Dr. Komarovsky about newborns

The baby was born in the family. Joyful calls, congratulations, solemn discharge, balloons to the sky, gifts and flowers ... All this was left behind, the guests left, and the young parents in all their frightening glory face a serious question. They do not know what to do. Left alone with the newborn, the newly minted moms and dads are somewhat lost. A well-known children's doctor, Komarovsky, hurries to help them, who tells in great detail about who a newborn is and what he really needs, and how to organize the first weeks of a child’s life correctly.

Children are considered newborns in medicine from the moment the umbilical cord is cut until they reach the age of 28 days. These four weeks are the most responsible for parents. Newborns need special care and attention.

A person at the very beginning of life is fragile and tender, but not so much as to immediately create "greenhouse" conditions for him. To dress warmly, to protect from every breath of the breeze, to feed it is more common - these are the most common mistakes of parents, who in 4-5 years begin to complain to the pediatrician that their children often sick and practically does not get out of the hospital.

Parents, of course, prepare for the appearance of the baby in advance - they read a lot about caring for newborns, listen to the advice of "experienced". At the same time, they even have no idea about what a crumb can, who is only a few days old, what he is capable of, and also very vaguely understand what he wants and is afraid of.

Of course, all babies are very different. They are distinguished by their state of health, degree of term Premature babies need special care. Today we will talk about the full-term, born in time toddler. In the medical statement, which all mommies receive, it will be indicated how many points on the Apgar scale the baby scored at birth.

To figure out exactly what lies behind these points is quite simple. A special scale for assessing the status of babies was offered by the doctor with the surname Apgar. According to this method, several criteria are evaluated: heartbeat, respiration, skin color, muscle state and tone, reflexes. For each doctor assign a crumb from 0 to 2 points.

However, few of the parents are able to convince incomprehensible figures of an incomprehensible scale, after returning from the hospital, they immediately begin to examine the baby. It is here (thanks to the help of grandparents and other relatives) that flaws and oddities begin to emerge. The kid is too red (pale), he cries heart-rendingly (or too quietly), his eyes mow (look in different directions), his movements, as my grandmother put it, “are 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 has no terrible illnesses. If the baby had pathology, the young mother would have to move from the maternity ward to the ward of the neonatal department of the children's hospital. If you let go - everything is fine.

To imagine what exactly the newborn feels, you need to know some physiological features of the neonatal period. You should not show him bright toys, which were presented to the extract by relatives and friends, since he still cannot see them in all its glory. The baby in the first days (due to the insufficient formation of the optic nerve, the eye muscles) still cannot see objects well. However, he distinguishes between light and darkness. It turns out that he sees night and day, but his grandmother and dad do not.

Hears newborn beautifully. At birth, hearing is always slightly below normal, but by the third day the air already fills the auditory organ, and the crumb is able to hear everything that adults hear. The kid does not demonstrate this skill in any way, because he does not understand what it is that is being heard. If the sound is very loud and sharp, the newborn will tremble. And while that is all.

Smells a child in the first days of life does not yet distinguish. However, if it smells harshly, he will feel and react with a change in facial expression. That is why nursing mothers are not recommended to use a sharp saturated perfume. The child distinguishes the taste nuances perfectly from the very beginning - his sweet calms him down, and the bitter causes his disgust.

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 ability to heal is amazing with its active blood supply to the skin. Scratches and sores in babies heal really faster than in adults.

Often parents get scared when they hear that their tiny baby has increased muscle tone. Yevgeny Komarovsky says that this is normal. Tonus is a sign of the underdevelopment of these very muscles, which is also completely normal for newborns.

From the moment when the child takes the first breath in the delivery room, he has pulmonary breathing, as in adults.

Often parents are asked what to do if a newborn snorts with its nose when breathing. Evgeny Komarovsky explains that this is happening again because of the narrow airways, in which the mucus produced to soften simply gets stuck and accumulates.

The heart of a newborn is perhaps the strongest and richest organ. It works with full force from the first minutes of life. Heart beats more often than adults. On average, in the neonatal period, it is reduced 110-150 times per minute. This indicator is not stable, since any external stimulus (loud sound, bright light, blowing wind) causes an increase in heartbeat.

The digestive tract of the child is developing at an incredible pace, because every week the baby can eat more and more mother's milk or formula. The sterile tract remains the first few hours after birth, then bacteria appear in the intestine, the vocation of which is to help digestion. The color of feces changes from black (meconium) to brown and greenish, and then to light, yellowish. Already for 5-6 days the consistency changes - the feces become mushy, a sour smell appears.

The nervous system of the crumbs is imperfect, and the most significant changes are coming in the first weeks of a person’s life. What can not be considered the norm for an adult may be the most common thing for a newborn - for example, tremor (trembling of the limbs).

There are reflexes that are peculiar only to newborns. As the child grows, they will fade to complete extinction. In order for mom and dad to calm down about the “normality” of their offspring, Komarovskoy advises checking out on his own. Healthy babies can do the following:

• Grab. If you bring your finger to the palm of a newborn, he will surely grab hold of it.
• "Hug". If you swipe your palm strongly on the changing table on which the baby is lying (or it is easy to knock on the hips and buttocks of the child), then at first he will bend up, stretch his arms, and then return them to the breast position.
• "Crawl". Of course, crawling in the full sense of the word newborns do not know how. If you put the baby on the tummy, he will start pushing with his feet, as if trying crawl.
• "Walk." If you take the baby under the arms and support its feet on a hard surface, it will surely rest against them. If it is tilted slightly forward, it will begin to make movements that a person performs when walking.

