PREVENTIVE MEDICINE FOR CHILDREN

PREVENTIVE MEDICINE FOR CHILDREN 

ALMOST EVERYONE is aware, because of the work of men like Freud, that early influences in an individual's life have deep and lasting effects on mental and emotional characteristics. Few people, however, recognize the equally important truth: that early influences have similar determining effects on the body and physical health of the adult. Until recently, as Dr. Rene Dubos of Rockefeller University has pointed out, the small stature of the Japanese was attributed to genetic constitution. But contemporary teen-agers in Japan are as tall as American teen-agers, not because of any change in inheritance but because Japanese postwar ways of life have been radically changed.

 Similarly, children born and raised on Israeli kibbutzim are often so tall that they tower over their parents who migrated from central Europe's ghettos. "Wherever in the world social groups adopt the ways of Western civilization," Dr. Dubos points out, "children grow faster, achieve sexual maturity earlier and develop into taller adults.

Menstruation begins three years earlier than it did 100 years ago. Teen-age boys are now too big for the armor of medieval knights." One of the world's most distinguished scientists, Dr. Dubos has con- ducted repeated laboratory experiments with many animal species which show the lasting effects of early influences in the physical sphere and the mental-how, at critical stages in early development, nutrition deprivation, minor infectious processes, and behavioral disturbances can have lifelong stunting effects. When, for example, female mice, either during pregnancy or in the nursing period, receive a slightly deficient diet, not only' are the offspring unusually small at the time of weaning; they remain small for the rest of their lives even though they get optimum diets after weaning. 

  Making use of available knowledge, you can give your baby a good start in life. You can do this, tl/l we noted earlier, by good prenatal care. And you can do this, as We' will now discuss, by what you provide and do for the child from the moment you leave the hospital after childbirth.

YOUR BABY'S DOCTOR Decide who is going to look after your baby's health before you leave the hospital. Will your family doctor take over, or are you going to have a pediatrician or "baby doctor"? Your baby has had a thorough examination in the hospital. For the first six months, he should be seen by a doctor regularly. 

Decide who that doctor will be; the physician who took care of your pregnancy can help you in this. And, having decided, follow through on the doctor's advice. What we discuss in this chapter can be helpful to you; it can supplement but cannot take the place of the physician who will be concerned with your baby's welfare.