Singapore’s ‘people’s bank’ plans on reaching more people island-wide to provide better customer service. DBS Group Holdings chief executive Piyush Gupta said: “We have four million people to serve. I’m trying to increase the touch points and improve the service level, but I want to do it in a way that is relatively low cost.”

According to Mr. Gupta, it takes a fraction of the cost to run the branch compared to larger bank branches. Operation costs about $250,000 for this particular branch with three staff members dedicated to duties such as opening and closing an account, non-cash transactions and housing loan applications. The branch is also equipped with ATM machines and cash deposit machines.

POSB, celebrates their 135^th anniversary this year, and is much more than a savings bank. It has evolved throughout the years into a full-service bank that caters to the financial needs of all Singaporeans at every stage of their life. The plan is to not only have banking services at all SingPost outlets, but also open more community club branches like this one.

ZHENGHUA BRANCH (POSB)

1 SEGAR ROAD

#01-06 ZHENGHUA COMMUNITY CLUB

SINGAPORE 677738

Tel: 6339 6666

Fax: 6310 1697

Source: Chanel News Asia

Apparently wifey Carol Choo and baby have made it back home safe and sound. Andy added: “Lao da [Andy’s nickname from fans] has become a lao ba [daddy], the one-week beginner course for daddy is over. Mother and daughter are healthy and safe, Happy!”

The happy new daddy gushed: “Of course, it’s difficult to be a good lao da, husband and father! However, there is endless happiness in between!”

Privacy respected

Unlike some Hollywood celebrities, Andy is not going to sell his baby pictures to some tabloid or put it up for all to see. He appreciates that his fans are not pushy and demanding, as he is not putting up photos of his baby.

He shared: “My media friends all care about me. I have been busy and didn’t provide the news right away, I am sorry for making everyone wait. You care but you didn’t push your way. You’re curious but didn’t force your way, I appreciate that.”

As reported by Hong Kong media, the baby weighed in at 2.7kg and has fair skinned just like her Malaysian mum. No more details were given but there were speculations that the baby girl would be named gentle cloud—Yun Shan. Take part in the poll on the baby’s name here.

“I’m excited to give birth to my second baby but I’m worried about my eldest daughter,” my best friend Joy tells me during her fifth month of pregnancy. She is referring to the adjustment of her three-year-old daughter when the new baby comes. She asked for advice or suggestions on what she can do to help her daughter accept that she will no longer be the only child in the family. So I imparted to her some of the things I have learned from my experiences with helping each my first two children to adjust to the arrival of a new baby.

Before the baby comes
It is good to start preparing your child for the coming of her sibling even while you are still pregnant. First of all, it is  necessary that you express your love and affection to your child. Always say “I love you.” Give her hugs and kisses. Let her feel secure with the love you have for her. And as your tummy begins to bulge, tell her that there is a baby growing inside it.

It’s better if you can find story books that talk about babies and what goes on in mummy’s tummy. Read these books to her before she goes to sleep. Demonstrate talking to the baby and let her do the same.  Ask her to say “I love you” to the baby. Allow her to also hug the baby inside your tummy. As you do this everyday, she will grow accustomed to the baby as a part of the family even when it has not arrived. You can also bring her along during your pre-natal visits to the doctor. Involve her in everything.

These are what I did when I was pregnant with my second child and my eldest daughter was two years old at the time. I also applied the same steps when the third baby came. I found out that each of them has adjusted quickly to  the new baby when it came out. I attributed this pleasant attitude with the fact that my husband and I continued to shower each of my children with attention and love as we prepared for the coming of the baby.

When the new baby arrives
Once the baby is born, let her touch and hold the baby. But just be cautious of what she might do. She might hold the baby too tightly and be unaware of it. Talk to her about her new role as the elder sister. Ask her to do small tasks as you care for the baby. When bathing the baby, ask her to rub soap on the arms or legs of her sibling. When you dress up the baby, let her pass on to you the baby’s clothes or things. If the baby is fed with infant formula, let her hold the bottle.

