A baby was born in the family. Joyful calls, congratulations, a solemn discharge, balloons in the sky, gifts and flowers ... All this is left behind, the guests have left, and a serious question arises before the young parents in all their frightening glory. They don't know what to do. Left alone with a newborn, newly-made moms and dads are somewhat lost. The well-known children's doctor Komarovsky is in a hurry to help them, who tells in the most detailed way about who a newborn is and what he really needs, as well as how to properly organize the first weeks of a child's life.
About babies
In medicine, newborns are considered children from the moment of cutting the umbilical cord until they reach the age of 28 days. These four weeks are the most responsible for parents. Newborns need special care and attention.
Evgeny Komarovsky emphasizes that the conditions in which the baby brought from the hospital will fall will largely determine the state of his health in the future.
At the very beginning of life, a person is fragile and gentle, but not so much as to immediately create "hothouse" conditions for him. Wearing warmer clothes, protecting from every breeze, feeding better are the most common mistakes of parents who, after 4-5 years, begin to complain to the pediatrician that their child is often sick and practically does not get out of sick leave.
Parents, of course, prepare for the baby's appearance in advance - they read a lot about caring for newborns, listen to the advice of "experienced" ones. At the same time, they do not even approximately imagine what a baby who is only a few days old can do, what he is capable of, and also very vaguely understand what he wants and what he is afraid of.
Of course, all babies are very different. They differ in the state of health, the degree of maturity. Premature babies need special care. Today we will talk about quite full-term babies born on time. The medical statement that all mothers receive will indicate how many points on the Apgar scale the baby gained at birth.
It's pretty easy to figure out what exactly is behind these points. A special scale for assessing the condition of babies was proposed by a doctor with the surname Apgar. According to this method, several criteria are assessed: heartbeat, breathing, skin color, muscle condition and tone, reflexes. For each doctor, the crumbs are assigned from 0 to 2 points.
The result is the amount that is put in the certificate. As a rule, a healthy baby is one to whom the doctors gave from 8 to 10 Apgar points.
However, few of the parents are able to convince the incomprehensible numbers of an incomprehensible scale; after returning from the hospital, they immediately begin to examine the baby. Here (thanks to the help of grandparents, as well as other relatives) shortcomings and oddities begin to come to light. The kid is too red (pale), he is crying heart-rendingly (or too quietly), his eyes are squinting (looking in different directions), his movements, as his grandmother put it, “too nervous and some kind of jerky”.
Dr. Komarovsky urges to refrain from such assessments: since the child was discharged home, it means that he certainly does not have any terrible diseases. If the crumbs had pathologies, then the young mother with him would have to move from the hospital ward to the ward of the neonatal department of the children's hospital. If they let go, everything is fine.
What does the baby feel?
To imagine exactly what a newborn feels, you need to know some of the physiological characteristics of the neonatal period. You should not show him the bright toys that relatives and friends gave for discharge, since he still cannot see them in all their glory. The baby in the first days (due to insufficient formation of the optic nerve, eye muscles) still cannot see objects well. However, he is good at distinguishing between light and darkness. It turns out that he sees night and day, but not grandmother and dad.
If it seems that the baby's eyes are looking in different directions or squinting - this is a normal physiological phenomenon, a little later he will be able to focus his gaze, and everything will work out, says Komarovsky.
The newborn can hear perfectly. At birth, hearing is always slightly below normal, but by the third day the air is already filling the auditory organ, and the baby is able to hear everything that adults hear. The kid does not demonstrate this skill in any way, because he does not understand what exactly is being conveyed to him. If the sound is very loud and harsh, the newborn will shudder. And that's all for now.
The child in the first days of life does not yet distinguish smells. However, if it smells harsh, he will feel and react with a change in facial expressions. That is why it is not recommended for nursing mothers to use a harsh saturated perfume. From birth, the child perfectly discerns taste nuances - sweet calms him down, and bitter disgust.
Physiological features
The skin of the baby is red because the blood supply is very intense... However, the sweat glands are underdeveloped, and therefore it is very dangerous to overheat the child. Komarovsky emphasizes that the active blood supply to the skin is associated with its incredible healing ability. In babies, scratches and wounds heal really faster than in adults.
Parents are often frightened when they hear that their tiny child has increased muscle tone. Yevgeny Komarovsky says that this is normal. Tonus is a sign of underdevelopment of these very muscles, which is also completely normal for newborns.