An amazing ability is given to a child from birth - to quickly adapt to changing environmental conditions. If the parents immediately create a home “greenhouse” for him, 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 not be there. As a result, then caring mom and dad are forced to state 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.

The newborn is perfectly able to distinguish between what is good and what is bad, about which he immediately notifies with a shout. The child will cry for various reasons: from hunger, cold, heat, pain, if he is uncomfortable and uncomfortable, if he has wet diapers.

And only in the last place is to feed. There are some parents who shut up every cry of a newborn with mom's breast, believing that the child always wants to eat. This is a mistake that will cost too much later, says Yevgeny Komarovsky, because overfeeding provokes many children's illnesses.

The room should not be objects that accumulate a large amount of dust - large soft toys, carpets with a long nap. Wet cleaning should be daily, but without the addition of detergent to the water.

Newborn clothing and bedding should be sewn from natural fabrics without textile dyes. They should be washed with a special baby powder, whose composition is hypoallergenic, after washing it is always rinsed.

It is not necessary to muffle the child. It should be worn as much as adults.

Pillow child does not need. However, a hard orthopedic mattress is needed, which is not pressed through.

Bathing should be daily. It is better to start the procedures after the umbilical wound heals. Prior to this, the child can be wiped with moist sanitary napkins without perfume to avoid diaper rash on the skin.

You can feed on demand, and you can enter the mode by the hour. Yevgeny Komarovsky strongly recommends some kind of "golden mean" - mixed feeding.

Such feeding will give mom the confidence that the child is fed up, and the child will be more likely to enter a well-functioning diet.

Even if there is little breast milk, you should not give up breastfeeding. There are many methods of stimulating lactation.

If for some reason a baby cannot eat breast milk, carefully choose an infant formula. It must be necessarily adapted, preferably hypoallergenic. So that the baby does not overeat (and this is quite a common situation for the artificialities), let's give the baby a mixture from a bottle with a small hole, so that he makes certain efforts sucking the food.

Walks should be mandatory and daily. Even during the illness you should not refuse it - naturally, provided that the crumbs do not have a temperature.

Sleep newborn can up to 22 hours a day. Try to set the time for a night's sleep immediately, so that later it would be easier for the child to adapt to the daily routine. A newborn can eat at night up to 2 times. Immediately after feeding, it should be laid back into the crib. At the time of feeding you should not turn on the bright light, because the crumb 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 touches, strokes and pats. Be sure to massage the tummy in a clockwise direction and lay the child on the tummy.

Even if the parents organized everything correctly and created optimal conditions for the newborn for healthy growth, this process is not without problems. Adults should remember that there are problems of an urgent nature, when an ambulance is urgently needed. If there are problems with breathing, the child has difficulty breathing, there are long delays, immediately call “03”. Exactly the same should be the actions of parents with convulsions, severe vomiting in the newborn (not to be confused by regurgitation), at high temperature (above 38.0).

If a child cries long and piercingly, this may indicate discomfort in the intestines - for example, he cannot poop. Keep track of the frequency and nature of the chair. The most common problem of the newborn - "bloom" of the skin. If there is a rash, reddened cheeks, be sure to check whether you have done everything correctly in the organization of the baby’s living space (microclimate, absence of allergens). Pay attention to what fed the crumbs. It is possible that the selected mixture does not suit him. Be sure to check with your doctor.

If eyes often fester and eyelids swell, be sure to call the doctor at home to rule out conjunctivitis. The problem can be caused by dacryocystitis (obstruction of the lacrimal and nasolacrimal ducts). In this situation, the doctor will show 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 to inflate it to the universal scale. The digestive system of the child is improving, and therefore colic is a completely natural process. Treat them is not necessary. It is enough to alleviate the condition of the child by applying heat, massaging the tummy, putting it on the belly. Some babies are well helped by nipples.dummyas the sucking movements soothe babies.

What is colic, what are their causes and how to deal with them - Dr. Komarovsky will tell in the video below.

If a child is confused day and night, Komarovsky advises to gain strength and will, and for at least one day not to let the child sleep until nightfall, to wake up more often. In addition, he recalls that the child must sleep in a cool, breathing with clean and moist air.

The mood of the baby, his behavior (especially in the neonatal period) directly depend on the state of the mother’s nervous system. The invisible connection between them persists after the obstetrician cut the umbilical cord. If the mother slept, she is happy and healthy, then the child will be calm and happy. If a mother cries and quarrels with the household, does not get enough sleep, starves herself so that the crumbs do not have diathesis, then her child will surely feel and show complete solidarity - support her with crying and crying and colic.

It is necessary to communicate with the child, to bathe him, to carry out the necessary manipulations in an even and harmonious state of mind, with a good mood. Then the problems that await the parents of infants will be much less.

You can find out more about newborn children in the issue of Dr. Komarovsky below.