to the conclusion that mother's instincts are AWESOME!  I realized that we use all of our senses to take care of our children and that is probably why nature gives us the hormones that heighten our senses when we enter motherhood.
       I was actually in the shower when I was thinking all of this because I usually shower when I put Glory down for her first nap of the day.  I leave the door open so I can listen for crying or loud noises in case Brayve gets uninterested in the show I put on for him.  In the absence of my sight of them when I'm in the shower I use my ability to hear a potential problem.  Glory was crying for the first few minutes of my shower but by the sound of it I knew she was just fussy and would fall asleep soon.  If I would have heard a shrill scream come from her then I would know that either Brayve had crawled in her crib and landed on her (which is usually accompanied by the little footsteps I hear in the hallway before he enters their room) or she has somehow gotten hurt by herself in her crib.
       This also worked last week when I was watching my niece, Bella, while my sister was in the hospital with Fynlee.  She usually hangs out around the bathroom when I shower while Brayve watches the show I put on for him.  I heard her whine outside of the bathroom door and I figured the dogs were doing something she didn't like since their kennel is right around the corner.  I said, "Don't whine Bella."  Then proceeded to listen for any other problems.  She whined again so I decided to check just in case her fingers were stuck in the kennel.  When I looked I saw Brayve standing there staring in the kennel innocently and Bella pretty much doing the same thing.  I figured it wasn't an emergency and I would finish my shower.  When I got out I saw that she had actually crawled into the dog kennel and threw up in there!  There was last night's dinner sitting in a small pile in the cage.  It freaked her out a little which is why she was whining.
      Now for smelling things.  I really caught onto this great sense a couple weeks ago when I caught an ear infection in my daughter by smelling it!  It was actually a coincidence because I was kissing her under her jaw (she giggles because it tickles), and my nose just happened to be pretty much in her ear.  That is when I smelled infection.  When my son got ear infections he always got a fever, but Glory never got that.  She wasn't pulling at her ears, or really acting more fussy then she already does.  I took her in the next morning and sure enough she had an ear infection in her left ear.  Had I not smelled that she might have gone another week until her 6 month appointment until it was noticed.  Then I thought back to all the other times my question of sickness came back to the smell of Brayve's breath.  When he gets a cold or sinus infection my wonder if he was sick or not always was confirmed by the smell of his breath.  If he seemed like he had a runny nose his breath would not smell if it was just allergies.  By the way, I never have had a good sense of smell.  I have such bad allergies that I actually barely even breathe out of my nose ever because its hard to get a full breath.  After I had Brayve my sense of smell became heightened and I haven't had any problems since!  
      Now, our sense of touch.  I am to the point where I can guess about what their temperature is if they have a fever by feeling their head, back, and stomach.  This is especially useful when I don't have a thermometer or one that works at the time anyway. (I have 4 or 5 different ones but don't trust any of them completely!)  This can also go for an infection.  If there is an infected cut or something on your child's leg or wherever it might be, not only will it probably be swollen and red, it will probably also feel warm.
       Then I got down to taste, and I thought… I never really use that one.  I'm obviously not going to taste something that I might feel would be an infection! YUCK  Then my mind left the thought of infection and I realized that I do taste the kids food if I'm not too sure about it.  For example I bought some organic bananas to puree and freeze to feed Glory.  Yesterday I took it out and before feeding her realized that it was kind of brown.  I know that could be normal because once oxygen is introduced to it, it is like an apple.  It will turn brown rather quickly, but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't edible.  I still didn't feel comfortable though, and decided to taste it to see if it tasted funny.  It didn't really taste bad, but it kind of had a fermenty zing to it.  Although it was probably ok to feed it to her, I decided against it because I wasn't 100% sure about that zing I tasted.  From now on I will be mashing up her bananas and feeding them to her fresh….just in case.
       This kind of also goes with the temperature of food.  I do realize that it probably falls along the lines of sense of touch a little more, but I do not just touch food when I'm afraid its too hot.  I make sure I touch it to my tongue to make sure its not too hot for their mouth.  The feeling of hotness is different on your finger or arm then it could be in your mouth.  If it is even remotely uncomfortable for me then it needs a lot more time to cool for them.

My conclusion to all of this is that a woman's body is EVEN more amazing than I thought before!  How proud I am to be a mother and a woman is unexplainable!

1 comment:

  1. Becky, Have you read about Kangaroo Care for preemies? It is holding baby skin to skin. Look it up there is tons of amazing information about it. One of the amazing things is that the temperature of mom's breasts change to suit the temperature of the baby. If baby is too cool, the breasts heat up. If baby is too warm, the breasts cool down. God is good!
    Kim Brenneman

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