Jaundice... Its nothing...

We saw another doctor today for his neonatal (it took me some good time to learn the meaning of that word) jaundice....

The doctor we saw last time with his serum bilirubin reports said that his jaundice is going to go through the roof in a day or two or three. However, our common sense prevailed over his advice and we took the baby home. Tried showing him some early morning sunlight for the week. (Actually less days than the week).

Today, when we saw a different doctor, he was of exact opposite opinion. According to him, for a baby of this age, such readings are perfectly ok. Its absolutely not a problem. According to him, there is nothing wrong with our baby as far as the jaundice goes.

Also, according to this doctor, the baby needs nothing in terms of medication. He was also of the opinion that the child should not be given any medication unless really necessary. The best medicine for the baby is mother's milk. One should not feed the newborn anything other than the mother's milk.

To the end of the whole examination, the baby boy comes back clean, no problems of any type, no medication needed. Just normal care and feeding needed. Feels absolutely great....

When he wont stop crying...

Long before my marriage I had feared one day.  This would include a newborn baby in my hands who is crying.  Now, he is dry, is fed just now, but wont stop crying...

I feared this day, and today it happened to me all the same.  Our junior did exactly the same thing. He was dry, nothing on that department.  Was just been fed, good there too. But, the guy wont stop crying.. I mean literally, there was nothing I could do to calm him.

We tried rocking motions, providing comfort in mother's arms, feeding again but no.. none of it would worked.  He stopped after about 15 minutes on his own. I guess he just got tired of crying or something happened...

I still fear this situation, when the baby is too small to say anything, and the obvious signs of discomfort are all checked but baby wont stop crying... :(

gud luck to every new person in the situation...

Indian Mythology : Baby Naming

Well, to be honest, naming of the baby is a ceremony in Indian culture.  There are  a few things involved which need to be looked into before you can name your baby.

First of all, family astrologer is consulted and he figures out the baby's moon sign based on the date/time wherein the baby was born.  Remember that Indian astrology is based on moon signs and not sun signs (like Western stuff.. e.g. Linda Goodman's popular books).

With the moon sign comes along a list of letters with which the baby's name may start. This list of letters is pretty small, but not many people follow this anymore.  We plan to follow this,  but lets see how it goes.

Then there is this concept of purification of the newborn and the new mother.  The new mother is considered impure after giving birth.  Not only the mother, but the whole family related to the father and grand father, except the daughters and sisters in the family consider it impure. Those days almost no omnious tasks are taken up, the house gods are not worshipped (remember - its impure) and stuff like that.

After about two weeks (again, astrologer guy comes into picture and looks for a good day), a purification cum naming ceremony is held. Its here in this ceremony that the family is purified by performing a Yagna .  Its here only that the baby is then given a name. 

Some details on the newborn rituals are available on wikipedia.org

Now there can be as many pet names as one likes, but the one given by the grand father is considered the most respected one, and is mostly taken up as the formal name.

For our baby, we are thinking of holding this sometime next week. I'd sure post some details and the snaps of course.

Snaps from 9th day...

sun bathing...

The Chhati ceremony....

Its celebration of first six days of baby's life...and is first of the rituals after baby's homecoming.

Besides being the first formal announcement of the birth to the relatives and the neighbourhood, this is the first formal celebration also. The basic idea of chhati is to get the baby and the mother inducted properly in the household after the newborn comes home for the first time. Here, ladies get together and sing ominous songs about the newborn, wishing him and the parents-family luck and good in life.

Its mostly praying to the gods, praying for safety and health of the baby, and of the mother. The poor father is nowhere mentioned along the process boo hoo hoo hoo... :(

For the ritual, the baby is put in a new set of clothes gifted by the aunt of the baby (or if there is no aunt to baby, aunt to the father).

Some sweets and sometimes meals etc complete the process. Towards the end of the process, Kajal (black carbon extracted from burning of mustard oil on some brass pot) is applied to both baby's and mother's eyes.

Snaps from 7th day

he's home...

Well,  after five days of hospital life, the baby is finally home. And boy, is he happy.. are we all happy to be out of that hospital place... its just so great.

To be home, with the newborn is a wonderful feeling. To have him in the same house where you have grown up, married and then dreamt of having a baby... its all so wonderful.

The decision to get him discharged from the hospital has not been the easiest one.  He still has that physiological jaundice (as wikipedia put it). At home, its much easier to put him in morning sunlight, which is supposed to be the best cure for the jaundice thing.  Now we are doing this, and hopefully this will cure it.  If not, I do plan to take him to the pediatrician and see what more can be done.

However, for the moment, knowing that its a minor thing, the focus is on celerating his homecoming... :)

From 6th Day..

Some research about jaundice to newborns...

Since our newborn has symptoms of Jaundice, I did some research over internet.

The results are relatively comforting, especially since they mention nothing about it affecting brain, if prolonged.  Actually, my doctor here scared me by saying that it can affect brain if prolonged for a certain length.  Well, more reading tells me that it might actually affect the brain, only if it developes into Hyperbilirubinemia

Over the internet, its been presented as a relatively normal thing that happens to almost every other baby. And, more often than not, subsides automatically with time.

Only in very very rare cases, does it go wrong and require a blood transfusion...

Here's some of my research.... the links etc...

• http://www.askdrsears.com/html/2/t029600.asp
• http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/jaundice_of_the_newborn.html
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/conditions/jaundice2.shtml 
• http://www.uptodate.com/patients/content/topic.do?topicKey=~9YYKHrbdWPrA8Q
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonatal_jaundice

Banking of Cord Blood for Stem cells...

We decided to put his cord blood stem cells in a stem cell bank for possible future usage.  Generally known as Cord Blood Banking, we found out about this recently (of course before delivery).

