Parents, especially new parents, hate seeing their babies suffer. Plus with all the warnings about over-the-counter medications and children under the age of 4, parents of infants are often confused. What’s safe? Whats’ effective? How can you ease common symptoms in your baby?
Let us know how we take care of newborn babies;
Around 24 million babies are born in India. The weight of a normal baby is from 2.6 to 3.2 kg. there are two important things that new born baby needs.
1. Mother’s milk this helps the baby to fight against infection, pneumonia, diarrhoea therefore breastfeeding is really important. When a baby is born it’s important he/she gets breastfed within 30 min of its birth. Always breastfeed a newborn baby every three hours. For the initial 6 months, it’s essential that the baby is only on mother’s milk. Mothers should not be following any traditional practices such as feeding baby water, honey or gripe water.
2. Washing hands While you are holding your baby it’s mandatory that you wash your hands every time you are holding your baby. as there is hight infection risk and babies have really low immunity.
Other important things to take care of the newborn:
1. Bathing Do not bathe your baby initially for 5-6 days. Just wipe the baby rather than bathe. wait for the umbilical cord to detach and later you can bathe your baby. as bathing a newborn baby puts them into high risk of infections
2. Do not use soap, lotions and oil on baby for initially days. After a month or so slowly you can use them on the baby .
3. Initially babies weight is 5-7% less . for example if the babies weight at the time he/she born is around 3kg then may b 5-6 days it may weigh 2.8 or 2.9kg. Parents didn’t need to worry as doctors call it as physiological weight loss, But its important that after 7 days the babies weight should be same as birth weight. If the baby does not have the same weight as birth weight by day 10 then it’s necessary that the parents should consult their doctor.
4. As the baby drinks milk every three hours, it should urinate 6-10 times in a day, which indicates that the baby is having enough milk.
5. Do not get panic over things like bowel movement of baby, or if baby cries or baby has gas as they are normal things.
6. you should only consult a doctor when 1. Babies body temperature is higher than normal. 2. Baby has difficulty in breathing. 3. Colour of babies skin is turned blue or white. 4. Baby is showing the symptoms of jaundice (skin colour turned yellow ) 5. Baby’s bowel movement showing some blood or if baby is vomiting blood. 6. Baby has a bloated stomach, the baby is getting fits
7. Baby is losing weight If you can see above symptoms in your baby then consult a paediatrician or newborn specialist.
