Peter Leibert's Page

Facts For Life – The Top Ten 

One of the booklets I picked up in India addressed primary health care.  It is intended principally for the developing world, and contains information about birth-spacing, safe motherhood, breastfeeding, weaning and child growth, immunization, diarrheal diseases, respiratory infections, domestic hygiene, malaria and AIDS.  It contains ten messages.  This booklet is co-published by UNICEF, WHO and UNESCO. 

The health of both women and children can be significantly improved by spacing births at least two years apart, by avoiding pregnancies before the age of 18, and by limiting the total number of pregnancies to three or less. 

To reduce the dangers of childbearing, all pregnant women should go to a health worker for pre-natal care and all births should be assisted by a trained person. 

For the first few months of a baby’s life, breast milk alone is the best possible food and drink.  Infants need other foods, in addition to breast milk, when they are four-to-six months old. 

Children under three have special feeding needs.  They need to eat five or six times a day and their food should be specially enriched by adding mashed vegetables and small amounts of fats or oils. 

Diarrhea can kill by draining too much liquid from a child’s body.  So the liquid lost each time the child passes a watery stool must be replaced by giving the child plenty of the right liquids to drink-breast milk , home-based fluids such as dal water, rice water, buttermilk, etc. or a special drink called ORS.   

If the illness is more serious than usual, the child needs help from a health worker--and the special ORS drink.  A child with diarrhea also needs food to make a good recovery. 

Immunization protects against several diseases which can cause poor growth, disability, and death.  All immunizations should be completed in the first year of the child’s life and a booster given at one and a half years.  Every woman of child-bearing age should be immunized against tetanus. 

Most coughs and colds will get better on their own.  But if a child with a cough is breathing much more rapidly than normal, then the child is seriously ill and it is essential to go to a health center quickly.  A child with a cough or cold should be helped to eat and to drink plenty of liquids. 

Many illnesses are caused because germs enter the mouth.  This can be prevented by using latrines;  by washing hands with soap and water after using the latrine and before handling food;   by keeping food and water clean;  and by boiling drinking water if it is not from a safe piped supply. 

Illnesses hold back a child’s growth.  After an illness, a child needs an extra meal every day for a few days to make up the growth lost. 

Children from birth to three years should be weighed regularly every month for the first year and at least every alternate month thereafter.  If there is no gain in weight for two months, something is wrong.