Terms of Use Agreement

In a world of uncertainty and confusion around all things 'life', stuff happens. Be they errors, omission, or mistakes, sometimes things don't always happen in the way they were intended. With that in mind, it's prime time for a little 'Terms of Use Agreement' for you delightful readers. Consider it a gift to you from The Accidental Pharmacist:

This Terms of Use Agreement (this “Agreement”) is between Kelly Grindrod, PharmD (the “Author”, a.k.a. The Accidental Pharmacist,) and “you,” the user of this web site (the “Site”). By accessing, using and/or browsing the Site , you are hereby agreeing to terms and conditions set forth in this statement.

Please be aware that all opinions expressed on the Site are the personal views of their authors and not of their employers or of any other agency. Most importantly, these opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual.

Information on this Website

Any information provided on this Site is for informational purposes only and is given with the intention to do no harm. It is not intended as and does not substitute for medical advice. If you need care, contact your own health professional for evaluation and management. Under no circumstances will the Author be liable to you for any direct or indirect damages arising in connection with use of this Site. By accessing the Site, you acknowledge that there is no pharmacist-patient relationship between you and the Author (so stop hitting on me, okay...).

If any recommendations or claims are made about medication therapy, healthy behaviour or any other method or therapy, the source (original publication or the author’s personal opinion) is clearly stated. Both to protect you and to avoid making unfounded claims, every post is linked to its source of information.

Any opinions of the Author on the Site are or have been based on specific facts, under certain conditions, and subject to certain assumptions, and may not and should not be used or relied upon for any other purpose, including, but not limited to, for use in or in connection with any legal proceeding.

Things change and mistakes happen so the information contained on the Site may be changed without notice and is not guaranteed to be complete, correct, timely, current or up-to-date. Similar to any printed materials, the information may become out-of-date. The Author undertakes no obligation to update any information on the Site; provided, however, that the Author may update the information at any time without notice in the Author’s sole and absolute discretion. The Author reserves the right to make alterations or deletions to the information at any time without notice.

Privacy

We aren't sure who you really are because this Site does not collect any personal information about its visitors and readers. The use of this web site is logged by visitors statistics software such as Google Analytics or FeedBurner to gather information on your general region or on how you found the Site. This information is kept permanently for use in web site administration and research. It is kept secure and confidential and is only used by web site staff.

Disclosure of funding sources

This is a private web site receiving no funds from a third party (no one pays me for this...). Free hosting is provided by the Blogger.com platform owned by Google, Inc.

Advertising policy

The Site may display advertising through the Google AdSense program (automatically generated) or other parties. The inclusion of third party advertisements does not constitute an endorsement, guarantee, warranty, or recommendation. The author makes every effort to distinguish advertisement, if present, from the editorial content by appropriate labeling.

Links to other web sites

The Site may contain links to third party web sites and they aren't supposed to be offensive. These links do not represent a guarantee, warranty, or recommendation by the Author of this Site or an indication of any affiliation, sponsorship or endorsement of such third party web sites. So, if you happen to end up somewhere that wasn't intended (like some nasty porn site), the Author of this web site is not responsible for the content of linked third party web sites.

Comments
The Site is open to the public. The Site nor the Author will be held liable, for anything that you post in the comments section, nor the laws which you may break in your own country or the country of the Author, through your comments’ content, implication, and intent.

We don't want to offend or harm anyone. If you submit or post content on the Site, you grant the Author and any company substantially under the control of the Author, the right to remove any content or comment that, in Author’s sole judgment, does not comply with the terms and conditions of this Agreement or is otherwise objectionable or offensive. You also grant the Author and any company substantially under the control of Author the right to modify, adapt, and edit any content.

There you have it. If you agree to all these terms and conditions, then please enjoy the site and all its rambling observations.

Holiday Cocktails

As we were out last night having dinner with some friends, I was asked 'are you drinking?' Normally I don't drink all that much but it's the holidays and I did kinda want a glass of wine. I'm also not above a mug of hot chocolate and Bailey's when the weather is crappy.

But this year, as a new mama, I'm also breastfeeding and realize that many other women are in a similar situation and don't really know whether they can indulge.

So, for all you mamas out there or for you gracious hosts of breastfeeding mamas, here's a bit of useful information on consuming alcohol while breastfeeding:

• The breast is best: Your goal should be to minimize drinking and keep breastfeeding. We don't know how much alcohol is safe to consume while breastfeeding and none is the safest amount of all. When consumed by babies, alcohol can impair motor development, affect sleep patterns, decrease milk intake, and cause low blood sugar. In addition, drinking a lot of alcohol can reduce a nursing mom's milk flow.
  
