OUR BABIES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 177, 28 July 1936, Page 2

OUR BABIES

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE NORMAL CHILD. '— i For the next few weeks I intend to . give some extracts from an English ; journal called “Mother and Child.” ; published by the National Council for Maternal and Child Welfare, and its < constituent societies. The above is the t title of one of these addresses to mothers published in the journal already mentioned. These addresses to mothers are based on the same principles as the teachings of the Plunket Society as laid down by the founder of this society, Sir Truby ■ King:— ( “Throughout childhood health and growth go together, and in order to judge of a child’s health it is useful < to be able to compare his rate of growth with that of average children. < “Health may be judged almost from ( the time of birth. There are two i things which a new-born child ought i to be able to do almost at once, and ( which are very useful guides as to his i condition during the first few days. One is to cry lustily, making plenty of | noise, and the other is to suck vigor- ; ously. In weak and feeble babies, in ( those born prematurely, in those who < have experienced a difficult passage ; into the world and are perhaps tern- ■ porarily concussed, and in mentally ■ defective infants crying may be : noticeably absent, and there may be ■ great difficulty in persuading an infant to suck properly. Mothers sometimes think it is an evidence of good health if their babies never make a sound all day; it may be nothing of ; the sort. It is a good thing for baby ' now and then to show how lustily he can cry. “The whole body does not grow at all evenly. At different ages different parts grow more quickly than , others. In the baby, for instance, the head is bigger when compared with the rest of the body than it is in the adult. Height and Weight. “The whole of childhood falls into definite growth periods. Increase in weight is quickest in the first year, about half as quick in the second year, and then becomes much slower until about the sixth year. Babies should be weighed regularly, but not too often. For the first three months a baby should be weighed weekly, and then if he seems healthy, he need only be weighed once a fortnight until the weaning period. After that a monthly weighing is quite often enough until the end of the second year, and later on a healthy child need not be weighed oftener than once in six months. “The average weight at birth is 71b. This doubles in six months, and at the end of the first year most children have reached the weight of 211 b. In the second year a child grows only half as fast, putting on 71b. (as against 141 b. in the first year), and so reaching about 281 b. After the second year the weights of children vary a great deal, to some extent according to the physique of their parents and the stock from which they have sprung; 361 b. is considered the average weight at three years and 491 b. at seven years; but, after the second year, in estimating a child’s state of health we should consider the weight in connection with the child's height, for in healthy children height and weight run closely parallel. Teeth. “As a rule the lower central teeth come through first, at about six months, but any time between the fourth and the eighth month may be called normal. Roughly speaking, the child cuts one tooth a month until the end of the first year, and by the time he is three years old he has all the 20 teeth of the first set. Development of the Muscles. “Even during the first few days of life some babies can grasp so strongly that one can raise them into sitting position by putting a finger into each hand and gently lifting them. But it is some months before baby will put out his hand to take hold of a toy. At first he is quite unable to judge distance, and will try to grasp things that are quite out of his reach. “Next comes the question of sitting up. The baby has first to learn how to balance his rather top-heavy head on his neck, and you will often see an infant of five or six months wobbling his head because he cannot quite balance it. As a rule baby will begin to lift his head off the pillow at about the fourth month. He should be able to pull himself up into a sitting position by the time he is nine months old —that is the normal average, although many babies can do it at six months. “After sitting up comes crawling. Babies vary quite a lot in their methods of crawling; but there is no “correct” way for a baby to crawl. Although the crawling stage is very fascinating, it is not of much importance, because as soon as a baby learns to walk he gets along so much faster that he gives up crawling. Some babies who walk early never crawl at all. “There is a great deal of variation in the time when babies first begin to walk. Some of them walk as early as 10 months, but as an average 12 to 15 months may be taken as the age when a baby should be walking. Walking may be delayed by many causes, such as rickets or weakness following some severe illness during babyhood. “Quite often parents worry when their baby walks early in case he should ‘go bandy,’ and they wonder whether they should try to keep him off his legs. It is almost impossible to keep a healthy baby off his legs! Children do not become bandy simply through standing too early. It is better to encourage them to stand and so strengthen their legs. The legs of a rickety baby will very likely become bandy even if he has never walked on them, while the softening of the ligaments and muscles that always occurs in rickets makes it very difficult for the rickety baby to stand too soon. In fact, even when the rickets is cured, the child who has suffered from disease will usually need a good deal of encouragement before he will stand. “Parents should remember that, quite healthy babies, without any trace of rickets, often have a slight inbending of the leg below the knee. This is a normal curve, which straightens .out during the second year. Seeing, Hearing, Tasting and Smelling “A baby can probably see and hear very soon after birth, but until at least one month has passed it is hard

to prove that he can co so. By that time most babies will follow with their eyes the movements of a bright light, thus showing that they can see, while they will also start at any sudden noise. Gradually at about six weeks the baby gives his first smile of recognition to his mother. “It is generally thought that babies are able to’ distinguish familiar voices at about three months. Sometimes they may be shy and refuse to ‘perform’ in front of strangers, but as soon as they hear their mother’s voice or some such familiar sound they will respond to it at once. “At birth the sense of taste is probably the keenest. Young babies can tell at once if the taste of their food varies even a little, and may refuse to take a feed if it is different from what it has been accustomed. A baby can likewise distinguish differences of temperature, and may refuse a feed that is a little too warm or too cold. One of the many advantages of breast feeding is that the milk is always given at the same temperature, and even if the meal takes a long time there is no question of the milk getting cold. It is believed that the sense of smell is not very highly developed until the child is a few years old. “The sense of touch is present from birth, but can only be recognised at about the third month, except in the case of the lips and the tongue. The sense of touch plays an important part in connection with the feeding process of the new-born child. If the lips of a baby are touched lightly the movements of sucking are at once set in motion. Speech. “As a rule the first child of the family is a little later in learning to talk than are later children, who have the older child to copy. Many babies can use simple words like ‘Dad’ and ‘Mum’ in their right places at 12 months, and can string two or three words into short sentences, such as ‘Baby sit up!’ or ‘Dolly shut eyes!’ at two years old. Other children do not form words at all until they are two years old, but then go ahead as other children do. A child should not be regarded as late in talking unless by the end of the second year he entirely fails to make words. Little children as a rule use a few sounds of their own to indicate certain things; gradually these sounds are replaced by the proper words, and such baby language should disappear by the time the child is three years old.” In addition to the “Milestones of Progress on Baby’s Road," so adequately described in the foregoing address, we would direct our readers to another very important one—the closing of the soft spot on baby’s head, which normally occurs about the eighteenth month. Should this “spot” not be closed by the end of the second year medical advice should be sought.