You can also read again and again to her story books that talk about her role as the eldest of the young. She can even pretend to read it to her sister or brother. Point out to her how small her sibling is by observing the parts of her sibling’s body. This is to show that her sibling is fragile and that she has  to take care of her/ him.

Never fail to express and demonstrate love and affection to your child. Make her see that she is still loved even when there is already a new baby in the family. Spend time to tickle her, to cuddle her and to attend to her needs. If there are times when she  ignores her sibling, then don’t force her. Let her do what she wants to do as she copes with the changes that are taking place.

There are children who can easily adjust but there are some who cannot. A few find it difficult to accept the fact that they will no longer be the baby of the family. But you can help them in the transition by being loving and caring. When you see signs of jealousy in the older child, assure her that you love her as much as the new addition.

Do not harshly scold or reprimand her. If she shows signs of aggression, gently point out that her actions will harm her sibling. Don’t rush things for your child. Be patient with her. In time, she will get used to becoming the older sister you can be proud of.

Help is at hand for mums-to-be to cope with the blues during and after pregnancy. In a study by National University of Singapore, findings conclude that antenatal depression affects 12% of pregnant women compared to 7% of post-natal depression of women in Singapore. It is not known why prenatal depression is more common.

According to The Straits Times, hospitals here have started screening pregnant women for both antenatal and post-natal depression. National University Hospital (NUH) started the programme since 2008. Singapore General Hospital (SGH) started screening for post-natal depression since 2004, and in 2011, antenatal depression.  KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) has trained its obsterticians to identify antenatal depression in women since 2008.

Ms Chin is now a mother of a 9 month old boy. When she was pregnant, she did a routine screening for depression on her first visit at NUH. She saw a psychiatrist during her second trimester, as she felt plagued by anxious thoughts. Her depression went away without medication as her psychiatrist provided her advice to overcome it. Even when it surfaced just before her baby was due, she was able to remain calm. Depression during pregnancy is not as recognized as post-natal depression, although both can have negative impacts on mother and child.

Can it be prevented or cured?

We place so much trust on our maids, we treat them like family—we live in the same home. Are they always trustworthy? It’s a fact, reported cases indicates a resounding NO.

In Malaysia, a disabled 11-year-old boy was repeatedly abused by his Indonesian maid. What makes this case so heart wrenching is the fact that the boy was even more defenseless than a regular helpless child—this boy was challenged.

Abusive mother

The maid, 40-year-old Nanis Supardi, has four children of her own yet she had the heart to abuse someone else’s child. She had pleaded guilty to stomping on the poor boy’s face, chest and abdomen.

If you think that is bad, there’s more—she went as far as to force water down the boy’s throat while covering his face with a cloth!

How did the parents find out about the atrocities? The boy’s parents had installed a CCTV system to monitor the household in their home located in Kampung Batu Hitam Beserah—she was caught red handed.

Just punishment?

Child abusers are liable to be jailed for up to 10 years and fined for not more than RM20,000; or both. Judge Noradidah Ahmad gave Nanis a four-year sentence plus six months for overstaying in the country after her permit expired.

Source

Other maid related stories:

Indonesian maids to be paid per chore 

Maids banned from window cleaning

Singapore maids to enjoy a day off

There has been a study among Singaporean breasfeeding mothers that working moms are more likely to stop breastfeeding between two to six months due to their work.  So, what do you do to continue breastfeeding even when you are working?

Purchase a quality breast pump that will be appropriate for your needs. If you plan to pump for most of your baby’s daily feedings, then buy a pump that can give you the most benefits. A double electric pump will enable you to save time because it can pump both breasts at the same time.  There are different types of breast pumps available in the market that will suit your daily pumping needs. Choose the one that will be affordable and appropriate for your situation.

Talk to your employer before going back to work about your pumping milk at the office. Tell your boss about what you intend so you can get his or her support. But if your boss is hesitant about it, then reassure him or her that this will not keep you from accomplishing your responsibilities in the office.

