So I am not going to post about our farm today so if you are looking for the farm blog, you can skip this post and come back tomorrow.

I wanted to post about my other life, and specifically causes of the pediatric deaths that I have personally seen.

Child abuse*

Pneumonia

Pertussis (whooping cough)

SIDS*

Hypoxic birth injury

Choking

Suffocation*

Premature delivery

Congenital heart disease

Seizures

Accidental gun shot

Intentional gun shot (homicidal)

Neonatal sepsis

Pulmonary hemorrhage from prematurity

Chronic lung disease from prematurity

Surprisingly I have not witnessed deaths from a motor vehicle accident nor from suicide, but my close colleagues have, even very recently.  I have known children who have died from chronic disease like diabetes, cystic fibrosis, cancers, genetic disorders, and neurodegenerative disorders, but I was not present for their deaths.

For some reason people today do not think children are still dying in our communities.  And I think people are making poor decisions due to lack of this knowledge.  I know the pediatric death rates have dropped significantly, largely due to public health improvements, but there still are childhood deaths.  And as you can see from the list, many of these are preventable.  And the degree of suffering by these children and their families as well as by health care professionals is tremendous.  So I wanted to share my incredibly sad list in the hopes that there may be some knowledge that could be shared for some good.

Thanks for your patience.  The regular farm blog will return tomorrow.

*multiple cases