BT Calgary Blogs

A lot of pregnant women are choosing not to get the H1N1 shot, even though it’s recommended by medical professionals. So, I spoke with Dr. Peter Nieman about what else these women can do to help protect them.

Here’s the story.

TRACY WASYLUCHA IS SIX MONTHS PREGNANT AND HER SON ROWAN IS TWO.
BUT AFTER SOME SERIOUS CONSIDERATION, SHE’S NOT GETTING EITHER THE H1N1 OR THE SEASONAL FLU SHOT.

“THERE’S SO MANY CONTRADICTING NEWS STORIES, I DON’T REALLY KNOW WHICH IS TRUE, AND WHICH IS FALSE AND I FIND IT REALLY DIFFICULT TO MAKE AN INFORMED DECISION.”

AND WASYLUCHA IS NOT ALONE. THE MAJORITY OF PREGNANT WOMEN ARE NOT GETTING THE SHOT.

BUT ACCORDING TO THE MEDICAL EXPERTS, DOCTOR PETER NIEMAN, SAYS THAT MAY NOT BE THE SAFEST CHOICE.

“WHEN YOU LOOK AT HEALTH CANADA’S ADVICE, THE CENTRES FOR DISEASE CONTROL, THE AMERICAN PEDIATRIC ACADEMY, THE CANADIAN PEDIATRIC SOCIETY – MY POINT IS MORE THAN ONE ORGANIZATION  ACTUALLY ARE SAYING THE SAME THING – WHEN YOU’RE PREGNANT IT’S VERY VERY IMPORTANT TO HAVE PROTECTION FROM THIS VIRUS.”

YET DOCTOR NIEMAN KNOWS, MANY WOMEN ARE STILL HESITANT.  SO FOR PREGNANT WOMEN AND WOMEN WITH YOUNG CHILDREN WHO ARE AFRAID TO GET THE FLU SHOTS THIS YEAR, HE RECOMMENDS DOING SOMETHING ELSE TO BOOST YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM.

BEST PLACE TO START? A GOOD SLEEP.

“NO DOUBT THAT A LACK OF SLEEP IS LINKED TO WEAKER IMMUNE SYSTEM, SO GET YOUR 8 OR 9 HOURS OF SLEEP EVERY NIGHT.”

EASIER SAID THAN DONE FOR MANY PREGNANT MOMS – BUT EVEN A NAP WILL HELP SAYS NIEMAN. ALSO – EAT WELL.

“EAT A DIET RICH IN PHYTONUTRIENTS AND ANTIOXIDANTS. SO EAT YOUR FRUITS AND VEGGIES.” 
IF YOU CAN’T GET 10 SERVINGS A DAY, NIEMAN SAYS TAKE A SUPPLEMENT.
ALSO MAKE SURE YOU’RE GETTING ENOUGH VITAMIN D.

“THERE’S VERY PROVOCATIVE RESEARCH SHOWING LOW VITAMIN D LEVELS MAKE YOU MORE PRONE TO CATCHING THE H1N.”

SO PREGNANT WOMEN SHOULD BE TAKING DOUBLE THE RECOMMENDED DOSE FOR ADULTS, THAT’S 2 THOUSAND INTERNATIONAL UNITS.
AND OF COURSE, DOCTOR NIEMAN SAYS STAY AWAY FROM THOSE WHO ARE SICK. 
WASYLUCHA HAS HER OWN PLAN.

“WE ALWAYS USE HAND SANITIZERS, I TRY TO WIPE HIS HANDS BECAUSE HE STILL LIKES TO PUT HIS FINGERS IN HIS MOUTH AND TOUCH THINGS AND FOR MYSELF I’M ALWAYS WASHING MY HANDS AS WELL.”

SHE’S ALSO GOING TO UP HER VITAMIN D.

“I’M THINKING ABOUT GOING AND GETTING SOME DROPS AND GETTING BOTH ROWAN AND I ON THEM…I’D LIKE TO BE AS HEALTHY AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT SUBJECTING MY UNBORN CHILD TO ANY UNNECESSARY HARM.”
————–

More questions and answers from Dr. Peter Nieman:

WHAT ABOUT THE H1N1 IS SO HARMFUL TO PREGNANT WOMEN?

