The Newborn Child Arrives
↓ Sponsored Links
The baby’s footprints are taken and are placed on a special chart that already has the mother’s fingerprint on it. This makes sure that the baby doesn’t get mixed up with another newborn child.
Girls and boys who are born in hospitals today are taken care of as if they were precious jewels. After holding the newborn baby aloft by his feet to allow any mucus to run out, the doctor or his assistant will then take a small rubber tube connected to a suction machine and will suck out any further mucus that may be left behind in the mouth or nose. This will permit the baby to breathe more freely. Then a clamp, which is allowed to stay in place for about a day, is placed across the umbilical cord. The cord is then cut, and the baby is handed to a nurse who will cover it with blankets and place it in a warm birth crib. As soon as the newborn baby is seen to be breathing smoothly and as soon as its color appears to be normal, here are some other things that
are done:
-
1. A drop of a specially prepared medicine is placed in each eye. This will prevent the child from getting an eye infection.
2. A band with the mother’s name on it and whether the baby is a boy or girl is placed around the baby’s wrist. This makes absolutely certain that the baby is not mixed up with another baby that has just been born.
3. The baby’s footprints are taken and are placed alongside each other on a special chart that already has the mother’s fingerprint on it. This makes doubly, absolutely sure that the baby doesn’t get mixed up with another newborn child.
4. A crib card is made up showing the mother’s name, whether the child is a girl or a boy, and the hour and. date of birth. This makes triply, absolutely, sure that the baby won’t get mixed up with another child.
As a further means of completely identifying the baby, a band is placed around his wrist It matches one that the mother herself wears.
To avoid hospital mix-ups, the baby’s footprints are recorded. The mother’s fingerprint will be added to the same card later.
-
5. Soon after birth, the infant is examined by a pediatrician. This is a doctor who is specially trained in caring for babies and children, He will look the baby over to make sure there is nothing wrong with him. The pediatrician will be particularly careful to the the baby’s eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and mouth. Then he measure the head to see if it is the right size. Next, he will go over the bones to make sure t none of them are out of place or were broken during childbirth (We must remember that a new born child’s bones are pre-delicate, and once in a gr while they can get injured during childbirth).
The doctor will then exam the heart and lungs with a stereoscope, and will look at the abdomen to make sure everything is all right. The groin is checked to see if the baby has a hernia and to see if the male or female organs are normal. The baby is then turned onto its stomach and the back and the anus are checked out.
6. When the pediatrician has finished with his examination, the child is sent to a nursery where other newborns are staying. know how to take care of the baby’s eyes, ears, and mouth; and, of course, they know how to change the diapers and keep the baby clean. They also know how to help a new mother take care of her baby herself.
The bones are examined for any evidence of fracture, and the spinal column is checked for defects.
-
7. Babies usually do not nurse or take a bottle until eight to twelve hours after they are born. Then they are fed about every four hours. Along with the milk they Nurseries in all good hospitals have nurses who are specially trained in taking care of newborn infants. They know the proper temperature for the nursery and for the baby’s crib; they know what to feed the baby; they know when to bathe the baby; they know how to inspect the baby’s skin and how to take care of the damped-off umbilical cord; they will get from their mother’s breasts, or from a bottle if their mother doesn’t nurse them, infants are given water to drink.
The initial examination also includes height and chest measurements and weighing the baby
-
8. Babies often lose weight for a few days after they are born, but they regain it quickly. The average girl weighs from six and a half to seven pounds when she is born, and the average boy weighs from seven to seven and a half pounds. Newborn babies are not allowed to go home from the hospital unless they weigh at least five and a half pounds. Since some babies are born early—after only seven or eight months inside the mother’s uterus—they may weigh only three or four pounds when they are born. Such babies are called premature, and they have to stay in the hospital for a few days or weeks after the mother has gone home. Most of them, however, get to be five and a half pounds within a few weeks, and then they can join their families at home.
You can’t tell what a child is eventually going to look like when you first see him after he has been born. The heads of newborn babies may look out of shape because of molding that takes place as they pass out of their mother’s body. This means the bones overlap to make the head smaller so it can pass more easily out of the uterus and vagina. Within several days after birth, however, the bones of the head to their normal shape and the baby’s begins to look much nicer, Sometimes, the nose is flattened out as the head is passing down the birth canal, and this, too, may make the child look kind of funny when he is born. But within few days, the nose returns to its normal shape, too. Loads of children look bowlegged, when they are born, but they really aren’t. And some children are born with red blotches and hair all over their - bodies. All this disappears quickly, and by the time an infant is a week or two old, everyone will think he or she is the most beautiful child in the world!
You can’t tell what a child is eventually going to look like when you first see him after he has been born.