Paed-IQ and Clicks Baby Boot Camp
It was a typical Johannesburg Saturday morning, chill in the air, hardly any traffic on the road, but today was a little different for us as a family. Today, 28 November 2015, Nabihah, Isa and I went for our first Baby Boot Camp at Protea Hotel Fire and Ice in Melrose. Well with a venue like that, it hardly sounds like a boot camp and what is a baby boot camp really?!
I personally wouldn't have picked a better venue. With the stress of daily life mixed with the adjustment of the new addition to our family, the Protea Hotel Fire and Ice made for a calming and relaxing atmosphere, somewhere where you could put your feet up and enjoy the scrumptious food that was provided. That's exactly what I did, well I didn't literally put my feet up but I definitely enjoyed the breakfast and snacks that were provided.
But the Baby Boot Camp was not about the venue or the food, it was about teaching new parents, like Nabihah and I, just how to look after Isa. A great concept by Dr Iqbal Karbanee who I was fortunate enough to meet. He started the roadshow with the help of Clicks to promote Paed-IQ. Paed-IQ is a service that will offer parents the opportunity to call in 24/7 and speak to a paediatrician with any problems that they face. The cost is still being negotiated but Dr Karbanee said they were looking at between R30 - R50 a month for the service and Clicks Club Card Members would receive a discount on the service. This would allow members to get unlimited access to the paediatricians. Dr Karbanee, based in Cape Town, has setup roadshows around the country to increase awareness of proper baby care. Together with his team, Dr Diana Du Plessis, Dr Andre Van Der Westhuizen, and Bronwyn from Pampers.
Dr Diana Du Plessis was the first speaker after a great introduction by the host, Jess from Jam Media. Dr Du Plessis who is based in Fourways, spoke about breastfeeding. Dispelling most of the breastfeeding myths as she says most come from the 1920s when there were only male gynaecologists, who happened to also be farmers. Their breastfeeding knowledge was actually more from a cows perspective than from a women, and clearly since they were not going through the process of breastfeeding couldn't/ shouldn't really have been giving advice on it. Dr Du Plessis made a very interesting point about feeding new born babies. Most people say that you should feed your baby every 3-4 hours, but she says that we don't even wait that long to feed ourselves. She went on to say that we probably had something before we left home this morning. Then came to the venue and had something else, and in about 1 and a half hours we will break and want to eat something else. This is true, yet we want to leave a baby for so many hours without feeding them.
Dr Andre Van Der Westhuizen was the next speaker and he spoke about the different trimesters of pregnancy and what to expect in each. I didn't get to listen to much of his talk as Isa at that point wanted to go for a walk so Nabihah decided to stay and listen. I'm sure she, like most of the other women didn't mind listening to him because besides his wealth of information he was a little bit of eye candy for them (eye roll inserted here).
It was during this time that I met with Dr Karbanee who is a very down to earth man, with no airs and graces, in fact, I didn't even know he was hosting the event let alone that he was a doctor. We had a good chat until Isa decided he wanted to go back inside. By this time it was the well deserved break that Dr Du Plessis mentioned that we would have.
After the break Dr Karbanee spoke on the general care of babies, touching on some of the topics previously covered by the other two speakers but also expanding on the weight of baby, premature babies and how often babies should be fed.
Lastly Bronwyn from Pampers came to give a demonstration on how their range of nappies work and how much liquid they can absorb.
We received an awesome goody bag at the end of the event which is a nice starter pack for a newborn with samples of nappies, wet wipes and some bathing shampoos and soaps.
The event was definitely a lot of information to take in, but well worth it for new parents.
