Baby Loss Awareness Week

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37584827
I was updating this blog and have posted early, baby loss week this year is 9-15th October 2017


I have to be honest I wasn't aware that this week was baby loss awareness week until I stumbled across this article.

This entry is not a rant or suggestion its just simply a note which might be thought provoking, for information please use the Sands website

Before I write this there are a few things I should just mention, I am a bloke so don't have a mothers perspective, I am lucky enough not to have experienced the loss of a child and I have seven children, BUT  this does not mean I can not sympathise and empathise with those have suffered such a tragic loss. During this blog I may refer to other people but will try as much as possible to keep them anonymous and not give away their identity,

100 babies die every week just before, during or shortly after birth.
In 2008 it was 17 per day, by 2013 this had dropped to 16.

   I remember being about 11 when a relative excitedly announced that they were to have their first child, a few months later at Easter the couple were watching film (may have been Clash of the titans) when the expectant mother began to suffer a miscarriage. As a family we visited the the old general hospital at Burton on Trent (long since knocked down) to see the couple. This was the first time I had known of this sort of thing and had loads of questions I didn't ask, to be honest I remember not wishing to talk about any of it. For me being an 11 year old I just took it for granted that women became pregnant and then a baby was born , All nice and simple and safe.

  Since being 11 I have learnt a lot and have first hand experience of looking at a scan screen and seeing some shapes but not a heart beat or movement. Then spending time with my wife either at hospital or at home recovering. During my working life I have worked in photo processing shops where I have developed and printed photos taken by family members in hospital of babies which didn't make it, this being one of their few memories of that child (only once did I get warned what I was about to see).  I also know of two families who have had still births or suffered neo-natal deaths, the whole thing scares me.

   Pregnancy , birth and infancy are really really dangerous times in life and we so often take it for granted that everything will be ok. We take it for granted that baby and mother will all be ok.  Earlier this year on my sons birthday I posted the below on my facebook wall, detailing one of our experiences with childbirth.

8 years ago 19th June Oliver was born, I woke up to Nicola telling me the baby was coming and she had called the midwife, We arranged for Chloe . Ellesse  , Bethany and Thomas to go to school (or nursery). At just gone 9am Oliver was born, over 9lb, at home in the lounge, mom and baby went up to have a bath and came back to the lounge. About 2 hours after the birth the midwives were packing up to leave when Nicola's heart stopped beating.her blood pressure plummeted as well as every vital.

With the student midwife I packed a case and got Oliver in a baby seat, as Nicola was loaded into an ambulance I loaded Oliver into the car, I got to Good Hope before the ambulance and waited in room 1 with Oliver for 30minutes for Nicola to arrive, telling him Mommy is coming its all ok, he was 3 hours old.

Thankfully with some medical care, drips and oxygen all was ok Nicola was revived and recovered. We have had 2 more kids since. Well done both, happy birthday Oliver and thank you Nicola.

   As I mentioned I have not experienced a still birth or neo-natal death and can't imagine the feeling I can only compare it to the emotional blow when  looking at those screens in the darkened clinical scan room and seeing no movements, no heart beat. All of this following the euphoria of finding out you're having a baby and then suddenly you're not. To go full term must be absolutely horrific and a destructive emotional force.

    I can only imagine the pain of having spent so much care, time, money, effort, emotion on health, a nursery baby clothes, prams, car seats, pushchairs etc and then having to face the emotional loss of having lost all that happiness.

  I have seen 2 families go through this, both for different reasons and both dealt with it in different ways, 1 family I have to say amaze me in how well they have coped with both the event and life afterwards and I often find myself wondering how they have been so strong.

  In similar ways to Mr Quince, MP for Colchester, discusses in the BBC article the first family's unborn baby had passed away at a very late stage in pregnancy leading to the mother having to give birth to her baby. The trauma this caused was horrific. . This was over 10 years ago and around the time when my wife was pregnant. their eldest daughter at the time went to school with our eldest and so everyday at the school gates updates on the pregnancy were shared and then the devastation came. My wife did everything she could to help this couple and whilst we ll go our separate ways we still stay in touch. They have gone on to have more children and as far as I am aware they still have a photo of their little girl in their lounge. for a young couple at the time this could have easily destroyed everything they have and its a credit to them that they didn't let it.

