The Health and Safety Disease

The Health and Safety Disease

Writing on this subject has been building up in me ever since I went to a beach in Adelaide and saw a sign “Warning Soft Sand”. (Is there any other???)

In 2010 I visited Thailand, a place I had visited many times.  Whilst Thailand has road accidents like many other countries, there are not as many as in NZ.  It’s hard to imagine really. In Thailand there are crazy tourists on bikes everywhere who don’t really know the road rules, there are Thai’s on bikes with 3 sometimes 4 people and a mattress or dog, tuk tuk’s sometimes carrying awkward looking objects not to mention overloaded trucks which would be banned in NZ.  Thailand’s electricity lines can only be described as a tangled concoction of wires ready to blow, in fact as I was walking under some one day they did start sparking above me.  Of course this sort of thing would be unheard of in safe little ol’ NZ.  There were also more potholes on the roads in Thailand, more untarsealed roads as well.  In comparison, NZ have very good roads on the whole and mostly tarsealed. We have traffic lights on most corners and pedestrian lights as well.  Personally Ii like to still use my awareness and if there is no traffic I cross the roads at will.

I noticed a striking difference between the Thai’s and the NZ’ers.  Although Thailand is considered a much poorer country than NZ, it’s richness comes from its people.  They seem to be far more alive than the drones I see walking the streets in Wellington during the day.  You see there has been so much health and safety in NZ, people don’t have to think anymore, They just read the signs, follow the lights, because the roads are so good, they tend to drive faster than they should.  The more health and safety that comes into people’s lives the less they have to be aware. The less people are aware, the more accidents.  This is why the Thai’s are so much more vibrant, they are more aware.  The only time I have seen Wellintonians with increased awareness was the day after the big quake here.  What a difference that was, it really felt alive, it was a buzz walking around the streets that afternoon and the day after.

The thing is, health and safety people do all this health and safety stuff to stop people dying.  Well hellooo - there is one fact of life for all of us, and that is that we ARE all going to die.  Some of us sooner than others, there is absolutely nothing they can do to stop it.  If they stop one thing and the figures go down, life will just use another avenue and those figures will go up.  Some of us are meant to die early others are not.  It’s not about accidents, that’s just life doing what life does.

I don’t know about you but Health and Safety is a disease which has and is still sucking the life out of New Zealand.  You can’t bake and sell things at a market anymore because it now has to be done in a commercial kitchen (excuse me but how many people died in the old days when we were allowed to test and sell our products at local markets!), we can’t build houses how we want, there are all these regulations out there (they didn’t stop the leaky house problem did they???),  speaking of houses, we spend all this money on professionals who are supposed to check places before we buy them.  They don’t do their job properly, it’s just a money making, feel good exercise.  A friend of mine recently went to sell his property and found out the local council hadn’t done due diligence on his foundations – hadn’t signed them off – costing my friend hundreds of dollars!

We tried to park in a huge car park outside Rotorua once.  Just to give you an idea of how big this car park was it could probably hold 300 cars.  That morning there would have been 10 to 5 cars parked.  I parked in the middle and some old guy ran out from the office and said that I couldn’t park where I parked.  I looked around utterly confused.  He said I had to park where the other vans were parked.  I won’t tell you where I told him he could go...... It just goes on.... and on.... the fact of the matter is Health and Safety people (people who pay double their taxes and live by fear) suck the life out of everyone – they’re a DISEASE!  Thankfully we know they will die J

Why Babies Cry

As some of you may know my husband is starting a writing career.  What you may not know is that he employs me to do research.  This means I get to read on all sorts of subjects that I usually wouldn't read about.  For those of you who really know me, you probably know that my interest in babies is zero to none.  In fact when my husband asked me out for the first time, I asked him if he wanted children and if he liked cricket.  He said "no", to both which is why we are together now.  (He lied about the cricket tho!!)  However I had to read about babies for one of Nige's ideas.  What I found out was amazing and I bet more than 85% of mothers don't get to read this stuff.  I, like many others thought that if a baby cries it either needs food or it needs a change of nappies - right?  WRONG!  oh so very wrong.

A baby first communicates by acting happy, angry or surprised.  It does this by changing the tone of its murmuring, gurgling and crying and by using body language.  They can only clearly see to a distance of 20-25cm (8-10”), at 5 weeks after its first growth spurt this increases to 30cm (1ft).  It reacts well to music and bright colours (red, black and white together hold their attention best).  Newborns are sensitive to smells and flavours and temperature changes, reacting sharply to pungent smells and preferring sweeter flavours.  A baby experiences their world in terms of boredom, hunger, hot, wet, tired or tastes good.  It cannot, like adults, distinguish between its senses.

A baby will go through these phases at certain times during the first year.

