Tag: publicity

What is Bone Marrow transplant? BMDP

This story will share my bone marrow donor experience through BMDP.

If you browse through the obituaries, you will quickly realised that people who have passed on, are not necessary Old folks. When we are young and healthy, we tend not to think about illness, suffering or death.

Unfortunately, Cancer and diseases do not discriminate between young and old, the rich or poor. As a parent, we do not wish to see any child sick.

You might have spotted us on Straits Time and 联合早报 Wednesday (27Feb2013). Daddy was helping BMDP (Bone Marrow Donor Programme) to spread awareness about Bone Marrow transplant (骨髓移植).

Ten years ago (before SengkangBabies arrive), Daddy faced a lot of questions and uncertainties. With Mummy’s support, and a wish to do good (做好人), Daddy went ahead to donate his Bone Marrow.

** What Daddy can do today is to share his experience, spread more awareness and encourage more to be donors or volunteers.

The Questions

BMDP’s FAQ page will answer some of our doubts or even clear some myths.
1. What is Bone Marrow?
2. Why do we need to talk about Bone Marrow Transplant?
3. Is it safe to donate your Bone Marrow? Any side effects?
4. How is Bone Marrow extracted ?
5. How long does it take to recover?

More processes can be found at BMDP website. For example :
– what happens after you register?
– how is a Donor selected and how are the tissues matched ?
– how does Transplant requests reach BMDP?

Some traditional folks believe vitality might diminished after Bone marrow extraction.
Daddy went on to have four healthy kids after his donation 🙂

Video : BMDP is giving Hope, creating Miracles

The Numbers

Every day – 6 patients are diagnosed with blood-related diseases
Every Month – 30 requests to find matching Donors
Every Year – 50 Bone Marrow related operations in Singapore

Odds of being the chosen donor – 1 in 20,000
Within the family – 1 in 4

With a larger donor base, the probability of finding a match is higher.
BMDP is targeting 20,000 more donors over next three years.

It costs $150 to tissue-match each new donor.
How much do we need to register 20,000 new donors !

Save life, give Hope, giving back to society, do Good.
Whatever the reasons, all of us have the capacity to HELP.

How can we Help?

Be a Donor, or help as a volunteer during recruitment drives.
Your monetary donations will help to fund new donor’s tissue matching expenses.

BMDP’s contacts :
Email – admin@bmdp.org
Web – http://www.bmdp.org
Fanpage – http://www.facebook.com/bmdp.sg?fref=ts
Phone – 6327 1344


With Jane Prior, BMDP’s president. To quote Jane “BMDP is in the business of Miracles”.

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Through his actions, Daddy hopes to inspire the kids to do Good and contribute back to society too. Help SengkangBabies spread Bone marrow transplant (骨髓移植) awareness. Bring more HOPE to someone today.

a) You can read about Daddy’s 2002 experience here.

b) For those interested, do a image.google.com (search Bone Marrow) and you will have an idea of how Bone Marrow can be extracted. The pictures might make some uncomfortable, and please ignore the soup-tulong images :p

c) Did you know that a newborn’s umbilical cord contains rich Stem cells? If you are not banking the baby’s stem cells with a private institution, do consider
Singapore Cord Blood Bank (Public Cord Blood bank).

Daddy talks about Kiasu and Kancheong parents on Razor TV

Daddy went on TV recording again.
RazorTv is an informal media platform for SPH, and you get the latest video recordings about current affairs and sensational headlines.

Joining two other parents (Suzy and Dominic), Daddy got to share his views on parenting, Kiasu and Kancheong parents, and PSLE ! It was another fun experience, but it was tiring to go through the three hours session. If you noticed, Daddy was nervous throughout the recording, thumb twiddling, eyes blinking haha.

Interestingly, the parents share a few view points :

– We do not deny KanCheong (anxious) parents exist, but we do not see the need to engage in desperate measures to ensure our kids have a better start (no Tiger mum)

– We all enjoyed our Kampong (village) childhood days, catching guppies, spiders, grasshoppers, lesser homework then

– Although we are all reluctant, we agree PSLE is a defining milestone for the kids 🙁

– We wish more parents would allow kids to settle their own disputes in school, thereby learning about problem management and negotiation.

Over the few hours, we got to interact and share our views on four broad topics.

a) Challenges of raising child, are we Kan Cheong?
– Kids do not know how to relax nowadays.
– Every child should have a memorable childhood, and homework/tuition is not supposed to be our childhood !
– a good education and moral foundation brings up a responsible adult (hopefully)
– we only have up to pre-teenange years(maybe 12years old) to impart our our parenting tips, after that kids will be influenced by peers.
– we do not need our kids to be No 1 , but please do not be the last one 🙂
– we hope our kids will put in effort, and try their best
– We ask our kids to be Honest with us. Parents can then understand the situation better, and come up with recommendations
– In this Ipad generation, kids get their resources and knowledge everywhere. We need to show them right/wrong earlier.
– Kids in SG are fortunate. We do not understand hunger, or to sleep without a roof. How do kids learn to appreciate?

b) How are parents responding to Rat race education style
– try to introduce structure timetables from young, rather than cramped everything one month before exam
– tuition is a last option for us. Not because we like giving kids extra homework, but sometimes our coaching method might teach kids the “wrong” concept (eg Maths modeling)
– Kids need to understand the question, before they can answer it. Trick questions or a lack of English mastery, actually discounts kid’s proficiency in maths
– Teachers are also human, and parents must network together with school and teachers to help a child,.
– Too many parents love to complain, over the smallest matters. Let the teachers do their job, ie to Teach.

c) What was the parent’s growing up years? Did we have more fun last time?
– We send them to childcare because we need them to learn how to interact, sharing and taking turns.
– Kids learn team-building and group participation, rather than be self-centered.

d) Signs to look out for when kids are struggling?
– lying, and hoping nobody finds out. Our child will tell teacher he forgot to bring book, and tell Mummy no homework.The lies will snowball.
– suddenly losing interest in a favourite sports or subject

Instead of scolding kids, we need to understand what is happening in the first place.

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Our discussion are summarised into a total of 8 clips.
(click on the links below for the video clips)

1.1 Kancheong parents?
1.2 Social pressures = more enrichment classes?
1.3 Education then and now
1.4 Play time vs ABCs

2.1 How to save our child’s sanity !
2.2 Better and more quality teachers please
2.3 PSLE stress out kids, or parents?
2.4 Parents redefine success?

Does any parents out there face the same anxiety as us?

In summary, we will let our kids decide their own schools, curriculum and paths, but we need to ask them about their rationale.

Kids need role models during their formative years, and parents just need to make time for the kids, to share their joy, sorrows and milestones 🙂