Cause

The commonest cause of a water blister is friction, for example new shoes rubbing against the back of the heel. Blisters also characteristically appear with chickenpox. Burns, including sunburn, can also cause blistering of the skin, as can insect bites. Impetigo can be a more serious cause of blisters.

Treatment

Avoid bursting the blister as this can lead to infection. The liquid inside a blister is usually sterile, as long as the thin covering of skin is still intact. If the blister does burst, apply a small pad of foam with a hole cut in the centre, to prevent further pressure on the area, which can be quite painful. Dab with antiseptic solution twice a day, and keep the wound as clean as possible. It should dry up in a few days, and the skin will then peel. Make sure your child wears open shoes, or shoes which do not press on the blister.

When to see your doctor

• if the blister is filled with greenish fluid, or the surrounding skin is reddish as this may mean that the blister is infected;

• if your child has multiple blisters and a fever or is unwell.

Prevention

Make sure that your child wears well-fitting shoes, that are neither too tight nor too loose. If your child has new shoes, put sticking plaster such as Bandaids on the back of the heels for the first week until he ‘breaks in’ the shoes.

*298\90\8*

Make sure that your baby’s furniture is chosen according to safety guidelines. Your local Child Safety Centre will be able to give you advice about what to look for and suggest brands. Consumer protection and advisory organisations and consumer publications may also be a good source of advice.

Car safety

The baby must be transported in a bassinet in a baby car restraint which conforms to Australian design and safety standards. A baby will be ready for a car seat when he weighs 9 kg and can hold his head up well.

Animals

Keep animals away from babies as much as possible. We do not wish to encourage you to give away your pets, rather, take greater care when they are around the baby. The change in composition of the household may upset some pets, and babies can easily annoy a pet with their actions.

Falls

Do not leave your baby alone on the change table; he can easily roll right off. Pad sharp edges of furniture, as babies fall frequently when learning to walk. Install barriers at the top and bottom of stairs.

Scalds

Be careful when bathing your baby. In the bath, always run the cold water first. Babies will readily pull the cord of an electric jug or kettle, or the edge of a tablecloth. Use place mats instead of a tablecloth, and use curly cords on electrical appliances. Never nurse your baby if you are smoking, or drinking a hot drink.

Burns

Keep your baby out of the sun — he has very sensitive skin and will burn easily, even on an overcast day. Fires and heaters pose a particular danger. Choose close fitting nightwear, and check the label to make sure it is fire resistant. Install smoke detectors in your house.

*2\90\8*

You have taken several tests already. Review those tests as a couple. Remember that the scores are not the issue. The process of learning and discussion is the key point.

Six Sex Drawings

Add to your tests, tapes, medical examination results, and the seven super marital sex opportunities a couples’ drawing test. Doing and sharing the drawings was fun for the couples and led them to interesting insights. Each of you should buy a small pack of crayons. Draw, in color, yourself and your partner separately and then draw one picture of yourself and your partner together. Claims of lack of artistic ability are not accepted because this is not an art test. Anything you draw will give you some ideas about how you see yourselves, each other, and the relationship. Here are some questions to help you learn from your six drawings.

1. Look at the size of the figures. Who’s bigger, smaller, fatter, skinnier?

2. What details were focused upon in the drawings? (Head, genitals, breasts, legs, arms, stomach?) Who focused on what and why?

3. What colors were chosen for which drawings and why? What do they mean to you? (Red=hot? Blue=cool? There are no correct answers; just discuss what a color meant to you.)

4. What was each figure doing?

5. What was the couple doing in the couples drawings?

6. How do the figures seem to “feel” as they appear in each drawing?

7. Write down one sentence that each figure is saying, and don’t forget the two sentences for the couples drawings.

8. On the back of one of the drawings, complete each of the following sentences:

1. To me, sex is . . .

2. What I like best about our sex is . . .

3. The characteristic of my spouse that turns me on most is . . .

4. My favorite thing to do sexually is . . .

5. The characteristic about me that I think turns my partner on most is . . .

6. What I think my spouse likes most about our sex is . . .

If you can laugh and share as you go over these drawings and your answers to the questions, you have made considerable progress already. You are now ready to focus on any problems you may want to correct in your sexual interaction.

*161\97\8*

I love my parents. But I’ll tell you one thing. I will never understand how they stayed together.

HUSBAND

We are seldom allowed a view into the intimacy of our parents’ marriage from which we can construct a model for relating in our own marriage. Few of us have the slightest idea about our parents’ sexual interaction beyond some secret late-night bed squeaks and unclear murmurs. Short of pornographic distortions, we almost never see anyone else making love, and our ideas about our parents’ marriages are probably badly distorted.

A basic question asked of all the thousand couples was, “How do you remember you parents’ marriage?” More than half of the men and women in my sample (57 percent) had negative memories of the way in which their parents interacted. Thirty-six percent reported physical or verbal abuse in their parents’ relationships. Often, couples commented that their parents tolerated one another, just ignored each other, or “survived.”

