Kindergarten Clinic...Helping Make Immunizations Easier for Children and Parents

Posted by Keliesha Saturday, September 15, 2012 8:21 PM 2 comments

The public health measure I chose to that is meaningful to me is immunizations.  I am a Certified Child Life Specialist.  We are pediatric health care professionals that help children and families, mostly in hospital settings, cope with the stresses of hospitalization and illness.  We do this by providing age appropriate procedural preparation, advocating for pain management, teaching coping strategies, self expression activities and my favorite…play!  

I'm sure by now you're wondering, "How does this relate to immunizations?"  Well I'm going to tell you!  During my Child Life internship one of my assignments was to do a Kindergarten Clinic.  I know…I know…you're asking yourself, "What the heck is that?"  Well, as most of you may or may not know, when you're starting kindergarten there are a few immunizations that you must have before starting.  So, the Kindergarten Clinic brings Child Life to the health department.  

Just as Child Life Specialist do in the hospital, we were able to provide the same type of interventions to the children coming in to get their immunizations.  We used distractions such as bubbles and iSpys and we also used a technique called comfort positioning.  The nurses at the health department (who had never heard of Child Life) as well as many of the parents of the children (most of who also had never heard of Child Life) were quite skeptical at first.  
Comfort Positioning Poster: http://lightspinnerquarterly.org

After the first few patients, the parents are the nurses were believers!  They were amazed at how smoothly the immunizations went.  Did some of the children cry you ask?  Well, of course.  But wouldn't you if you had been poked?  The difference was in how they recovered afterwards.  Many of them only cried for a second or two and then continued on playing with the distractions items we had.  The parents even were happy that they were able to hold their child in a comforting position.  The nurses even expressed how well the comfort positioning helped them to be able to administer the shot faster and easier, causing less stress to the child.  

Overall, the Kindergarten Clinic was definitely a success.  I'm happy to say that as a result of the project that myself and my partner intern completed, the health department was able to get funding to hire a part time Child Life Specialist.  I thought this was amazing.  I think that immunizations are very important for children around the world, but I do feel that the fear that children have of getting "pokes" can cause them to have problems with fear and trust as well as unnecessary emotional distress.  
From the Child Life Council: www.childlife.org
IMMUNIZATIONS IN EUROPE

According to the European Commission, it is rare for children in Europe to get immunizations and if they do get them they rarely finish the whole series of immunizations.  Many of the immunizations that these children are missing are for diseases that are preventable through vaccinations.  Some feel that the health care providers should be the ones educating and reaching out to parents to inform them of the benefits to immunizations.  They feel that because these health care professionals are in close contact with parents early on in a child's life that they should be the biggest advocates for immunizations.  I did not find much information specifically on why Europeans choose not to vaccinate.  It is scary though, I saw a statistic that showed that there was an increase in childhood cases of measles by 36% in England and Wales in 2008.  I'm not expert, but that's a pretty high increase.  While I do feel that it is important for individuals to have freedom of choice; I also feel that in some cases we really need to just focus on what is going to be best for our children.












Delivering Alani

Posted by Keliesha Sunday, September 9, 2012 6:10 PM 0 comments
On August 22, 2012 while at work, I received a phone call from my younger cousin Lauren letting me know she was in at the hospital and in labor.  Unfortunately, I couldn't leave work at the time, but I told her that I would be there as soon as I was done.  Lauren is my uncle's daughter and is from New York. She recently moved to Georgia, and coincidentally to the same city as me.  She and I didn't grow up together, but I was still excited for her to be living closer.  I figured that if anything we could start building on our "cousinship" and I could help her out here and there with her new baby.

So, once I was done with work I rushed over to the hospital.  My uncle, his fiancee, and my cousin's brother were all there in the waiting room.  They told me no one was back there with Lauren because all of them had weak stomachs.  So, of course it was left up to me to go back and help her through the labor.  I was not sure what to expect, but I definitely didn't want her to be alone during the delivery.  

When I walked into the room she had not started pushing yet, but the nurses were preparing for her to start.  She was pretty scared, as this was her first child and she was also in some pain.  Once the nurses instructed that it was time to start pushing I pretty much coached her through.  I counted for her and helped hold her legs.  I attempted to let her hold my hand, but she was squeezing the life out of my poor hands!  Within about a half an hour of pushing the baby was almost out.  I could actually see the crown of her head!  That was so INSANE for me!  I had never seen anything like that.  Then with two more really hard pushes...Alani was delivered!  I was so happy and so was my cousin!  I'm not sure which of us were crying the most!  Soon after, the family was allowed in and we all began taking pictures and sharing with friends the arrival of the newest addition to our family.

I chose this birthing experience because it was the first time I have every experienced it so up close and personal.  It was absolutely incredible to see.  Thankfully, our baby was full term, so I don't necessarily think her birth had any major impact on her development.  I think that when babies are born prematurely is when their birth has the biggest impact on their development.  Mostly because premature births could be certain parts of their body, brian, etc. are not fully developed.  Also, our family doesn't necessarily have birthing traditions per say, other than making sure that we send pictures to any and everyone willing to look at them.  I do have friend that is from Kenya, and was the last of six children and the only boy.  In his culture, due to him having all sisters and his parents finally having a son it was a really big celebration.  The celebration began even prior to him being born and even after his birth.  It is amazing to me how different cultures choose to celebrate or not celebrate certain events.  My father has five children and his last is a boy.  However, in our culture it wasn't any different than any other birth.  Yes, I'm sure he was excited to finally have a boy, but it was not celebrated any different than any of the others.

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