In this, they extract stem cells from the blood found in the umbilical cord at the time of birth of the baby.  These stem cells have been found to be able to regenerate almost all human organs, with technological help.

As I write today, researchers claim that about 75 diseases are curable using stem cells. With ongoing research, this number is bound to increase for sure.

From where I see this, its a sort of Biological insurance for the newborn.  Given the medical research progress, this is going to be the single most useful method of treating diseases in future.

We have banked with Cryobanks India, a subsidiary of Cryobanks International.  

They have proved to be pretty professional with their service till now. One of their guys came over for the presentation, the other ones came over to our town (where we were delivering) and collected the blood.  The next day evening I got a phone call telling me about the storage of my baby's blood.

Till now, things have really gone smooth with them, lets hope it goes on like this.

The Fourth Day...

Not much new things happened on day 4. 

The regular stuff, bathing, crying, feeding, sleeping, sleeping under the UV rays instrument etc...

However, the mother started to feel a lot better just then.  She has been allowed better food now, bit more on the solid side.  She started walking a bit (as was expected from her health anyway).  It looks pretty good now.

Here's one from day four of the baby...

Snaps from third day....

Let me pose for you.... :)



cute cuddle in granny's lap... but u only show my face... :)

The third day...

Well, the third day did bring some rather not so nice news after a while.

Like every newborn, this kid has also developed initial symptoms of Jaundice. The result is on the expected lines, some phototherapy. Put the baby in the ultraviolet rays.

When the guy came over for extracting blood for the test, we were all so weary about this. Imagine extracting blood from a two day old baby, who barely has any blood in him anyway. But, the guy did a miraculous job of extracting blood for sample. The baby just didnt cry at all. He put in a needle to get the blood and took out about 2 ml out of him.

The efforts to put him under the phototherapy instrument have gone sour as well. He would stay with anybody, anywhere, but under the instrument. He would start music immediately.

2nd Day Snaps....

How they say that the baby changes face almost everyday for the first few days after birth... I guess these photos around here prove the point a lot...

There seems to be a lot of change already from the first day shots...



cutie pie....




Hey there... how u doing ??



Hi.. dont I look cute ??

The Second day...

The second day in his life has been special too...

- he got his first bath
- first change of clothes

Expecting a lot of crying trouble from the little one, we had much less of it. He was amazingly calm during the night and did not cry as much as the hype.

The bath was the event of the day for the little baby. He nurse handled him in such carefree way that I was shocked to the core. she was turning him around with utmost ease, as if he were some rubber toy. I would probably never be able to handle a baby as easily as she was doing.

Then there was this baby kit discussion and the usage of it. There were people suggesting the baby kit from Himalaya, and there were others suggesting to go for the tried and tested Johnson & Johnson's. It did consume some energy on the discussions, without result of course. Finally, I had to get the doctor intervene and he decided for J & J 's .

Today morning I got to see the kit in action, i.e. being used. It was used during the bath. Besides the expert handling of the baby, the nurse was great from the experience point of view as well. She was actually telling which components of the kit were great and which have some better alternatives available.

Well, the day has gone pretty smoothly. Fewer people to come visit, and I managed to get some sleep too.

First Shots...

17th Nov 2008

Agra

India.

Its the birthday today...

17th November 2008 has become one of the greatest days in our life now. Our firstborn, yet to be named officially, has entered the world today.

It was some pain for sure, since it was a cesarean section operation, but otherwise things have gone rather well. No complications except that she never had the pains. And therefore the surgery.

This has been a very long and interesting journey. Sometimes more interesting than others, and sometimes sad. Especially when we lost my mother, who was the single most interested person to see this baby coming into the world.

The attempts to get pregnant, talking to doctors in Switzerland, their views about it. They always said that we should not worry about getting pregnant too much, it would automatically happen when the couple is not so tense. That perhaps happened exactly the way. By end of feb/march we were bit tired of trying and had given it up on the mother nature.

The initial three months of pregnancy were spent in Switzerland. It was a mixture of happiness and anxiety, put together with nervousness of not doing anything wrong. But then it turned out alright, when we completed the first trimester without any issues.

Then came possibly the worst news one could expect when expecting a new member of the family. My mom passed away during the second trimester, and we had to rush back to India immediately.

Afterwards, nothing was same in our lives. The normal life, the pregnancy, everything was different then. We were missing her in lot many ways, especially the part that an elder has to play when there is a expecting female in the house. To a large part, her mom filled in, but nobody can replace another person, and so we still miss her in many ways.

Recently, when there were talks and discussions about having a normal delivery or a surgery, her presence was missed the most. She would have had her own opinion, and probably would make a lot of difference to the situation we stand in today.

When the baby was born, and I saw him for the first time, the first thing I felt was, “Oh god, her wish is fulfilled, if only she was present today to witness this.” It was a baby boy, something she wished for a lot, since my generation of people in our family only has daughters. It was much sought after.

We miss you mom, and will keep missing you. Probably, his arrival to our lives will only strengthen the absense we feel for you.

Remembering you,

pooja
raghav..

Some Oracle data dictionary help...

To get parameters information for your functions/procedures/packages etc. you can use all_arguments view. A sample query is attached...

select owner, object_name, package_name, argument_name, position, data_type, in_out
from all_arguments
where owner = (case when lc_user is null then user else lc_user end)
and package_name = (case when lc_pkg_nm is null then package_name else lc_pkg_nm end)
order by owner, package_name, object_name, position;

Further another view called all_source is also pretty useful if you have to look at the actual source code of a component.

Following links helped me on this -

1. http://www.eveandersson.com/writing/data-model-reverse-engineering#plsql
2. http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/Forums/ShowMessages.aspx?ThreadID=48498