Resorting to Bribery :-)

There are hundreds of us, even thousands of us... parents, siblings, caretakers... people who know—really know— someone with Down syndrome. Combined we have a wealth of knowledge that surpasses any book written about Down syndrome, any expert’s opinion, and all stereotypes.

The only way to harness that knowledge is to come together and share it. Does left-handedness occur more often in the population of people with Down syndrome? Only we can answer that question. I am asking you to share your expertise on your child. I did a little begging on FB and now I am going to try bribery...

Take the poll over in the left column, leave a comment saying that you did (and how you voted if you want to) and you will be entered to win a $25 Amazon gift card. If 500 people take the poll, I will up it to a $50 gift card. (If you are one of those who already voted, just leave a comment saying so and you are in.)

Thank you for participating. Every one of us matters.

Fact or Fiction? Many People with Down Syndrome Are Left-Handed

Being left-handed means that the right hemisphere of the brain is dominant. The right side of the brain controls music, art, creativity, perception, and emotions. It is what we would call the holistic thinking mode. Left-handed people are more likely to be visual thinkers.

Right-handers have left-brain dominance which controls the areas of speech, language, writing, logic, mathematics, and science. It is thought of as the linear thinking mode.

In most cases being left-handed is a matter of heredity... it must be passed down to you by your parents genes, however there is some evidence to show that people with neurological differences tend to be left-handed. People with Down syndrome would fit into that category.

It would be easy here to tap into personality stereotypes and suggest that maybe the 21st chromosome has something to do with right-brain dominance but instead I am going to go with personal observation. I have three children with Down syndrome, all biologically unrelated, and guess what? They all favor their left hand. The oldest is 5 and the youngest is 2, so none have completely settled on which hand it will be but for now they lean left.

Teaching a baby with Down syndrome to eat with utensils can be difficult if the baby is a budding lefty trying to use righty tools. My one daughter refused to self-feed using a spoon or fork and continuously ditched the utensils to use her bare hands. It was frustrating for both of us until I realized that she wanted to, and would, use utensils in her left hand to feed herself.

If you have a lefty, you may want to pick up a set of left-handed utensils for your budding eater. These EasieEaters curved utensils go for about $15 on Amazon.

If you are not sure yet which hand your sweetie prefers, you can get a set of Benders that your baby can practice with. I like these because you can bend them side to side or even up to suit your child’s current skills, though I find them to be only really useful with foods that stick to them because of their small bowl size.

Your Turn
Take the poll in the sidebar. Is your child with Down syndrome a lefty, righty or ambidexterous? Let’s find out if there is any truth to the left-handed rumor.

Breastfeeding Polls

Next week begins a two-part series on breastfeeding a baby with Down syndrome. To get ready there are a couple polls on nursing over in the left column. Please take a moment to share your experience in the polls.

Because breastfeeding can be complicated there are several ways to answer the question: did you breastfeed? For the purpose of this poll, the question is did your baby end up nursing from your breast? Even if you used nipple shields or an SNS feeder, please still select one of the options indicating that you were able to breastfeed.

We would love to hear your thoughts on your breastfeeding experience, so please leave them in the comments section.

Surprise

A while back I did a poll about when you found out your baby had Down syndrome. The results (way, way down the left column) indicated that around 60% of babies that come with extras come as an after delivery surprise.

There are lots of reasons for this. Maybe you didn’t care about prenatal testing... que sera sera... or maybe you did but something got missed. Doesn’t matter now. You have a wonderful new (or not so new :-) person in your life.

What does matter is that there are a lot of misconceptions about people with Ds and their parents. For one, there are some pregnancy/birth statistics that are skewed (and posted all over the internet). You who were delivered surprises can help to straighten that out (even if you didn't vote in my poll).

Please read the Oz Squad blog post, “What’s In a Number” and then, if you qualify, take the prenatal testing poll. Your participation is greatly appreciated.

Umbilical Cord Idiosyncracies

My daughter spent some time fighting monsters in the NICU. Most days she hung out in just her diaper so we had a good day-to-day view of her umbilical cord stump. I let the nurses know right away that if she should lose it when I wasn’t there, they were to bag it for me to keep.

(Enough with the eeewing... I had no idea it was gross and uncommon until the NICU nurses gave me the funny look and pointed out that usually they just throw them away.)

The average umbilical cord stump falls off within eight to 21 days, with most gone by two weeks. When my daughter hit four weeks old, the staff started commenting that it was a little weird that hers was holding out. Her NICU pictures remind me that sometime between day 35 and 38, a pediatric surgeon played with it until it came off. I’ll bet he was one of those kids that had a loose tooth out within days.

“Could it be the Down syndrome?” I heard the doctors wondering during rounds one evening. No one knew. I forgot all about it until I read out here in our blog community that someone else’s baby hung on to their cord stump for a long time as well. My curiosity got the best of me and I started looking into it.

Who knew the umbilical cord could be so interesting... there are umbilical hernias (20% of general population), two vessel cords (1 in 100-500 general pregnancies), late cord stump loss, and short umbilical cords.

Your Turn
Are babies with Down syndrome prone to umbilical code idiosyncrasies? Let’s find out. Take the poll <--- left column 5 blocks down. Please comment and let us know anything interesting that comes to mind concerning your child’s cord or umbilical cords in general.

Only Three Days Left

So far it is looking like babies with extras like to come early... but the only way we will know for sure is if you cast your vote in the poll. Its over there <-- in the left column, five blocks down. There are only three days left, so hurry up and put in your two cents.