HeartDoc Andrew wrote:
> Michael Ejercito wrote:
>> HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly wrote:
>>> Michael Ejercito wrote:
>>>
>>>> https://www.reddit.com/r/LockdownSkepticism/comments/1f6fygf/how_did_the_pandemic_impact_babies_starting/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> How did the pandemic impact babies starting school as children now?
>>>> 1 day ago
>>>>
>>>> Share
>>>> Vanessa Clarke
>>>> Education reporter
>>>> Fiona Young A baby in a blue sleepsuit is lying in a moses basket. Above
>>>> the basket his father's hand is holding an ipad and on the screen there
>>>> is a couple in a garden waving helloFiona Young
>>>> Baby Elijah, who was born in the strictest lockdown, met his
>>>> grandparents for the first time online
>>>> On 25 March 2020, Fiona and Ben Young drove to their local maternity
>>>> unit through London’s empty streets. When they arrived, security guards
>>>> sent them to the back entrance. It was day three of England's first
>>>> lockdown and the front was surrounded by patients being treated by
>>>> doctors in hazmat suits.
>>>> Two days later, after a long labour, they welcomed baby Elijah.
>>>> Delighted and exhausted, they left the hospital and headed home, full of
>>>> anticipation over their new life as parents.
>>>> But because of lockdown, it was far from what they expected.
>>>> "No-one was allowed to visit us for months - there were no newborn
>>>> cuddles with family," Fiona recalls.
>>>> "I had a number to ring if there was an emergency, which didn’t work. We
>>>> had no health visitor and no midwives. Our first visitor was a friend
>>>> who walked four hours across London to sit in our garden."
>>>> Elijah, now four and about to start school, is one of tens of thousands
>>>> of babies born during the Covid pandemic. He is also one of 200 children
>>>> being studied as a 'lockdown baby'.
>>>> The Bicycle (Born in Covid Year, Core Lockdown Effects) study, which
>>>> launched in July, is looking at whether the lockdowns had an impact on
>>>> children's talking and thinking skills.
>>>> Based at London's City University, it also involves five other English
>>>> universities.
>>>> A girl with curly hair is smiling at the camera in a light blue jumper
>>>> More than a third of the children going into reception at Elizabeth
>>>> Selby have speech and language needs
>>>> "Some children may have benefited from more time at home with their
>>>> parents and some children might have been negatively impacted," Prof
>>>> Lucy Henry of City University explains.
>>>> "They may be learning words more slowly or their fine motor skills may
>>>> possibly be behind.
>>>> "The real question is: who was affected and what can we do to support
>>>> them as they go into their school lives?"
>>>> Reduced interactions with family members and the loss of access to
>>>> services such as health visitors has had a serious impact on the speech
>>>> and language of some of these children, initial research by the
>>>> University of Leeds found at the end of 2023.
>>>> In Bethnal Green, London, twins Aqil and Fawaz were just eight weeks old
>>>> when the pandemic hit.
>>>> Their mother, Fahmeda Ahmed, lived in a second-floor flat with her
>>>> husband and their two older children - Hasan, four, and two-year-old
>>>> Khaijah.
>>>> "It was just the same day over and over again," she said. "We couldn't
>>>> go out, we couldn’t socialise, we couldn’t invite friends over and we
>>>> couldn't go anywhere with the kids."
>>>> A boy in a grey hat and a stripy navy jumper sits beside a lady in a
>>>> black and white dress and a black hijab. They are both holding an orange
>>>> pencil and writing. They are in a classroom sitting at a yellow table
>>>> with yellow seats and red blinds behind them
>>>> Fahmeda and her son Aqil had regular pre-school catch up sessions to
>>>> help him with his progress
>>>> Fahmeda bought an inflatable swimming pool for the balcony to try and
>>>> keep her older children entertained.
>>>> She attempted to homeschool her four-year-old, who had just started
>>>> reception, but he completely stopped talking.
>>>> And then there was baby Aqil. He was having difficulty swallowing and
>>>> Fahmeda tried for months to get a face-to-face appointment with a doctor.