• But, 1-2 drinks is likely safe: In an average sized woman, 1 drink of alcohol will take 2-3 hours to leave the breastmilk whereas 2 drinks will take 4-6 hours. If you're going to have 1-2 glasses of wine, beer or a cocktail (singles, not doubles), feed immediately beforehand. That way, by the time your baby is ready to eat again in 2-4 hours, you've likely cleared most of the alcohol from your milk.
  
• You can't speed elimination: You just have to wait it out. After drinking alcohol, the concentration in breastmillk in similar to that in blood so drinking extra water or taking a rest will not get rid of it any faster.
  
• Breastmilk is not like urine: Alcohol does not get trapped in your breast in the same way it does in your bladder. This means that 'pumping and dumping' will not help you clear the alcohol any faster. Pumping and dumping only matters if you drink more than a couple of drinks and don't want to risk feeding your hungry baby a breastmilk cocktail. If you drink more than you mean to (like when others are filling your glass for you), feed your baby milk that you pumped beforehand and dump your spiked milk.
  

If you want to check out how long it will take for you to eliminate alcohol based on your weight, you can use the table in this article by the Motherisk group published in Canadian Family Physician (2002).

In addition, here are some other useful sites for information on alcohol and breastfeeding:

• La Leche League: FAQ on Alcohol
• Jack Newman: Myths of Breastfeeding
• Kellymom: Breastfeeding and Alcohol
  

As always, be sure to drink in moderation as your baby needs a capable parent and try to limit your alcohol consumption as much as possible. With that in mind, happy egg-nogging. Cheers!

Photo by digimist

Motherhood Statement

Welcome to Carnival of Breastfeeding. This month's carnival is all about taking care of yourself during the holidays (no small feat for moms). At the end of the post check out the listing of others who are also contributing to the carnival. Enjoy!

This is a great time of year.

The lights, the music, the food, the romantic depictions of holiday cheer in movies like Love Actually and novels (ahem) like Debbie Macomber's 'The Perfect Christmas'.

Hey, I'm under no illusion that my holiday will be anything like the chestnut scented festivities of these fictional worlds, but I do find comfort in their quietness and optimism. However, in my first year as a breastfeeding mama I'm also acutely aware of the challenges of the season. Many of us are impoverished by maternity leave budgets, sleep deprived by late night feedings, inundated by The Opinions of Others and overwhelmed by Our Own Expectations.

Oh hello, Opinions & Expectations. I haven't seen you much since The Wedding.

It's December, and this month brings with it a myriad of stresses and social commitments that expose these challenges. We wake up thinking about gift shopping, holiday parties and finding quiet corners in which to feed our little ones. On top of it all, we're exhausted from interrupted naps (anyone else with me on the screaming bedtimes?) and operating a 24-hour dairy farm.

Throw in domestic urges (Holiday Baking, Christmas Card Sending and Santa Clause Impersonating to name a few) and it's times like these that we find new respect for our own mothers.

In this hypercompetitive world of parenting, something we all have to work on (myself especially) is how we treat one another. So please, with the arrival of this festive month, we all need to relax a little. While you or a mother you know is pacing, shame-faced, as an otherwise cherubic angel screams bloody murder in her tired arms (I know, she's such a good baby and NEVER does this), remember that these are the holidays. Take it easy.

Don't judge (yourself or them). Don't wonder if the baby is getting enough milk or if the baby is being held the right way. Don't point out the milk stain or the hairs that frizzed out of the ponytail.

Don't think you should or do know better.

If there's anything that romantic comedies teach us, it's that nothing is perfect in our life story and shit happens (sometimes on Gramma's curtains). Just look at Twitter. For every supposed disaster, there's a discussion already happening about something far worse.

Either way, us parents need to stick together. Whether it's by social media, email, telephone or eggnog latte, we need to tell each other that we're doing a good job. That we're loving our kids and yes, that sometimes we're cleaning up poo.

Instead of grabbing your nearest piece of advice or that pound of self criticism, reach for the mint fudge. It will make a world of difference.

On that note, I'd just like to say 'Hey, you - keep up the good work' and have a happy holiday.

Cheers.