- JUST BY THE NATURE OF BEING PREGNANT, A WOMAN’S IMMUNE SYSTEM IS NOT AS STRONG AS IT SHOULD BE
- ALSO THEY DON’T METABOLIZE THINGS THE WAY THEY NORMALLY WOULD
- SO WHAT KILLS PREGNANT WOMEN WITH THE H1N1 IS PNEUMONIA – USUALLY IT GOES INTO THE LUNGS
- BEST ADVICE – IF NOT GETTING THE SHOT – GO TO THE DOCTOR IMMEDIATELY IF SICK – SO YOU CAN GET AN ANTIVIRAL LIKE TAMIFLU – IT IS ONLY EFFECTIVE IN THE FIRST 2-3 DAYS OF THE INFECTION

IS THE H1N1 SHOT STILL USEFUL IF WE’RE NOT GETTING IT UNTIL MID NOVEMBER??

- YES, WE’RE NOT SURE YET WHEN THE FLU WILL PEAK – AND RESEARCH SHOWS IT WILL PROTECT EVEN IF THE FLU IS ALREADY CIRCULATING

WHAT ABOUT PREGNANT WOMEN WHO SAY THE H1N1 SHOT IS WORRISOME BECAUSE IT’S SO NEW??

- DOCTOR NIEMAN SAYS EXPERTS SAY THEY DIDN’T RUSH INTO MAKING THE VACCINE
- THE VACCINE WAS MANUFACTURED IN THE SAME WAY IN THE SAME PLANTS AS THE SEASONAL FUL VACCINE – WHICH HAS LOTS OF SAFETY CREDIBILITY

WHO SHOULD REALLY AVOID THE H1N1 VACCINE?

- THOSE ALLERGIC TO EGGS – BECAUSE THE VACCINE IS GROWN IN A CHICK EMBRYO
- IT’S THE SAME AS THE SEASONAL FLU SHOT THAT WAY

WHAT ABOUT MERCURY IN THE VACCINE?

- THERE IS MERCURY IN THE H1N1 VACCINE IN CANADA
- THOUGH AGAIN, THE MEDICAL EXPERTS SAY, THE SMALL AMOUNT IN THE SHOT IS SAFE
- THERE IS A NON MERCURY SHOT OPTION AVAILABLE IN THE U-S, BUT NOT HERE
- THERE’S ALSO AN ADJUVANT IN THE CANADIAN VACCINE TO MAKE IT LAST LONGER – THAT’S NOT IN THE U-S VERSION

WHAT ABOUT IF YOU GOT THE SEASONAL FLU SHOT LAST YEAR - DOES IT MAKE YOU MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO H1N1??

NO – THAT STUDY THAT CAME OUT AWHILE AGO – IT HAS NOT STOOD THE TEST OF TIME SAYS DR. NIEMAN – MORE INFO HAS SINCE COME OUT SAYING THAT’S NOT THE CASE – THAT IN FACT – PEOPLE COULD PROBABLY GET BOTH SHOTS AT THE SAME TIME, JUST IN DIFFERENT ARMS

WHAT ABOUT AFTER YOU HAVE THE BABY?

- GET THE SHOT THEN – IT WILL OFFER SOME IMMUNITY TO THE BABY THRU THE BREAST MILK
- AND PROTECT YOU FROM GIVING IT TO YOUR CHILD SHOULD YOU GET SICK

——–

For more information – visit Dr. Nieman’s website:

www.healthykids.ca

There is also a lot of great information on the US Centres for Disease Control website:

http://www.cdc.gov/

Just be aware, the vaccines are different in Canada and the US. So, talk to your family doctor or public health nurse before you make your final decisions.

I haven’t seen a room full of such thoughtful/stylish/outstanding shoe choices since the movie premiere of Sex and the City.  Candace Bushnell spoke in Calgary today at the Business of Bliss conference.  The women attending dressed their best, especially south of the ankle.