>>>> Eventually, at three months, he was diagnosed with tracheomalacia, a
>>>> condition where the walls of a child’s windpipe collapse. He needed a
>>>> minor operation.
>>>> Check out BBC Tiny Happy People's pages on language development for
>>>> three- to four- and four- to five-year-olds
>>>> Covid inquiry investigates impact on children
>>>> Child speech delays increase following lockdowns
>>>> How will museums of tomorrow tell the Covid story?
>>>> “I was so scared going into the hospital because you would hear stories
>>>> that you would catch [Covid]," Fahmeda said.
>>>> "And I remember when Aqil was going into theatre, I was so upset. There
>>>> was a nurse there and she said ‘I'm so sorry. I can't hug you’."
>>>> Four years on, Aqil and Fawaz are healthy young boys, about to start
>>>> reception at Elizabeth Selby Infants' School in Bethnal Green.
>>>> But they both have speech and language needs.
>>>> Their two-year child development check was delayed, they weren't able to
>>>> attend any baby classes and their first year involved very little
>>>> interaction with the outside world.
>>>> Fahmeda believes all these factors have had a lasting effect, and
>>>> experts agree.
>>>> "Children need opportunities to go out into the world and have new
>>>> experiences and with those new experiences come new words - but that is
>>>> happening less during the cost-of-living crisis and it happened less
>>>> during the pandemic," says Jane Harris, head of children's charity
>>>> Speech and Language UK.
>>>> A teacher with brown hair holds up a large book to a class of
>>>> pre-schoolers sitting on a colourful mat with a bug pattern, listening
>>>> to the story. Many are sitting with their legs crossed with their hands
>>>> together.
>>>> The school has employed a speech and language therapist for its
>>>> pre-schoolers for the first time
>>>> Prof Catherine Davies, from the University of Leeds, who is also
>>>> involved in the study, says many of the safety nets for families like
>>>> Fahmeda's were taken away during the pandemic.
>>>> “The education systems weren't there, health and medical support was not
>>>> there, their interaction with their wider social networks wasn't there,"
>>>> she said.
>>>> One third of pre-schoolers (34%) at Elizabeth Selby had speech and
>>>> language needs during the last school year - up from a quarter (25%) in
>>>> 2020, according to the school.
>>>> This year, the school has had to employ a speech and language therapist
>>>> for its pre-school class for the first time.
>>>> In June, 22,952 children were waiting 19 to 52 weeks for a speech and
>>>> language therapy appointment, and 5,832 children were waiting over a
>>>> year, according to NHS England.
>>>> The Department for Education in England says it will be focusing on high
>>>> quality early education and is continuing the Nuffield Early Language
>>>> Intervention programme for another year.
>>>> “If I could, I'd have a speech and language teacher in five days a week
>>>> - and I would still have a waiting list," says Shahi Ahmed, head teacher
>>>> at Elizabeth Selby.
>>>> "But I have to think about the budget and how that impacts the school."
>>>> Mr Ahmed says there is a "massive increase" in the number of children
>>>> needing help with toilet training, which takes teachers away from
>>>> teaching. The school is now bringing in outside agencies to help support
>>>> parents.
>>>> And among all of this, attendance is falling, which Mr Ahmed says is
>>>> important as it sets "routine and expectations".
>>>> A man with brown hair and a beige shirt sits at a table smiling at a
>>>> young girl with curly hair and a leopard body warmer and beige woollen
>>>> cardigan. She is playing a blue drum and smiling back.
>>>> Lots of families haven't had health visitors or access to GP appointments
>>>> Mr Ahmed believes the increase in children needing more help is
>>>> "absolutely" a direct result of the pandemic.
>>>> "They didn’t have the chance to interact with other children or even
>>>> just go out or have visitors to the house," he says.
>>>> "They've been limited to what's around them - and that has caused a gap
>>>> in their social interaction skills."
>>>> Thankfully, Fahmeda says her twin boys have already benefited from their
>>>> time in Elizabeth Selby's pre-school classes.
>>>> "Fawaz has changed completely - he never used to call me mum," she says,
>>>> wiping her tears away.
