Blues clues: Healthcare and parenthood tips from rugby stars
Almost a quarter of caregivers aren’t worried about their children’s regular health checks, a new survey has found – and Blues rugby players are on a mission to change that.
According to the survey results commissioned by insurance company nib, 14% of caregivers – people who said in the survey they had at least one child under 18 at home – didn’t think annual health checks were “necessary or unnecessary”, while a further 9% thought they were unnecessary (just 1% said “very unnecessary”).
It’s pushed nib, which sponsors the
Blues in Super Rugby, to encourage people to plan around these regular checks, which can catch problems before they get complicated.
Player Niall Williams-Guthrie and her husband have two daughters. She says until she became a parent her health was not her first priority. “By the time I got to the doctor – before kids – it was the makeor-break kind of moment, and if I had gone regularly it would have been avoidable.”
At every Eden Park home game this season, nib has health checks freely available.
The survey interviewed 1000 people, 366 of whom said they had a child or children under 18 at home. Of that group, significant numbers either weren’t keeping up with their check-up schedules, and many had never had their children screened at all.
While the survey data shared with the Sunday News doesn’t dig into the ages and stages of the children, the results show when it comes to some areas more than others, health checks are not a priority.
Skin checks were least taken up, with 63% of respondents saying they had never had their child screened. But 19% had never had their children’s hearing tested, and 16% had never had their children’s eyes tested.
Williams-Guthrie says her children’s school has always been a health asset, with regular visits from dental, eye health and hearing health clinicians. “With two working parents, you’ve got so much on your mind and on your plate. If those vans and things like that weren’t coming to the school it would be really tough to keep on top of it.”
Through her Blues contract Williams-Guthrie has nib health insurance, which has an extra tool in the form of a digital calendar that reminds her when routine check-ups are due or recommended for children and adults of a certain age.
Now that she’s a bit older she can see the end of her rugby career in the distant horizon, and staying healthy and well is a big part of how she’s planning for it.
“Footy is great but it’s not going to be forever,” she laughs. “What will be forever is looking after my family.”
Not interested in being a “broken old mum” who can’t keep up with her kids, Williams-Guthrie says that future motivates her to keep up with her own health checks as well as her children’s.
Of all the health checks and needs of children, caregivers reported keeping up with immunisations the most: 75% said they were up-to-date while 21% said they either weren’t up-todate or had never had their children immunised, which was the lowest reported rate among the health-check categories in the survey.
Blues winger Bryce Heem and his wife have two daughters and a baby boy.
He says as parents, he and his wife try to control as much as they can, like the children’s nutrients and time spent outside, and make sure their immunisations are always up to date. “Going to the doctor isn’t always that easy for people and it isn’t always cost-effective as well. I’ve been very lucky to be in that position,” he says.
“For us it always comes down to a situation where it's better to be safe than sorry, and you can never be too careful with your kids. Some things can just pop out of nowhere and you wish you had noticed it earlier.”
Heem says he couldn’t do without the joint efforts of his insurance, clinics and school’s help with reminders and scheduled visits from professionals.
“Life is crazy, especially when you have two other little suckers running around. The more help you can get the better.”
Aldora Itunu, Blues prop and former Black Fern, has a 15-month-old with her partner. She believes being an athlete made her more diligent about regular appointments. Early on in her career it was easy to brush off minor aches and pains as a side-effect of training hard. But before long doctors did find something at a regular check-up that needed attention.
“Even though it was small, it just helped that I knew and was able to get on top of it… It could have been worse.”