How to be a parent and stay vaguely sane

Press, 21 July 1986, Page 17

How to be a parent and stay vaguely sane

Mavis Airey talked to Trish Gribben, the Auckland author of some of New Zealand’s most popular childcare books, on a recent visit to Christchurch.

"You’ve had three children and you seem vaguely sane,” said a fel--low survivor of parenthood to Trish Gribben. The remark tickled her sense of humour — "some days I feel more vague than sane” — but it comes close to summing up her qualifications for writing three of New Zealand’s most successful childcare books: "Pyjamas don’t matter,” “Nits and other nasties,” and "Coming ready or not.”

The first book was written in a fit of anger after her third son was born. “There were so many things I wished I’d known the first time around, simple things the professionals forget to tell you, such as that it’s quite normal for a baby to stop eating at around a year and you don’t have to force them.”

She doesn’t deny that there are plenty of childcare manuals around — fat tomes written by specialists from overseas. “The last thing you’d think we’d need is yet another childcare book,” she agrees. “Yet the need is there. I get asked to talk to lots of parents and the anxiety out there in the suburbs is high.”

“I would like to think that parents could enjoy their parenthood.” Herself a medical journalist, she collaborated with a pediatrician, David Geddis, who is head of medical services for the Plunket Society, and a child psychiatrist, Roy Muir, to produce a simply written, commonsense guide to what babies really need, enlivened — “the stroke of genius,” she says — with Dick Frizzell’s endearing, witty and helpful illustrations. “I followed up a hunch and approached him and he became very enthusiastic. As well as being an artist, he’s a brilliant illustrator with a background in advertising, and he was able to convey the message with humour.” The book has been enormously successful, published in several other countries, and translated into four languages. It proved the basis for a poster of the first 36 months of life which Plunket nurses give to .every baby born, tt is also being used by! third

formers doing home economics courses. “The response has been overwhelming at times,” she says. “I’ve had letters from here, there, and every-

where, and sometimes I’v had parents come up to me with tears in their eyes.”

The next book, “Nits and other nasties,” followed naturally from that success, and in particular her wish to encourage parents to complete their child’s immunisation programme. “It’s so easy to forget,” she acknowledges. “There’s talk of linking child benefit to immunisation, but I think sending reminder notices would be a good start. Vets do it Why can’t doctors?” Although she prefaces the book with a note pointing out that it is a guide to sickness and health and not a substitute for medical advice, it is plan that Trish Gribben has learnt the hard way how to deal with medical professionals. “There are some things that ase too important to be left to the

chance of someone asking the right questions,” she insists.

“Coming ready or not” was written at the request of a doctor and nurse at Middlemore Hospital, Anne Clark and Heather Thomson, who were working with a lot of very young expectant mothers. They found the women could relate to “Pyjamas don’t matter” and felt there was a need for a book with a similar approach to pregnancy and birth.

Trish Gibben has been deeply impressed by the effects of the commonsense and simple kindness approach used by these professionals. “They did a control experiment. Girls who had had their ’special care’ — seeing the same doctor each week; being called by their first name; trying to give them simple information — increased their antenatal attendance dramatically. Out of 400 visits, only three were missed, and in these cases the people rang to say why they didn’t come. They also found a reduction in toxaemia, urinary

.infections and caesarians; labours were shorter and less stressful; and more babies were breast fed.

“It’s a really positive outcome of simply increasing personal attention,” she feels.

Remembering the hours spent by women waiting in antenatal clinics, she thought what an excellent opportunity this would be for showing videos along similar lines to her books. "This generation is used to visual things, and I think if they saw, for instance, a baby breathing with pneumonia, they would be able to relate to that if their baby showed the same signs.” Making such videos could well be her next project. In spite of the success of her books, she has been careful not to turn herself into an “expert.” “No one person has all the answers,” she maintains.

“That’s the great, wonderful mystery. You don’t know exactly why children turn out the way they do, or how they will reSet.”