From the moment the child takes the first breath in the delivery room, he has pulmonary respiration, like in adults.
The peculiarity of newborns is that both the nasal passages and the trachea are rather narrow, and the body supplies the mucous membranes with blood so actively that it is very easy to injure them. If you overheat in a children's room, they will dry out very quickly, and problems with a runny nose and cough will begin.
Parents often ask what to do if the newborn "grunts" his nose when breathing. Yevgeny Komarovsky explains that this happens again because of the narrow airways, in which the mucus produced to soften the mucus simply gets stuck and accumulates.
The heart of a newborn is perhaps the strongest and wealthiest organ. It works with full force from the first minutes of life. The heart beats more often than in adults. On average, during the neonatal period, it decreases 110-150 times per minute. This indicator is not stable, since any external stimulus (loud sound, bright light, blowing breeze) causes an increase in heartbeat.
The baby's digestive tract is developing at an incredible pace, because every week the baby can eat more and more breast milk or formula. The tract remains sterile for the first few hours after birth, then bacteria appear in the intestines, whose vocation is to help digestion. The color of the stool changes from black (meconium) to brown and greenish, and then to light, yellowish. Already on the 5-6th day, the consistency changes - the feces become mushy, a sour smell appears.
The nervous system of the crumb is imperfect, and it is she who will face the most significant changes in the first weeks of a person's life. Something that is not normal for an adult may be the most common thing for a newborn - for example, tremors (tremors of the limbs).
There are reflexes that are peculiar only to newborns. As the child grows, they will fade away until they disappear completely. In order for mom and dad to calm down about the "normality" of their child, Komarovskaya advises to check it yourself. Healthy babies can do the following:
- Grab it. If you bring your finger to the palm of a newborn, he will definitely grab it tightly.
- "Hug"... If on the changing table, on which the baby is lying, you hit hard with your palm (or easily knock on the child's thighs and buttocks), then first he will bend up, spread his arms, and then return them to the position at the chest.
- "Crawl". Of course, newborns do not know how to crawl in the full sense of this word. If you put the child on his tummy, he will start to push off with his legs, as if trying to crawl.
- "Walk." If you take the baby under the arms and rest his legs on a hard surface, he will definitely rest against them. If you tilt it forward a little, it will begin to make the movements that a person performs when walking.
A child is given an amazing ability from birth - to quickly adapt to changing environmental conditions. If the parents immediately create for him a home "greenhouse", in which it is hot and stuffy, in which there are no drafts, everything is sterilized twice, washed in antiseptics, then this natural ability will no longer exist. As a result, then caring mom and dad are forced to admit that the child has weak immunity. Komarovsky emphasizes that immunity is also formed in the first weeks of life, and the best that parents can do to help is not to interfere.
What does he want?
A newborn is perfectly able to distinguish what is good and what is bad, which he immediately notifies with a cry. The child will cry for various reasons: from hunger, cold, heat, pain, if he is uncomfortable and uncomfortable if he has wet diapers.
Gradually, parents will learn to distinguish one demand from another by the nature of crying. In the meantime, you need to respond to a cry by exclusion. If crying, check the diaper, change if necessary. If you have not calmed down - measure the temperature, see if the stomach is not puffy. If everything is ok, offer water.
And only in the last place is it worth feeding. There are parents who shuffle every cry of a newborn with their mother's breast, believing that the child is constantly hungry. This is a mistake, which will then be too expensive, says Yevgeny Komarovsky, because overfeeding provokes a lot of childhood ailments.
Basic principles of care according to Komarovsky
The air temperature in the children's room should not exceed 18-20 degrees. Air humidity - 50-70%.
There should be no objects in the room that accumulate a large amount of dust - large soft toys, carpets with a long pile. Wet cleaning should be daily, but without adding detergents to the water.
Newborn clothes and bedding should be made from natural fabrics without textile dyes. They should be washed with a special baby powder, the composition of which is hypoallergenic; after washing, always rinse additionally.
Do not wrap your child up. It should be worn as much as an adult.
The child does not need a pillow. However, a firm orthopedic mattress that does not squeeze is very much needed.
Bathing should be daily... It is better to start the procedures after the umbilical wound has healed. Before this, the child can be wiped off with wet sanitary napkins without perfumery to avoid diaper rash on the skin.