 The second family suffered from a neo-natal death shortly after birth, I do not know this couple as well as I did the first however my wife has become quite friendly and chat regular, this couple have other children and have had one since, a rainbow baby, The strength that they have shown has been tremendous. The lady I refer to here works with children and when she found she was pregnant she obviously had to tell the children she worked with at the time including one of my children, so as a result the whole of her pregnancy time was shared with these children who at a young age were quite excited about this. I do not know the details around the loss but I do know the death was shortly after birth, a matter of hours and do remember hearing the news a few hours after it happened. the family were as you would imagine devastated as were the children she worked with.
Not being close to the family I don't know much about this time. what I do know is that this lady had to return to work after a maternity break, Here she would have to face the children she worked with prior to taking time off and of course have to face their questions and inquisitive/naive insensitivity's. I know my child took flowers to her, in particular a flower that she associates with her lost child. at the time I thought how on earth does she cope with both inquisition and acts of kindness from children without breaking down. I really don't know how she did it,
The family i refer to here have gone on to have a baby since and so this lady has not only had to face the fear created by what happened but she has again had to do it in front of the same children she works with. There are some amazing people in the world and i have total admiration for this couple, who whilst still mourning and remembering their loss have shown how life must go on,

To have the euphoria of a new baby stolen by a tragic event like these is a horrific thought that I would hate to happen to anyone.

This happens 100 times a week! Some people can talk about it some people can't, I know of relatives who have never spoken about it happening to them 30 years on.

This is a sensitive issue and I repeat what I said at the top

I am a bloke so don't have a mothers perspective, I am lucky enough not to have experienced the loss of a child and I have seven children, BUT  this does not mean I can not sympathise and empathise with those have have suffered such a tragic loss. during this blog I may refer to other people but will try as much as possible to keep them anonymous and not give away their identity,

I don't think I have actually said much here just contemplated and typed as I've gone along.

   I have included 2 links below, The Sands Charity web page for information and would recommend a visit to the National Arboretum SANDS memorial garden, its a place to think.

SANDS
National memorial Garden   

How Do You Pick Yours ? Elections & Voting

Every year in Tamworth we have elections whether that be Borough/District, County, General or in recent times referendums and this means for me delivering leaflets and knocking doors. This year during April I walked 100.1 miles on the 'campaign trail', and as in every year on polling day I spoke to a voter who told me they had not had a leaflet of anyone (I delivered that street myself so I know they did). This and seeing many variations of signage on doors stating 'No cold callers', 'we do not need...', 'No junk Mail', 'posted mail only' etc made me think more and more about how people in 2017 decide who to vote for?
(This is not a politically motivated way of improving my campaigning its a genuine thing I've pondered.)

The picture has changed so much in a relatively short time, I remember electrons when some areas always returned councillors from a particular party and some parties even stopped producing leaflets for these areas. Now I feel society seems to be engaging again in politics and as a result campaigning has changed. It's not only society becoming more engaged there have also been some significant changes, the onset of 24 hour news and of course social media.
24 hour news is a great thing, well I say that. Recently I had a job where I worked nights and slept very little this exposed me to many hours of BBC and Sky news, the repetition was mind numbing and then in a way to stretch the news further there's the whole raft of opinion or editorial pieces thrown in often without clear identification. So no we have opinion and discussion drip feeding into the news and of course discussion and opinion is to an extent reliant on speculation.

Let's not forget the influence of social media!!!! Social media can be a great tool to get a message out to a large number of people. What social media doesn't do is discriminate, anyone can post anything they like via a variety of platforms and once that has been shared a couple of times it's difficult to control and becomes perpetuating, we saw so much incorrect information during the with referrendum and the US presidential election the messages of the conpaigns were often lost but this still influences people's vote.