Determine and keep your daily schedule for pumping milk. Find out the times when you have the most milk and schedule your pumping session at these times. It is also recommended to express milk after three to four hours but be flexible in case there are emergency and urgent situations at work. Whenever possible, add an extra pumping session to your daily schedule. In this way, you will have extra milk for those times when you cannot pump because of a busy schedule.

Relax while having your pumping session. As you pump milk from your breast, do not think about the things that you still need to do. Instead of filling your mind with work-related concerns, try to think about your baby and enjoy the moment. You can close your eyes and give your time to rest while doing it. You can also look at the picture of your baby or imagine holding your baby.

Store expressed milk properly. Always label the bottle of expressed milk  with the date before placing it inside the refrigerator at home or on an insulated lunchbox when you are at work. This will ensure that the milk pumped earlier will be consumed first than those that were extracted at a later time. Keep an extra bottle of expressed milk inside the fridge at home. At room temperature, breast milk can last up to 10 hours. Inside the refrigerator, it can be stored up to 8 days. It can be even last up to 2 weeks when stored inside the freezer compartment.

Determine your baby’s daily feedings. Find out how many bottles of milk your baby can drink within the time that you are away for work and add an extra bottle so you won’t have to worry about having an extra pumping. Also, monitor which of the bottles you have placed on the fridge had been consumed and if there is any bottle of milk left for your baby.

Dress up suitably for your pumping sessions. You can bring a jacket, a blazer or a cardigan sweater to work  to cover up any leak spots  after a pumping session. To avoid embarrassment, it is best to bring something that you can wear over your blouse or office uniform when the unexpected happens. You should also wear absorbent nursing pads or bring an extra for leaks. Breastfeeding working moms are also advised to wear printed tops instead of plain-colored ones so that leaks may not be easily seen.

With proper planning for your pumping at the workplace, you don’t need to worry working mom. You can do it! Just follow these tips and you’ll be able to handle the role of a breastfeeding working mom.

He immediately notified the police, who arrived on the scene just as Baby Radhika’s uncle and father were about to lower her into a freshly dug grave. Baby Radhika was found wrapped up in a cloth along with religious symbols, and brought to a nearby hospital, where she is being treated for severe malnutrition.

Mother denies involvement

Although Baby Radhika’s mother was also found at the scene, only her father and her uncle were arrested. The men were arrested on charges on attempted murder and conspiracy.

Her mother, Bharati, denies being involved in the crime, saying, “Tell me which mother would want to kill her own child”. Although unfortunate, it’s no surprise that this tragic incident took place in India, a country that has one of the highest female infant mortality rates worldwide.

India’s missing girls

Human rights campaigners have said that up to 8 million female fetuses have been aborted in the past decade, and countless baby girls have been murdered after being born.

Apart from the fact the males are believed to have higher earning power in countries like India, the practice of paying dowry also contributes to the high rates of female infanticide. Although the practice of parents paying dowry to marry off their daughters has been officially abolished in India, many traditional Indians still adopt the practice, causing many to view baby girls as liabilities.

Poor and uneducated families especially are often pressured into aborting or killing their baby girls, as they fear not being able to pay dowry and marry off their daughters.

Appreciating the women everywhere 

After celebrating Mother’s Day just recently, it’s difficult to imagine millions of innocent girls, who would have grown up to become mothers themselves, having their lives taken away cruelly on a daily basis.

All we can do to help is raise social awareness about the fact that these barbaric acts are still taking place, and hope that some day soon baby girls and women everywhere will be cherished and loved for who they are.

What does it do?

Wildby is a voice-controlled Android application created for young children aged 4-7 to explore, share and communicate safely on the Internet without much adult supervision.

All your inquisitive little angel will have to do is to verbally ask a question, and the application will give him an answer.

Of course, the application has been created in such a way that only child-safe questions are provided. For example, even if a child asks a question about sex, only a child-safe answer will be given.

The app works by gathering information from the Internet and converting the information by using text to speech technology, so that your child receives a verbal answer.