Other contributors to the Carnival of Breastfeeding:
Cave Mother: A Mother's Christmas
Mama Knows Breast: A Breastfeeding Poem: Twas the Breastfeeder's Nighttime
Chronicles of a Nursing Mom: Don't Forget the Pump!
Blisstree.com's Breastfeeding 1-2-3: Breastfeeding and Dehydration
Hobo Mama: Breastfeeding and the holidays: How to take care of yourself
Mommy News & Views: The Holidays And Being A Breastfeeding Mom
Breastfeeding Mums: Looking After Yourself During the Holidays: 7 Tips for Breastfeeding Mothers
Motherwear Blog: Taking care of yourself during the holidays
Happy Bambino's Blog: How to Take Care of Ourselves During the Holidays
The Adventures of Lactating Girl: Breastfeeding and Holidays

Photos by jspad and napalm nikki

The Bank Made Me Do It

It's the end of the year and we're wrapping up all the annoying stuff we've been putting off for months. Considering that I had a serious case of nesting a few months back, our to-do list was pared down to the most mundane and mind-numbing of tasks and had been collecting dust until recently. But, with the end of 2009 rapidly approaching, we knew we had to revisit our household responsibilities and get our affairs in order.

You guessed it - we've been doing our finances.

(Did you just vomit? A little? Just in your mouth?)

In our efforts to start the new year fresh we found that the maintenance of all things financial takes an inordinate amount of time. In the past 2 months alone, we encountered a shocking number of errors and subsequent excuses. In a surprising turn of events, rather than sorting everything out, our to-do list grew with the failed processes of the very financial institutions we were trying to hand our money to.

In one example, we were offered an interest rate and signed the papers. However, by the time the institution got around to processing the paperwork, it turned out that they had adopted a higher interest rate. Who cares, right? Good timing on our part, right? Wrong. Instead, we were told we were out of luck, to which we replied that we'd be changing institutions.

I'll talk to my manager.

Um, yeah, I think you will. This being highly inappropriate and unethical, we were left with the distinct feeling that many of our so-called 'financial experts' are nothing more than clerical staff. Or worse, self-serving Salesmen.

Ew, what's that smell? is that a Salesman on your shoe?

Both of us are now partially bald and The Husband recently strained his left eye in a fit of rolling.

This morning, as we both reached our limit while being fed another financial Christmas Cake full of we didn't know's and failed to mentions, our bullet proof marital bond started to warp.

Twenty minutes into a phone call and the Husband started to crack. I knew it from the one word sentences and the staring at his toes. At one point he uncharacteristically glared at The Pea, who was happily grunting out a poo. Seeing our family foundations on the verge of crumbling, I quickly snuck into my holiday baking stash and pulled out a mini peanut butter cup.

In order to understand the gravity of this chocolate treat, you need to know that The Husband has an enormous sweet tooth. In order to protect my stash from his monstrous molar, I have to seek out secret locations (like behind the cous cous or some other healthy food he doesn't consider edible).

After unwrapping one of these Weapons of Christmas Harmony, I asked that he close his eyes and open his mouth. In a moment of sheer panic I lobbed the sweet treat into his mouth and let him process that 1) I was the best wife EVER and 2) chocolate makes everything better.

Sure enough, his shoulders relaxed, his lips curled into a smile and when he finally opened his glassy eyes, with love in his heart, he looked at me and said...

You!! Where were You hiding these?!?

And there you have it. A perfect example of why financial institutions have made me hide chocolate in my own house.

Photo by Zach Klein

Peanuts, Autism and a Parent's Choice

The Husband and I like to think we practice what seems to be known as attachment parenting. We babywear, co-sleep, demand feed and generally strive to raise a kid that cries to be put down rather than picked up.

However, as I stroll around the Internet looking for tips on fitting a sling or for play that isn't guided by Fisher Price, I keep encountering something I didn't entirely expect - anti-vaccine sentiments.

Before I get too much into it I should point out that, while I may be both a pharmacist and a researcher with training in epidemiology, I am in no way funded by drug companies. My salary is paid by public granting agencies like the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. However, I do support public health initiatives to protect our kids from serious illnesses like meningitis, bacterial sepsis, whooping cough, and tetanus and think the evidence is very clear that vaccines are not linked to conditions like autism.

At the same time, I also support parents in choosing what's right for their own children. To be an attached parent is to question the norm - why strollers? Why cribs? Why scheduled feeds? Why a houseful of plastic baby containers? Many parents who choose to go this route face constant criticism from a whole host of peers, friends and family who all see the logic of the norm - after all, it's a norm for a reason.

