Smiley Baby

Baby’s have to crawl before they can walk

Filed under: baby development — Alan @ 12:21 pm

Strengthening muscles enough to walk, crawling helps your baby and is her first opportunity to move around easily on her own. In the traditional crawl method she will learn first to balance on her hands and knees and then figure how to edge forward and backward from that point by pushing with her knees.

The average age a baby learns to crawl is usually between six and 10 months. Some children will never crawl instead they shuffle their bottoms slithering on their bellies or moving trying to move to pull themselves up. What is important is your baby becomes mobile, what method is not important.

Typically crawling follows a baby’s ability to sit up without having to be supported which most accomplish by six to seven months old. At that point she can keep her head up and look around and her body muscles are strong enough to keep her from falling off to one side or backwards.

Over the next few months your baby will gradually learn to confidently move from sitting to being on all fours to soon grabbing and pulling herself up. Usually between nine and 10 months she will realize how to push off with her knees and will soon have the thrust forward to be mobile. Then she will soon be moving the arm and leg on opposite sides in unison – cross-crawling- and following that it is just a short while before she will be walking.

Following crawling the only thing left to learn before walking is standing. So therefore she will soon start to pull herself up to a standing position and use that object to support herself. Once the art of balancing on her legs becomes second nature, she will be ready to stand alone without support and then walk around while have one hand on something for moral support.

Before the crawling disappears and the standing alone leads to walking with support and then to all out walking on their own and to just be on the safe side it is good to have lots of pillows and other soft things strategically located in case she decides to take a nose dive into the floor.

No money provided for additional baby healthcare

Filed under: Baby public health — Alan @ 8:32 am

In an attempt to improve health services in England a new set of standards for the care of sick babies has been published.

Two years ago the National Audit Office criticized specialist baby care, prompting the response by ministers that hospitals need better transport services, and to start providing one on one nursing care for babies.

However, now two years later doctors and campaigners for the cause are starting to raise concerns, due to the fact that there has not been any money provided for the service.

Every year about one in ten births results in a baby that needs treatment in neonatal units. This is due to the fact that women are waiting longer to have children, fertility treatment is causing multiple births, and more premature babies are surviving preterm birth.

This has prompted the Department of Health to recommend one to one nursing care for babies in intensive care units and other new standards for special infant care units. However, intensive care units are not able to reach these standards due to a lack of funding.

In terms of transport teams, only half of the hospitals in the UK have transport teams that are operational around the clock every day.

The government has stated that it would like all hospitals to reach the standard, but yet funding has not yet been provided to make the standards a reality.

Health Minister Anne Keen stated that the standards would help impact the health of young children, but stated that there is no money in the budget to help increase hospital staffing.