You can feed on demand, or you can enter the mode by the hour. Evgeny Komarovsky strongly recommends a kind of "golden mean" - feeding on a mixed type.
The intervals between meals should be at least 2.5-3 hours, but the child himself must give the signal that it is time to eat. You can not overfeed the baby, as overeating provokes the so-called "gaziki" (intestinal colic).
Such feeding will give the mother confidence that the child is full, and it will help the child to quickly enter a well-functioning diet.
Even if there is little breast milk, you should not give up breastfeeding. There are many techniques for stimulating lactation.
If for some reason the baby cannot feed on breast milk, choose infant formula carefully. It must be necessarily adapted, preferably hypoallergenic. To prevent the baby from overeating (and this is a fairly common situation for artificial people), give the baby a mixture from a bottle with a small hole so that he makes some effort to suck food.
Walking should be mandatory and daily. Even during an illness, you should not give up on this - naturally, provided that the crumbs do not have a temperature.
A newborn can sleep up to 22 hours a day. Try to set a night's sleep time right away so that later it will be easier for your child to adapt to the daily routine. A newborn can eat up to 2 times at night. Immediately after feeding, he should be put back in the crib. At the time of feeding, you should not turn on a bright light, since the baby must intuitively understand that now is the night.
A newborn needs to do gymnastics and massage every day. All exercises should be based on light touching, stroking, and patting. Be sure to massage your tummy clockwise and lay the baby on your tummy.
Do not forget to process the umbilical wound until it is completely healed. Every day, the newborn should be washed, the nasal passages should be cleaned with cotton wool, and the ears should be kept clean. Crumbs' nails grow quickly, they are sharp, they can be seriously scratched. They should be trimmed with special children's scissors with blunt edges.
Possible problems
Even if the parents organized everything correctly and created the optimal conditions for the newborn's healthy growth, this process is not complete without problems. Adults should remember that there are urgent problems when an ambulance is urgently needed. If there are problems with breathing, the child has difficulty breathing, there are long delays, call "03" immediately. Exactly the same should be the actions of parents in case of convulsions, severe vomiting in a newborn (not to be confused with regurgitation), at a high temperature (above 38.0).
If the child cries for a long time and piercingly, this may indicate discomfort in the intestines - for example, he cannot poop. Watch the frequency and nature of your stool. The most common problem in newborns is “blooming” of the skin. If a rash appears, your cheeks turn red, be sure to check if you did everything correctly in organizing the baby's living space (microclimate, absence of allergens). Pay attention to what the baby was fed with. It is possible that the chosen mixture does not suit him. Be sure to check with your doctor.
If the eyes often fester and the eyelids swell, be sure to call a doctor at home to rule out conjunctivitis. The problem can be caused by dacryocystitis (obstruction of the lacrimal and nasolacrimal tubules). In this situation, the doctor will show you how to properly massage, which will get rid of the problem.
Intestinal infant colic is generally a terrible dream for all parents. Komarovsky advises not to exaggerate the problem and not inflate it to universal proportions. The child's digestive system is improving, and therefore colic is a completely natural process. There is no need to treat them. It is enough to alleviate the child's condition by applying heat, massaging the tummy, laying on the stomach. For some babies, a pacifier may work well because the sucking movements are soothing for babies.
What is colic, what are the causes of their occurrence and how to deal with them - Dr. Komarovsky will tell in the video below.
If the child has confused day and night, Komarovsky advises to gain strength and will and for at least one day do not let the child get enough sleep until nightfall, wake him up more often. In addition, it reminds that the child should sleep in a cool place, while breathing clean and moist air.
Usually persistent moms and dads manage to cope with the problem of "confused life" in a few days.
Mood
The baby's mood and behavior (especially during the newborn period) directly depend on the state of the mother's nervous system. An invisible connection between them remains after the obstetrician cut the umbilical cord. If mom gets enough sleep, she is happy with everything, healthy, then the child will be calm and happy. If the mother cries and quarrels with the household, does not get enough sleep, starves herself so that the crumbs do not have diathesis, then the child will definitely feel her condition and show complete solidarity - she will support her with crying, crying, and colic.
Communicate with the child, bathe him, carry out the necessary manipulations in an even and harmonious state of mind, with a good mood. Then the problems that lie in wait for the parents of the baby will be much less.
You can find out more about newborn babies below in the issue of Dr. Komarovsky.
