James and Bronwyn and Hamish's house

On a tight schedule we visited James and Bron on Thursday afternoon. James was playing with Hamish, Bronwyn was out visiting Anna and Charlotte.

Hamish is a big boy! Hard to imagine he's only one and a half. Unfortunately he was a bit sad because his mum wasn't around, nor was his grandmother. He's a whiz in the kitchen, got the coffee machine down pat (assisted James in making Deepti's coffee). Very impressive.

The photos of the day are stuck on my mobile. I'll have to work out a way to get them off it before I can share them. Grr.

Day 2 - Orange-tastic

Mum cut some oranges up in the morning and was handing them around. Mmmm, orange.

Naina, as usual watched. Watched mum cutting, handing out and then eating.

Naina trying to psych out Mum into giving her some orange


Parent's ineffective protest of "No mum, don't do it, not the orange, the nurses said only apples and bananas".





Incriminating evidence was plastered on the scene


Grandmother and curious baby One.... Parents and nurses, Nil....

Actually, she was quite cute sucking on the orange and enjoyed it quite a lot. With the usual chorus of not more than a teaspoon, N spent the best part of ten minutes doing something with the orange. I probably should have taken a pic of the before and after. Perhaps her dental coordination will improve with age.

Introduction to Mountjoy Road.

The first evening, Mum and Dad got to know their long lost grandchild. This being the first one, they've really got a lot of love to give. Naina was quickly whisked out of our hands and into dadaji and dadiji's arms.

Naina, being a little uncertain, was crankier than usual. I think she's use to a little less attention. It was hard to work out what was going on; was it teething, gas, a combination of both, or just tired and cranky. Turns out it was usually all four.

I almost dropped Naina (again). She's a squirmer. With my general lack of coordination and her general lack of awareness of the laws of physics, we have the classic set-up for a screaming baby each time I pick her up.

Paracetamol

I want to blog more about Perth trip, but the camera is recharging so I can't get the photos off the camera.

So I want to blog about scientific stuff.

I'm a pharmacist, I recommend paracetamol for babies all the time. It works, we consider it safe as a professional group and there are very rarely any issues over safety if given responsibly. People do make mistakes and overdose their babies and that can cause trouble, but generally, it is a safe, effective and useful medication for babies and young kids.

Recently, there's been some news about asthma and paracetamol. That children given paracetamol once a month at an early age, regularly, seem to develop asthma at a higher rate than children. The news article cited states:

And seven-year-olds are more than three times more likely to have asthma if they were given paracetamol at least once a month in the previous year, compared with children who did not get paracetamol.

Three times ey? That's shocking. Well. I'm sure it isn't quite as blinding as that; but I'd have to check the paper to make a better summary. As it might be a relative risk of 0.1 becomes 0.3.

I also work for the evil evil pharmaceutical industry. We have lots of drugs that do nasty stuff to people. One of our drugs has a listed side effect where a known relationship exists between the drug and the side effect (in an almost MC Escher way) of unexplained death. That's right, one of our drugs kills people, we know it does, but we have no idea why.

I also recommend that people watch an episode of The Hollowmen from a fortnight ago. We've discussed this episode at work. It is quite truly, the sharpest review of the industry I've ever seen. Especially when the company says it can't lower the cost of the drug anymore because of the cost of developing it, upon which the company chef walks in and says "Would your guests require wine?"

Anyways, the problem with a large study of 200000 children is the sheer power of numbers can show up very very rare situations; ultimately best described as weak signals that may not have any clinical or real life significance at all. If 600 children developed asthma on paracetamol and 200 on placebo/nothing, that would mean that the average child had a 0.4 % total risk over seven years of developing asthma. That's one in 250 children.

This issue has raised its head before - both pros and cons for the industry of drug peddlers. Powerful studies can show more signals - efficacy and safety. Powerful studies are expensive. Only pharma has the money to do big powerful studies that are conducted under strict regimes. Powerful studies have been abused for lots of reasons - mainly for marketing reasons by pharma.

This drug X is 22 % more effective at lowering blood pressure than drug Y, (when drug Y was a fairly poor performer compared to drug Z and really the comparison should be between Drug X and Drug Z).

Anyway, I think I'm saying caution. With any big study, the cause and effect is often hidden. My Occam's Razor suggests that children with asthma were more likely to be unwell in their initial years then children who were not - mainly because asthma is a chronic disease involving mast cell destabilization and histamine release, which leads to the swelling of the lung tissue and anaphylaxis. It has to start somewhere somehow; I just doubt (even with my pharmacy and pharmaceutical hat on) that paracetamol is that trigger.

Flight over

There's something about getting to an airport on time that makes me nervous, anxious. Always.

This trip was no exception. Usual last minute jitters (literally, have you unplugged the microwave), running to Ray next door to hand over the keys and swearing poetically (bloody shit) when stuck on the citylink at 11am, paying a toll and still driving at 30 kmh. We even managed to almost leave passports and tickets at home, I kid you not.

Anyway, I think N knew we were up to something as she had refused to sleep the night before and was fairly fidgety all morning. Seeing a 5 month old fidget is like watching a person with movement disorder. She would be, in cycle, looking at her hand (both sides) then arcing her back, and then stretching her left arm upwards. And repeat.

Hey look, something over there

For the first couple of hours on the flight she was unsettled. I was praying it would not be too much more than the first 30 mins. I looked forward to watching Son of Rambow. But the unsettledness meant I did not swipe my card and watched the flight path for 4 hours.

Plenty of leg room on these new flights

Deepti spent most of the first two hours after take off on her feet pacing up and down the aisle. Some sleeps were short but finally exhaustion kicked in and she slept for a good 45 minutes on the spare seat. Round one to flying on day flights! The flight attendants even took Naina up to the front of the plane for a while.

Mum and Dad were extremely excited to see Naina. I think we were the "extras" on the set. Judging by many baby photos with grandparents, this is a common theme.

Bath times

Saturday was a bit of a revelation day. It was Miss N's five month birthday, which is amazing in itself. With all the nappies, sleepless nights, gas incidents, crabby mornings and crabby evenings, we forgot to do much more than go yay. I mean it, that's all she got. Six month will be a bigger occasion. The months roll past so quick.

Anyway, the revelations were two fold. First N doesn't want to be lying down in the car anymore. She lifts her neck quite well so we'll be switching to the seat soon.

The other thing is bath time. She's keen to sit up at bath time and play. This is especially exciting. Hopefully unaided sitting soon!

Separated at birth

Speaking of separated at birth. Some people say N and I look a lot a like at the same age. Poor girl. Frankly, I can't see the resemblance.



Lies, why do I fill my own house with lies. Man that's some nice threads there on the right.

And of course just to make the 70's flash back complete; that is some bitchin' good hair.