It is therefore not entirely surprising that attached parents would also question vaccines. Herein lies the dilemma when deciding to vaccinate: on the one hand we would never wish serious illness, or worse, death, on our kids by not vaccinating. On the other hand, we don't want our kids to be afflicted with serious adverse effects from vaccines either - effects that are widely shared by anti-vaccine advocates in the form of the ever powerful anecdote.

Countless journalists and scientists have taken up the debate far more eloquently than I ever could (like Amy Wallace in Wired or Laurie Garret and Dana March in Newsweek) but, in many cases, these papers have only escalated the anti-vaccine sentiments. After all, to be pro-vaccine is often to be discredited as pro-pharma or anti-child.

With that in mind, I want to share something that I've been wondering about. You are free to agree or disagree with me - I don't know the right answer.

Last month, when my Chatelaine magazine arrived in the mail, there was an interesting article called It's Just Nuts. In it, Patricia Pearson reviewed the alleged rise of serious food allergies, questioning whether it was fact or myth. What followed was a barrage of very angry letters that led the editor, Maryam Sanati, to devote a large portion of the next month's magazine to the topic and to open up a discussion board on Facebook.

The gist of those letters was this: serious food allergies are very real and very dangerous. As a society, we're all responsible for protecting allergic children. This means that some kids are not able to take peanut butter sandwiches to school because, as Cindy Stutski put it in her letter to the editor:

"Life isn't fair. We still need to live it the best way we can; sometimes, this means changing the way we do things for the protection of others.'

But isn't this rational precisely the opposite of the anti-vaccine concerns? If we are talking about protecting kids from peanuts, shouldn't we also be talking about protecting kids from serious infectious diseases?

Sure, autism is grossly different from not sending your kid to school with a Snickers bar, but the link between vaccines and autism is anecdotal and has been repeatedly disproven in the most rigorous medical literature. I'm not questioning the seriousness of autism, but rather the association. I know there are many anecdotes that link the two, but there is a very real and proven link between things like meningococcal bacteria and meningitis or bacterial sepsis.

Vaccines are for the protection of our own kids, but they are also for the protection of children with immune systems compromised by cancer or genetic disorders or HIV or similar. They are also for the protection of small babies who are susceptible but not yet vaccinated. They are for the protection of the child who was vaccinated but failed to develop immunity. They are for the child that did not have access to vaccines because of a number of socioeconomic barriers.

I read recently that anti-vaccination choices are the privilege of the upper-middle class parent but I think they are also the privilege of parents with healthy kids. In the same way that it is our responsibility to care for children born with serious food allergies, is it not also our responsibility to care for children at risk of serious communicable infections?

I don't know the answer but invite your comments and discussion - I just ask that if you do comment, please be considerate and respectful (on both sides of the issue).

Photos by artados and Southernpixel

Hey, Hot Stuff

The other day I wrote about the colour of girls' clothes and the need for stuff that isn't pink. Today, as I dragged The Husband through his usual weekend nightmare on the search for local, handmade items (artisan and farmers' markets, crowds, hippies, chunky knit sweaters, patchouli), I stumbled on Redfish Kids Clothing from Vancouver and Fell. In. Love. As we walked through the Portobello West market two little outfits stood up and called out my name.

Kelly. Kelly, over here.

When I turned, these two delightful little creatures waved at me and I was charmed.

Yes, it's true child, Mama has found the answer. When the world of pink gets too heavy, we'll put you in this little Kimono onesie and breathe a sigh of relief.


Then, when you're a little older and want to dress a girlie, we'll pull out this cute smock. Paired with some practical gumboots, you'll be hitting the puddles like they're going out of style. According to the lovely lady that makes these dresses, we can even put it over jeans.


I cannot wait.

On Instinct

This post was written as part of the Second Tuesday Parenting Carnival. For more fabulous posts from parent bloggers, visit www.CodeNameMama.com today!

Since childhood I've had The Fear of Needles.

One of my first curses was directed at a public health nurse during a routine vaccination. Years later, I had my only panic attack on the first day of pharmacy school in a clinic waiting room full of other students (I've never been more grateful for the maternal bosom of a fifty-something nurse or the relative anonymity of large universities).

With The Fear, you can imagine how I felt last week as The Husband held a screaming 2 month old Pea down so our family doc could quickly jab her fleshy little legs. I ached all over.

But here's what gets me - beforehand I looked up ways to reduce injection discomfort (for her and I both). In my search, I found a fairly comprehensive systematic review of 19 clinical trials suggesting that pain could be reduced by holding your baby on your lap, rubbing the spot beforehand and asking the nurse or physician to start with the least painful vaccine.