§  1. Clingy  at 5 wks, 8 wks, 12 wks, 15 wks, 23 wks – [roughly]

§ 2.  Uncomplicated

§ 3.  Happy

§ 4.  Irritable behaviour (cries more often, sleeps less, is clingy and more demanding, eats less, more fussy etc.)

Those phases indicate the baby is having a growth spurt.  Something changes in their brains which enables the baby to perceive things differently. The clingy periods can last from 1 day up to 7 days. They need lots of hugs at this time. 

Imagine what it would be like to wake up and suddenly find yourself on a strange planet where everything was different from the one you were used to.  You can’t say I’ll eat something and I’ll feel better or I’ll shut my eyes and it’ll all go away.  You would try to find something to attach to or hold on to where you feel safe.  This is what babies do when they have their first growth spurt.  Babies become clingy and possibly more demanding as they have a need to attach themselves to the mother to feel safe.

After the growth spurt the baby will start noticing shapes and simple patterns for the first time.  Like the slats in their cot, they may start to recognise their arms and legs. It will look at things longer and more often, is more aware of being touched, of smells, may smile for the first time or smile more often.  From a physical perspective the baby may vomit, burp and choke less, breathing more regularly.  The baby becomes less jumpy and expresses their likes and dislikes more often.

Each big change is unique – babies learn a new kind of perception which allows it to learn a new set of skills.  When a baby is happy and content, this is the calm before the storm.

Some babies are born with pyloric stenosis (an over tightening of the passageway between the stomach and the gut).  This causes projectile vomiting and can be fixed with minor surgery).

8 Weeks

Another big growth spurt happens around this time, between 7 and 9 weeks a storm gathers.  The baby might cry more often, become more demanding, loses it’s appetite, sleeps badly, can start sucking its thumb and demand more and more of your time.  This is another period where the baby is feeling different and needs something safe to cling on to. 

The baby starts to notice lights, shadows, its own body appendages – fingers, toes, patterns and motifs.  A personality starts to emerge now and the baby becomes more adept to expressing its own preferences.  It will hold its head upright when its very alert and consciously turns its head towards interesting things.  Will start to consciously kick its legs, roll around, wave its arms and allows people to pull them into a sitting or standing position.  It ‘toys’ with its face and pulls all sorts of faces and experiments more with its voice.

At 10 weeks there’s a breather, a lull period where baby is content and happy.

 11-12 Weeks

The baby will enter another new world.  It goes from being a puppet like Pinocchio into a ‘real boy’.  The circumference of its head increases. It will attempt to use its body more, communicate more, exactly when your baby does what depends on its preferences and opportunities available to it.  The baby develops an interest in a variety of things and responds to people more.  This child will suddenly gain its place in the family unit.

13-14 Weeks

A lull period.

19 Weeks

18-20 weeks – another growth spurt.

The baby’s ability to understand the world around him becomes more developed.

Amazing eh!  Who knows this stuff.  It was from a book I read called Why They Cry.

Every new mother should read this book.   These stages are all predictable within 1-2 weeks.

Medical Rules....

If I went to a dress shop and they said I’m sorry you can’t actually buy this dress, you can only get a dress from this shop if you have a referral from an image consultant.  You have to pay for it then we send it to the Image consultant who can then advise you if it suits you or not and then they will give it to you if you pay them a fee. That’s the rules.

Sounds crazy doesn’t it – but this is what the medical industry does when you need an X-ray.

Five years ago I twisted my hip riding a horse.  I’ve never been right since.  I went to Chirpractors, Physio’s and acupuncturists even a medical intuitive (that’s a psychic) to see if I could get this fixed.  Not one of these people suggested I have an x-ray and not one of these people permanently fixed my problem.  After researching my problem recently on the internet I decided I needed to get an x-ray. 

I rang a radiology business to make a booking.

I was told I needed a referral.  I got that. $55

I got my X-ray done $80

I was told that I couldn’t have a copy of that X-ray that it went straight back to my chiropractor.   $55

My Chiropractor is the only person who can ask for a copy of this x-ray which I paid for and which I made the decision to get.  Just to make this clear, so far  I have paid a total of $190 with no physical result as yet.  Just an x-ray and an explanation from my Chiro which was different to the summary the radiologist gave which he considered incorrect.  The radiology industry considers us to be imbeciles who are incapable of understanding their explanations!)

Each time I have a medical problem I always look on the internet to see what is wrong (much to the disgust of all in the medical profession).  The information I have found on the internet has been 100% right in all cases so far and I will continue to use this avenue before I am forced to use the mainstream medics. 

The medical industry needs to get the pineapples out of their arses, learn how to treat their patients right before the whole of NZ gets smart and starts taking more medical holidays than they already are!!