Ask Wildby only works with version 2.3 Android phones and only a free version of the app is available at the moment.

Our verdict? 

The voice recognition feature on this app doesn’t always work perfectly, but thankfully there is an option for children to type in their queries as well. In the free version of this app, users are only allowed to input one word into the search function.

For example, if your child wants to know a specific piece of information about dinosaurs, he’ll only be able to type ‘dinosaur’ into the search function.

The free app also comes with child-targeted advertisements, so if you have an issue with that, it’s best to wait for the paid version, which also allows users to conduct searches with multiple words.

Although we can definitely see kids being entertained with this app, the answers provided are brief and without in-depth explanation, so don’t expect to throw out your real encyclopedias anytime soon! For more details, click here.

‘Friending,’ as it has come to be known in today’s digital savvy world was not a common vernacular before the advent of the ridiculously popular social networking platform, Facebook. Now it seems like its run amok.

A survey done in the US last year found that almost half of parents with digital savvy-aged children, which could get as young as seven-year-olds, tried to ‘friend’ their kids on Facebook…but to no avail. In fact, only 52% of the kids say that they ‘friended’ their parents back.

It’s like having a secret identity, but online

A CBS report on the topic noted that, “some young people say having their parents on their Facebook page is like giving them the key to their online diary.” Once you accept a friend invitation, that person can see everything you’re up to unless you are knowledgeable enough to set privacy limits.

Kids frequently post pictures of themselves and their friends, talk about the things they participated in, religious view…or lack-of-it, that cute boy down the street, and that crazy party over the weekend you should know nothing about. Some kids were so disturbed by their parents’ request even quitted Facebook outright or created a “secret” account with a secret name so that they can go on being on Facebook without being detected.

If that doesn’t leave you convinced, there are even Facebook groups like ‘keep parents off Facebook’ and ‘eek, my mum is on Facebook’ to make the message loud and clear should you parents not get it the first time around.

Friend request: Denied

There are a wide range of opinions on whether or not to ‘friend’ your kids on Facebook. An article in The Wall Street Journal recommends against the practice, saying that it’s ‘time-consuming and embarrassing, especially when the offspring are teenagers, who generally crave some degree of privacy, even if they don’t merit full treatment as adults.’

As parents, it’s only natural that you have this innate desire to protect our own flesh and blood. But as parents, you still need to understand that children need to have a life of their own too. A life that only belongs to them and since they cannot move out of the family home…yet, the digital world let them live this reality out. And asking your kid for an access to that reality is pretty much raining on their parade. You do need to keep in mind that ultimately, deciding whether to ‘friend’ your child is a personal decision, but one that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

If your kids are young, they’ll probably have less of a problem with ‘friending’ you, and it may be a good opportunity to model ideal Internet behaviour for them such as no drunk photos or inappropriate posts on your part. If your child is older or a teenager, ‘friending’ them might even give them an opportunity to familiarise themselves with Facebook’s somewhat complicated directory of privacy controls.

Don’t take offense if your child ultimately does decide to reject your request rather, just talk to them about what it means to be a good Internet citizen.

Source:

Facebook: Should parents ‘friend’ their children?

Facebook for parents

‘Friending,’ as it has come to be known in today’s digital savvy world was not a common vernacular before the advent of the ridiculously popular social networking platform, Facebook. Now it seems like its run amok.

• Encourage your kid to be selective about what they share by customizing the recipients of their posts.
• Use strict privacy settings. Make sure everything stays under the “private” setting!
• Choose the settings that allows you to see everything you've been tagged in (including photos) before the tag links to your page.
• Be notified of any activity performed on your name, including photo tags.
• Don't post your location, there are  stalkers abound!
• Set rules about what's appropriate to post. No sexy photos, no drinking photos, no photos of them doing something that could hurt them in the future.
• Be thoughtful about their status updates, wall posts, and comments on friends' posts. Remind them that once they post something, it's out of their hands.
• If in doubt, take it out. Use the "Remove Post" button to take down risky posts that could come back and bite them in the butt!