The Healthy Child.

Otago Witness, Issue 2883, 23 June 1909, Page 84

The Healthy Child.

Certain stages in the physical life of childhood have been defined by Dr Nc-bt- I

man and Dr Hutchinson as " Milestones of Development," and knowledge of these milestones pf healthy development will -be helpful to parents, who will thus have a base from which to recognise subnormal or unhealthy variations.

The life of a healthy rhild is marked by a series of steps in development. Birth should occur at or. about the end of the ninth month of pregnancy ; if it occurs much earlier it constitutes prematurity. Not less than 80 per cent, of all are what is called " well born " ; that is, arrive in the world in a healthy state and propsrly equipped for a separate existence. Some, unhappily, are born with more or less serious physical disabilities, which greatly handicap them in life's race, and retard normal development. The weight of a child at birth is about 71b. At the fifth month it is IMb, at 15 to 18 months it is 21, at six years it is 42, and at the fourteenth year it is 841b or thereabouts. These weights, being multiples (7, 14, 21, 42, 84), are easily remembered.

The> weight of an infant is about the most valuable criterion of health which we have. A wasting infant is rarely if ever a healthy infant. There is no sign of illhealth so reliable as abnormal weight. During the first year a ohild should increase in weight on the average about lib a month, more in the early months, less in the later. Then about the third or fourth month a baby should hold up its head and begin to assume the erect attitude. This is one of tho biological differences between man and the ape.