Dr Abhishek Sharma Clinic

Hello friends,

I am Dr. Abhishek Sharma. I am a pediatrician practicing in Faridabad. Today, let's talk about basic newborn care at home. A newborn is a bundle of immense joy to the family but at the same time while we are rejoicing it is important that we take a lot of care, a lot of precautions because they are so very small they need a lot of our care and attention.

What we can do as basic at home is that we should try to minimize all the unnecessary people to people contact with the baby as far as possible, so as to reduce the risk of transmission of any infection that somebody might be carrying, more importantly if the person concerned is having cold, cough or fever it is important that person should try to stay away from the newborn baby.

We can also look at a few other things such as the cleanliness and hygiene of the baby. We should try to keep the baby warm, comfortable, not very cold and not very hot, the temperature should be adjusted we can use AC, it should be adjusted at around 27-28 degrees, the draft of air should not fall directly on the baby and we should keep a sheet of clothing on the baby and after any adjustment in temperature we should always try to recheck if the baby is not feeling cold or hot by touching the baby's belly and hands and feet with the back of our hand.

The hands and feet should be as warm as the belly. We should also try to ensure that the umbilical is kept dry, nothing should be applied to it, it is meant to be kept dry. If there is any change of skin colour around the belly button, around the umbilical stump that is a cause of concern that should be informed to the pediatrician concerned.

The baby should be passing urine at least 6 to 8 times in 24 hours that is the minimum amount that we want the baby to pass out, the baby should be fed, if it is a term healthy baby we would like the baby to be fed on demand, but generally we advise not to wait more than 3 hours if the baby does not demand a feed for 3 hours we should wake the baby up and give the baby required amount of feed. To clean baby hair, you can try Rustic art baby shampoo - a pure herbal based shampoo specially made for new infants.

We sometimes notice that parents ask the babies have nails and they tend to scratch their faces, so what we can do is we can put cotton mittens on the hands in that way the baby's face will also be spared the scratches and the nails of the babies are generally very soft so they tend to break apart when baby moves fingers, so that way we can avoid cutting the fingernails as well.

We should try to ensure that the baby gets feeds even during nights, this is a bit of thing that we are concerned about during the initial few days, thereafter once the baby is strong enough after a few days it's not necessary that we keep on feeding the baby after every 2 or 3 hours during the night as well and we should get vaccinations done on the time that is very important. Vaccines are there to prevent diseases they were made so that our kids stay safe from diseases which are vaccine-preventable there are a lot of rumours regarding vaccines, lot of word to mouth things that people tend to share, but we should be careful enough to rely on scientific evidence that we have regarding vaccines.

Vaccines have a good track record of saving lives. We should get our babies vaccinated against all the vaccine-preventable diseases, as per the schedule advice by Indian Academy of Pediatrics.

If we follow certain basic guidelines just as I have outline now I am sure everything will be fine and all the babies will be happy, all the families will be happy and the bundle of joy will grow up to be a good human being, healthy human being.

Thank you.

Hello friends!

I am Dr. Abhishek Sharma. A lot of parents have queries regarding the eating habits of the children. Let us spend a few minutes trying to understand what is the eating behavior of children all about. How it forms? How it is affected by different things that we do in our daily lives? Obsession is a thing that we tend to get associated within a lot of things we do in life. Somehow knowingly or unknowingly as a parent, we tend to get obsessed about the eating habits of a child even if they are healthy by the definition, by the standards of doctor. Obsession is the first thing that we must understand, it should not be an obsession. There should be a healthy concern regarding eating habits.

Generally, a few things that I would like to say to help you parents in making your children eat better, making your children take interest in food are some of these. First of all- we should try to make them more involved in the process of food right from what the food is, how it is grown and how it is made in the kitchen. That generates curiosity and children are by default very curious. We should make them do some of the work that we do in our kitchen. It generates a lot of excitement in them to do something which is worthwhile thereby increasing their interest in food as well. Similarly, we should try to avoid packaged food as far as we can. The same goes on we should try to bring upon gender equality in the kitchen.

We should let our better halves, the male members as well, be involved in the food process. That way the kids would also learn to take part in the process and they will be more interested in the whole process of food and its preparation and eating. We should try to avoid aluminium foils in the tiffin boxes. We should try to use more of the local foods, more of the seasonal fruits and vegetables and more importantly the things which are relevant in your own household. The foods which are prepared in a traditional way in your own household. That way the kid will be more likely to take interest in eating that particular food item that you are used to eating in your own household. So it's up to us as a parent to show our children what to do and what not to do in the best possible way. Same with our food habits. So we should take a proactive step, let our kids join us in the process and thereby make them a better person in terms of choosing what to eat and what not to eat.

Thank you!