Unfortunately, when the time came I chose to go along with getting it done quickly rather than do any of those things. While this may not be wrong (she did seem to forget pretty quickly) it likely wasn't right either, because afterward I hated myself.

Thoroughly hated myself.

Why, so often in our lives, do we go against our instincts, parental or otherwise and go with the flow?

This could refer to our choice of work or life partner. In the case of parenting, it could refer to our birth stories, how much we hold our babies or our family sleep arrangements. Consider the debate about scheduled care vs. demand care - babies do fine either way but many of us read and read (and read and read and read) to ensure we're doing the right thing. If we just did what we felt was best - what our instincts suggested in the first place - our kids would turn out fine.

But it's not that easy. Fear can masquerade as instinct and lead us astray - we're afraid of doing something so we say we 'have a bad feeling'. Hindsight is also a fickle bitch with perfect vision - when things don't go as planned we beat ourselves up, saying we 'knew better' even if we didn't know better at all.

Some of the time we even abuse the term 'instinct' - just because my instinct says that my arch nemesis should wear a velour Christmas pantsuit over the holidays, it doesn't mean she should. I just want her to look like one of Santa's elves because I have 15lbs of prenatal poutine weight to lose.

What do you think of your instincts? Are they well honed? Do you even know where your instincts are located?

Or, like so many of us, do you just bumble along never quite sure what you did by serendipity and what you did by instinct, in the end chalking it all up to 'experience'?

Photo 'Art of Pain' by azarius

Hot New Look

A few things about me: 1) I know very little HTML, 2) I'm totally and completely left brained and therefore creatively challenged, and 3) my available time to change my wicked ways is limited by diapers, research papers and the great post-post-doc job search.

This is why I am totally over the moon that people like Ellie Moore exist.

A while back I won a new template from Rainy Day Templates & Blog Design. Ellie, the creative brains behind the site, clearly has an eye for fancying up those boring blogger templates. Now that I'm enjoying the change of pace that is maternity leave, I finally got around to picking out my new layout. Isn't it schweet?

If you're like me and want something different but don't know how to go about getting it, I highly recommend that you check out her site. It's very cool.

The Power of Pink

This post is to distract me from the Victoria Secret Fashion Show where Heidi Klum is rocking a hot post-partum bod. I've got a bit of a hate on for her right now and need to console myself. So here goes...

I like to be contrary. It feels good. Real good. Because sometimes it's just more interesting to turn an idea on its head.

So, I'm just going to throw it out there...

What the hell is up with all the pink for little girls? I'm not kidding. I don't get it. It's weird. There's a giant cultural obsession with seeing the weaker gender through rose coloured textiles.

It's not that I don't like pink, it's a happy colour. I don't really wear it (or anything other than black or gray with jeans because I have no fashion sense) but I like the look of pink.

What I don't like is the fact that girl=pink. Because the labels that girl= hold a lot of meaning.

Girl=weak. Girl=precious. Girl=sweet. Girl=pleasant. Girl=docile.

Girl=bias.

I also realize that when you go shopping for a little girl you're fairly limited in terms of the colour spectrum. Everything has something pink on it. The same goes for boys and blue. But when I see her in her unisex diaper looking no different than a little boy, and I pull out a pink outfit, I feel a little guilty. Like I'm labeling her too.

In many ways it would've been so much easier to have had a boy first because we could have given him dolls and let him play house or dress up in mama's clothes and known that we were doing our best to question gender roles.

But we had a girl first and now we have to question everything we do to make sure we don't force her into a cultural pigeon hole.

But it's just a colour, right?

Wrong. Because we would never dress a boy in pink. When I commented on this to my mother-in-law who gifted us with loads of pink, I jokingly said that I will gladly dress a little boy in all of The Pea's hand-me-downs. She informed me that she would simply buy us blue stuff to avoid the issue. Of course I offended her because I was also questioning her generosity, but I was serious. It makes us uncomfortable to dress a boy in girls clothes.

And we all know why.

Now that I've shown myself to be an ungrateful gift recipient and offended all those that gave us gifts of pink clothes, I should clarify that I will be using those pink clothes until there are holes in the knees and stains on the elbows. And will be teaching her to bake, cook and play house. But I'll also be putting her in more masculine colours and giving her toy trains, construction sets and science kits.

Because it's fair.

And yes, in all fairness, you can expect to see any future brother of The Pea wearing a pink cardigan in our family Christmas photos. 'Cause I'm like that.

I like to be contrary.