A healthy child grows steadily. If he eats enough nutritious food, and has no serious illness, a child gains weight each month.

This articles below tell more about the importance of nutritious food, cleanliness, and vaccination. Parents should read carefully and use them to help care for—and teach—their children.

Nutritious Food

It is important that children eat the most nutritious foods they can get, so that they grow well and do not get sick.

The best foods for children at different ages are:

  • in the first 6 months: breast milk and nothing more.
  • from 6 months to 1 year: breast milk and also other nutritious foods— such as boiled cereals, mashed-up beans, eggs, meat, cooked fruits and vegetables.
  • from 1 year on: the child should eat the same foods as adults—but more often.
  • Above all, children should get enough to eat—several times a day.
  • All parents should watch for signs of malnutrition in their children and should give them the best food they can.

Cleanliness

Children are more likely to be healthy if their village, their homes, and they themselves are kept clean. Teach children to follow them —and to understand their importance. Here the most important guidelines are repeated:

  • Bathe children and change their clothes often.
  • Teach children always to wash their hands when they get up in the morning, after they have a bowel movement, and before they eat or handle food.
  • Make latrines or ‘outhouses’—and teach children to use them.
  • Where hookworm exists, do not let children go barefoot; use sandals or shoes.
  • Teach children to brush their teeth; and do not give them a lot of candies, sweets, or carbonated drinks.
  • Cut fingernails very short.
  • Do not let children who are sick or have sores, scabies, lice, or ringworm sleep with other children or use the same clothing or towels.
  • Treat children quickly for scabies, ringworm, intestinal worms, and other infections that spread easily from child to child.
  • Do not let children put dirty things in their mouths or let dogs or cats lick their faces.
  • Keep pigs, dogs, and chickens out of the house.
  • Use only pure, boiled, or filtered water for drinking. This is especially important for babies.
  • Do not feed babies from ‘baby bottles’, because these are hard to keep clean and can cause illness. Feed babies with a cup and spoon.

Vaccinations

Vaccinations protect children against many of the most dangerous diseases of childhood— whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus, polio, measles, and tuberculosis.

Children should be given the different vaccinations during the first months of life. Polio drops should be first given if possible at birth, but no later than 2 months of age, because the risk of developing infantile paralysis (polio) is highest in babies under 1 year old.

Important: For complete protection, the DPT (diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus) and polio vaccines should be given once a month for 3 months and once again a year later. Tetanus of the newborn can be prevented by vaccinating mothers against tetanus during pregnancy.