>>>> "It's so nice to hear. You might think I'm being silly, but that’s so
>>>> amazing and it’s because of the teachers."
>>>> As for Elijah, his first interactions with family members were all on Zoom.
>>>> "We would hold up the iPad to his face and introduce him but he wasn’t
>>>> really paying much attention," Fiona said.
>>>> "I think he saw the lights and colour but I don’t think he understood he
>>>> was meeting humans."
>>>> He didn't attend any baby classes as they had all been cancelled. "He
>>>> spent the first three months solely with us," she said.
>>>> Elijah was diagnosed with tongue tie when he was born. Fiona and Ben
>>>> were told by a midwife that they would be better off getting tongue-tie
>>>> surgery, also known as a lingual frenotomy, privately, as there would be
>>>> a long wait on the NHS.
>>>> "The first day I came back from hospital I was phoning around
>>>> frantically to find someone who could do it privately but no-one was
>>>> allowed to physically come in - it wasn’t legal for them to come in and
>>>> do the operation," Fiona explained.
>>>> Elijah finally had the operation when he was two-months-old.
>>>> Katie Monnelly A young girl in a yellow dress and hairband is sitting on
>>>> a couch and over her shoulder we can see a pink ipad with a game with
>>>> two grey squares. Her hand is ready to touch the game. Katie Monnelly
>>>> Over the next year, the Bicycle project will be using interactive games
>>>> to study children born during the strictest lockdown
>>>> The long-term impact of Elijah's early years remain to be seen but it
>>>> was certainly a "tricky" time for his parents.
>>>> Two years after Elijah's birth, Fiona and Ben were back in the same
>>>> maternity room, welcoming a baby girl.
>>>> “It was a completely different experience, both in the hospital and
>>>> after," Fiona said.
>>>> "My mum saw Amelia within 12 hours and was giving her newborn cuddles."
>>>> The couple volunteered to take part in the Bicycle study because they
>>>> want to help researchers understand exactly how the lockdowns affected
>>>> the youngest members of society.
>>>> It's hoped the results will help answer one pressing question - if it
>>>> happens again, what should we do differently?
>>>
>>> In the interim, we are 100% prepared/protected in the "full armor of
>>> GOD" (Ephesians 6:11) which we put on as soon as we use Apostle Paul's
>>> secret (Philippians 4:12). Though masking is less protective, it helps
>>> us avoid the appearance of doing the evil of spreading airborne
>>> pathogens while there are people getting sick because of not being
>>> 100% protected. It is written that we're to "abstain from **all**
>>> appearance of doing evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:22 w/**emphasis**).
>>>
>>> Meanwhile, the only *perfect* (Matt 5:47-8 ) way to eradicate the
>>> COVID-19 virus, thereby saving lives, in the UK & elsewhere is by
>>> rapidly (i.e. use the "Rapid COVID-19 Test" ) finding out at any given
>>> moment, including even while on-line, who among us are unwittingly
>>> contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic) in order to
>>> "convince it forward" (John 15:12) for them to call their doctor and
>>> self-quarantine per their doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic.
>>> Thus, we're hoping for the best while preparing for the worse-case
>>> scenario of the Alpha lineage mutations and others like the Omicron,
>>> Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota, Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations
>>> combining via slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids like "Deltamicron"
>>> that may render current COVID vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no
>>> longer effective.
>>>
>>> Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry (
>>> https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/6ZoE95d-VKc/m/14vVZoyOBgAJ
>>> ) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
>>>
>>> So how are you ?
>>
>> I am wonderfully hungry!
>
> While wonderfully hungry in the Holy Spirit, Who causes (Deuteronomy
> 8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, are rapture ready (Luke
> 17:37 means no COVID just as eagles circling over their food have no
> COVID) and pray (2 Chronicles 7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6)
> Father in Heaven continues to give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy
> Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) so that we'd have much more of His Help to
> always say/write that we're "wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways
> including especially caring to "convince it forward" (John 15:12) with
> all glory (Psalm112:1) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
> the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.
>
> Laus DEO !
>
Thank you for noting that I have no COVID.

Michael