Just 2 more points I'd like to share before finishing for now.
It is said that parents influence the vote of their offspring until on average the age of 24 where the offspring will decide for themselves.
I saw a news stand/box containing The Sun newspaper last year, on this was printed "The Sun, for Entertainment,gossip,sport". It never mention news anywhere!

I don't want to go into solution mode as I would like to know what other people's thoughts are on voting influence. What makes you vote a particular way?
Leaflets ?
A knock at the door ?
Ever read a manifesto ?
National papers ?
Radio & TV ?
Friends?
Family?
Social media?

Potholes, Here There Everywhere

   We all know everywhere you go on the roads there's a pothole to rattle your front wheel and throw the steering wheel out of your hand. If your anything like me they will royally **** you off  too (annoy you).
    Now I live and drive around Tamworth and Staffordshire and whilst we are blighted we have no where near the problems of Liverpool and Manchester, but that doesn't matter unless you are in Liverpool or Manchester.

So the below is a list of things I know or have learnt about potholes.

 Staffordshire county council have already purchased a number or Pothole Zapping machines which to me are awesome, (I have a thing for machinery mounted on a lorry chassis I think its the combination of tools and transportation)
Its actually quite impressive. Not only that but the Conservatives have an election pledge of a further £3m to tackle the potholes of Staffordshire in 2017.

Apparently this piece of kit has been to Tamworth already. hopefully we will see it again.

How does the county know where to repair? there are 2 options, survey the thousands of miles of highway in Staffordshire or there is reliance on local people to report them. I know some people are very good at this and report them regularly, but there are many who don't. for example Two gates traffic lights have been reported.
 There is clearly and issue with potholes and we all know it. But from the documents I have seen not many of us are reporting them, I have read through the 34 pages of pothole defects reported last week by residents in Staffordshire and this has made interesting reading. Last week the county council only received 13 reports of defects to road surface in Tamworth, and these reports related to only 4 problems. we have to start reporting them. I may not be a county councillor at the moment but I think I have a duty to make sure the county know they have to come to Tamworth and sort out our roads.

 Right now for some of my knowledge about potholes, 

When I was a county councillor 2009-13, there had been a problem with St Georges Way for years and promises were not delivered, I was elected and immediately raising this with the local description of the road as the "surface of the moon". For following year Glascote road was to be resurfaced as a county councillor I managed to negotiate whilst the plant was in the area to get St Georges Way resurfaced,  I drove up there the other day and with the exception of a little stretching/cracking at one point its holding up very well.  I proud I was able to deliver that little piece of work albeit part pf the job.

Last week I got into a conversation about the standard of repair work. The person I was speaking to commented he saw some workers run into a gap in the traffic, scrape out a pothole, run into the next gap to pour in tarmac and then use the next gap to pack it down meaning the hole would repair in the weeks to follow. Now my knowledge is not at expert level but my understanding is the county council have a duty to remove danger and so may well  perform the style of repair above BUT this is a temporary repair until a patch can be dug out and rebuilt permanently. What I don't know is the turn around of permanent repairs.

Whilst talking about roads, it would be remiss of me not to mention the very quick surface dressing that has been added increasingly over the last 2 decades, this is where a tar is spread over the road followed by chippings and then a roller quickly runs over it, you know the loose stuff that we all hate. I have campaigned in the passed about this but I have since been told why its used. Firstly it apparently seals cracks in the road surface below. Secondly this surface is expected to last 3-5 years and can be done enough times to last 15 years for the same cost as resurfacing which lasts 10 years. So whether I like the use of this surface or not I can at least understand the reasons behind the use of this.

To conclude, Keep up the good work and report the potholes, lets not assume someone else has.
Well Done to those who report Potholes regularly are doing their bit regularly.   I'm certainly going make more of an effort not I've seen those figures because it seems not enough people are.

Report a Pothole online








Oh because it's election time and I'm a politician I have to include an imprint. 
Promoted by Michael Oates on behalf of Jeremy Oates, Tamworth Conservatives, The White House, 93 Lichfield St, Tamworth B79 7QF.