I took about 6 pages of notes and intended to write a comprehensive review.  Then I got distracted googling the shoes Candace was wearing at the conference…so I give you the highlights (including the Jimmy Choos)!

1)  Candace Bushnell’s looks fabulous.  Not “for her age”, just fabulous.  Bod, face, hair, all of the above.

2)  She has great style.  She looked teeny tiny in a grey pencil skirt, a white fur vest (”it’s all legal”), AND she was rocking the 4.5″ Jimmy Choo Blaze studded leather sandals.  I know.  I found the link.   I covet.

3)  Candace Bushnell is not an overnight success story.  She worked as a professional writer in New York for 16 years before finding success with Sex and the City at the age of 35.  “I was just never going to give up…if you looked at my career from the outside, you would have thought ‘this girl is never going to make it.’”  But she did!  Everyone starts somewhere.

4)  Her life isn’t all glamor all the time.  Candace writes in jeans everyday, often “in a little cabin in the woods.”  Her daily “routine” includes getting up at 7am, writing for 4-8 hours, and watching Dr. Phil and Judge Judy.

5)  Bushnell has a sharp sense humor and joked “I still wear pink sometimes.  I know it’s inappropriate for a 50 year old”.  Audible gasps from the crowd.  Not at pink, at fifty.  On that note – embrace it!  “It’s taking advantage of what comes with age rather than bemoaning it.”

Next up, Candace Bushnell is working on The Carrie Diaries (2 Sex and the City prequels).  She also wrote a few webisodes if you’re looking for a fierce and funny female fix at www.thebroadroomonline.com.

Little update for all you rose lovas – Jake is all but confirmed to be the next Bach…yeah yeah we had a hunch about it back in September.  Click here for the post.  Are we happy or heartbroken (Reid/Kiptyn) fans?

Let’s look on the bright side of Jake.

A)  He looks phenomenal sans shirt.

B)  He seems like such a sweet apple pie guy it might be interesting to watch him get tempted by trouble.  Will Jake be able to stick to the high road in a roomful of 30 lovestruck women competing for his abs?  I mean heart?  I’ll tune in to see.

Who wants to make a bet Jake’s airline will sponsor all the jet setting adventures for the Bachelor and his bevy of women?  Producers are probably tickled pink.

I speculate of course.   Jake is not confirmed yet.  We have to wait for Dancing with the Stars for the “official” announcement October 13th.

FURTHER to the buzz around the *other* Bachelors coming to Calgary… mark October 24th on your calendars!  The Calgary Women’s Show will be insanity.  I personally know the Alberta chapter of Reid’s fan club are making their travel plans already.  Stay tuned for further updates – I will let you know more as soon as I know!

  Politics:  you gotta love it, although a good many people, including on occasion my wife, have wondered aloud why in my case this would be so. 

  Mostly, I guess, for all the wrong reasons.  I’m at once intrigued and maddened, and have been for a long time, by the interminable feigning, manoeuvering, infighting, thrusts and parries, flaccid excuses for past promises ignored or broken, double dealing, obfuscation, and more often than any sane observer would find palatable, the appearance of knives plunged into the backs of party leaders.  

  The troublesome irony is that able governance is and always has been the primary victim of politics, which is to say we the people are victims as well.  It’s all about power, all about ego, this fascinating but dreadful game they play out in Ottawa  –  and we are now confronted with yet another wearying cause-celebre to set our teeth grinding in frustration about the dumbbells of Parliament Hill.   

  Denis Coderre is a wallowing clot of an MP from the Montreal riding of Bourassa.  He hasn’t always been the people’s choice:  starting in 1988, Coderre ran unsuccessfully three times before finally winning a seat in Parliament in 1997.  He then trudged through a series of cabinet portfolios, serving with moderate competence punctuated by frequent outbursts of jingoism, but overall with no great distinction. 

  If, however, persistence combined with modest ability is the stuff of political rewards, Coderre got his.  Late last year, the rookie leader of the Liberal party, Michael Ignatieff, named Coderre his Quebec lieutenant,  which meant he would be in charge of choosing party candidates for the next election.  The position is not without power:  traditionally, the Quebec lieutenant has made the final determination, and in many cases the only determination, about which candidate would run in which riding.  Those candidates would then be indebted, and power does obtain to the benefactor.

