THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504090042
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Elizabeth Simpson
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
The first time I changed my baby's diaper, I put it on backwards.
After the nurse in the hospital pointed that out, I thought, ``No way they're gonna let me take this baby home. No way. They're probably calling the child welfare folks right now.''
But I found out they do allow neophytes like myself to take babies from the safety of the hospital to the ignorance of the home.
Truth is, they don't have much choice.
Isn't it astounding that in a world where you need reams of permits to build an addition to your house, you don't have to do anything to add a child to your family, a human being to the world?
You don't have to take a course or read a book. You don't have to show anyone your credit record. You don't even have to agree to play by the basic rules of good parenting.
All you get is on-the-job training. Without a boss or a game plan.
I remember wearing a path in the carpet the first night trying to figure out why my baby was crying for three hours straight. Calling the doctor a dozen times to find out whether that look on her face was from some disease or maybe just gas. Checking her little blanket a hundred times after that to make sure it was going up and down, up and down, up and down.
Yes, she's still breathing, everything is OK, go back to bed. Then lying there listening to the monitor that linked her room to ours. If I heard something, that was bad; if I didn't, that was worse.
With parents like me in mind, this week has been declared Healthy Baby Week.
Every child born this week at hospitals in Hampton Roads will get a basket full of help. There's information to let you know whether your baby is drinking enough breast milk. Telephone numbers to call if you're worried something isn't right. Indestructible board books for children. A flier about using ``time out'' instead of spanking. A booklet that lists 101 ways to praise a child.
Healthy Baby Week was started by a group of people worried about the load of abused children jamming child welfare offices. The best way to stop the hurting is not more slogans, not more candlelight vigils, not even more social workers.
The best way to protect children from abuse is to show their parents how to bring up the children. Right from the start.
Certainly, a basket of information is not the whole answer here. Children need parents who agree to read what they find. Families that look out for one another. And communities that treat every child like their own instead of someone who's none of their business.
The Healthy Baby Week freebies are a start. They put the focus on educating the parent in the nursery instead of treating the child in the emergency room. And connecting them both to a community that can help.
I remember clearly how the sound of my newborn's cry had a direct path to my heart. And how it sometimes felt like the boundaries of the universe ended at the edge of her bassinet.
It helped having how-to books, telephone numbers, relatives and friends to make me realize I wasn't the first mother on Earth.
``Sometimes they just need a hug,'' said Carol Hilton, a Chesapeake General Hospital nurse who visits mothers after they take their newborns home.
They want to know they're not alone. And that's what Healthy Baby Week is all about. by CNB