When asked if they would like their marriage to be like their parents’, the response (58 percent) was more typically no than yes. Even those who could find something to copy stated that they may be “seeing what I wanted to see” or “what I thought might be going on but never really knew.”

How about you? What is you marital learning history? Where and how did you learn to be married?

The media marriages leave us little to go by. They are either delightfully benign “Ozzie and Harriet” or “Leave It to Beaver” styles of relating, desexualized “marrinoids” acting out life, or hot, conflicted, distressed relationships of the Archie and Edith, Ralph and Alice type, drawn together by some secret attraction that not even they understand.

You will learn in following chapters that our relating style depends to a great extent on what researcher John Money calls “love maps,” early tracings of the results of our sex rehearsal during childhood. These rehearsals too often are corrupted, censored, and distorted by a society that insists on desexualizing children, preventing them from learning to unite emotion and sex. We have learned much more about what marriage is not and should not be than what it can be.

*21\97\8*

Once thought to be mainly due to a congenital defect of a blind track or sinus in the skin, it is now mostly accepted that the condition is acquired and results from hairs pushing their way into the skin in this area. The hairs may come from the head, the back or the buttocks.

It is commoner in men and particularly dark, hairy men.

A small infection develops like a boil just above the buttocks. Antibiotics may control the infection but it usually recurs and pockets of pus may persist.

Small abscesses may be incised and drained during the acute infection.

Most cases eventually require operation, usually laying open the tracks and pockets and clearing them of pus and retained hairs. If the area is large, a skin graft may be necessary.

*529/71/1*

This irritant group is the most commonly abused. These act by stimulating the nerves in the bowel wall causing overactivity of the muscles.

Prolonged use may cause degeneration of the nerves so that they are permanently damaged, impairing the bowel function so that chronic constipation persists.

These irritant purgatives include cascara, senna, phenolphthalein and bisacodyl.

The least harmful of substances which are taken for constipation are those which produce bulk. Natural food which contains indigestable fibre is best and can hardly be regarded as medicine.

Bran is probably now the most often discussed additive to add bulk. However, there are many preparations of cellulose material prepared from a variety of natural plants which swell when mixed with water.

These substances should be taken with several glasses of water so they will swell and add bulk to the diet.

If a patient complains of constipation, the doctor must assure himself that indeed that is the correct symptom. Some people have a normal bowel action, but, because of misinformation, may believe something is wrong. As with any other symptom, a full history will often reveal the diagnosis.

*273/71/1*

Countless doctors are asked this question each year. Often the answer is determined by the doctor’s state of anatomical completeness rather than by scientific fact.

Circumcision is a widespread religious practice which somehow has, in some communities, become a social habit.

Most American Anglo-Saxons are circumcised, and this is also the custom in Australia and to a lesser extent in the United Kingdom.

It is uncommon in Europe and therefore, uncommon in the sons of European migrants in this country.

Is it ever really necessary? Most doctors now accept that it is rarely required medically, but many continue to carry out this operation on the newborn for a variety of reasons, which include the parents’ wish to make him the same as his father, his brothers or the other children at school; it’s easier to do then rather than later in life, or because the doctor genuinely believes it to be a necessary procedure.

The prepuce or foreskin covers the glans or bulb on the end of the penis. In the new-born this cannot be retracted.

By the age of one, it can be retracted in 50 per cent of boys, in 80 per cent at two years, and 90 per cent at three. Mothers should therefore resist the temptation to retract the foreskin to clean beneath it. This is unnecessary until the prepuce has separated from the glans.

It is not possible to examine a young infant and suggest that circumcision is indicated because the foreskin can’t be pulled back.

*22/71/1*

*30/40/1*

‘Husbands can`t keep up with nympho wives on HRT’

This has many causes, and is not only experienced by women. The level of sexual interest starts to fall, and then continuous to decline, in men and women in their middle years. While some women undoubtedly find HRT of tremendous benefit to their sexual lives, others find it little or no help at all. It is difficult to distinguish which symptoms in women are caused by lower levels of oestrogen, and which are just the effects of ageing.

Physical causes. In women, physical effects of the menopause that can affect the enjoyment of sexual intercourse are that the breasts and clitoris become less responsive to stimulation, and muscle contraction of the womb during orgasm, which can be equally off-putting. Men of around this age may be starting to find that an erection takes longer to achieve, and it is harder to maintain, so physical factors in both partners can contribute to a failing sexual relationship.

*39\42\4*

On rare occasions, the bowel may be paralysed for several days after surgery. Eating will stretch the paralysed bowel and cause further delays in recovery of bowel function. So an intravenous drip is needed to supply nutritional needs in the meantime. Another rare occurrence is bowel blockage caused by the formation of adhesions during the operation. The blockage may resolve if the bowel is rested, but if not, further surgery is required. Although this is an unusual and unpleasant complication, the outcome is generally quite satisfactory.

*54\198\4*