  So now let us join in chorus:  “Here we go again.”  A trifling riding dispute in Quebec has evolved into the latest version of the Liberal party as the old TV show Hee Haw.  This was a yokel production in which a rotund hayseed rube of a country comic character named Junior Samples would announce that a silo or barn or something had ”blowed up real good.”

  So it is with the Liberal Party of Canada, because Denis Coderre shambled into view this past Monday with a satchel of political dynamite which he then detonated by resigning as Quebec lieutenant.  And why, pray tell, was Coderre moved to this?  A fit of childish pout, is why, because Michael Ignatieff   –  who at last report was still the national Liberal leader  –  overruled Coderre’s choice of candidate for a suburban Montreal riding. 

  In Coderre’s heated brain, this was just the most awful thing, as John Diefenbaker used to say, and so the Quebec lieutenant, the grand fromage, but nonetheless the junior officer, so to speak, embarked on a flaming public tirade about how under Ignatieff’s leadership the Liberal party is now run by “Toronto advisors who know nothing about the social and cultural realities of Quebec.” 

  And then while professing eternal fealty to Ignatieff and the party, Coderre forged onward to declare the “Toronto palace guard” has taken over.  “Who should the leader of the Liberal party of Canada listen to on decisions that strictly affect Quebec?  Should he follow his Qubec lieutenant…….or his Toronto advisors?”

  With one word, deliberately chosen or otherwise, Coderre placed in full view the real reasons for his snit.  Overstuffed ego and rampant ambition.  He would by no means “follow” Michael Ignatieff, or by inference any other  leader of this national political party because he, Denis Coderre, was the Quebec lieutenant and rest assured, no man in that position would be so craven as to “follow” anybody. 

  I would note in passing that Michael Ignatieff has enough troubles these days.  Foremost among them would be hanging himself out to dry with his ill-considered blowhard threats to force another federal election, come what may, even as opinion polls upon public surveys show the Grits, and Ignatieff himself, going down like stones into a well. 

  In such circumstances, Ignatieff seems well positioned to lose his job through his own political naivety, if not incompetence, but now Brutus has unsheathed the dagger.  And not for the first time.  Back in 1987, Coderre was a junior organizer for former Liberal leader John Turner, but upon sniffing the winds of revolt blowing in Turner’s direction, publicly stated it was time for John Boy to shove off. 

  Once was not enough.  Two years ago, Coderre abandoned Stephane Dion, the hapless political minnow swimming upstream against the party tide, and soon enough Dion was gone too. 

  Now thrice.  But there’s a broader issue, I think, and it’s this:  the buffoonery of Denis Coderre means the rest of us in this country are once again impotent witnesses to charges, which cannot be sustained, that Toronto  –  in other words, English Canada  –  is meddling and messing about with Quebec’s right, in the federal context, to do as it pleases when it pleases. 

  I don’t know about you folks, but I’m tired of Quebec this, Quebec that, Quebec the other thing.  In this case, a plodding, self-absorbed, second-rate Quebec politician has driven a wedge into a national political party.  A Canadian party.  Our party, actually, even if out here we don’t often vote for it. 

  And not incidentally, Coderre’s revolt has caused unrestrained elation in the Bloc Quebecois caucus.  The very morning he noisly announced his resignation as Quebec lieutenant, the Bloc had started a run of full-page advertisements in French-language newspapers, claiming the Ignatieff Liberals have the same “restrictive view” of Quebec as the Conservatives and Stephen Harper.  Without question, the Bloc election campaign next time around will be loaded with Coderre, i.e. Liberal quotes in support of that view. 

  But Denis Coderre, the ego who walks like a man, doesn’t give a damn about the Liberal party and for that matter, Canada.  He sees only the “Toronto” conspiracy, leaving the rest of us helpless with fury, because the attention of a party that aspires to national governance has been diverted by a Francophone rebel, and is therefore focused on one thing, and one thing only.  Quebec.  Again.    

  As I say, you gotta love it, although I have to admit sometimes even I question why.