🛏️↗
While the child is a baby, lay the baby face up to sleep, on a firm flat surface. Adults and the baby share a room but not a bed. Put no pillows, quilts, bumper pads, stuffed toys or positioners in the crib. Inclined cradles and baby seats are for sitting only, not for sleeping in. In the U.S. alone, about 3500 babies die in their sleep every year.
- High value
- Evidence A
- Buys life
- For: Child under 3, Pregnant or trying
💉↗
A baby should get the first shot of hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth. Of people infected with hepatitis B in infancy and early childhood, about 95% go on to chronic hepatitis. Most people infected as adults clear it on their own. So the earlier this shot is given, the more it helps. If the mother's hepatitis B surface antigen is positive, the baby also gets hepatitis B immune globulin at the same time.
- Top value
- Evidence A
- Buys life
- For: Child under 3, Pregnant or trying
💉↗
Vaccines in the national immunization program are free all the way, and the vaccination unit cannot charge. When a child enters nursery or school, the immunization certificate is checked, and missed shots will be found and made up. If you missed some, only the doses not yet given need to be caught up, with no need to start over, and you can continue even if the maker has changed. Eczema, hives, allergic rhinitis and asthma are no obstacle as long as the condition is stable, and newborn jaundice is the same: the child can be vaccinated as normal.
- High value
- Evidence A
- Buys life
- For: Child under 3, Child aged 3–18, Pregnant or trying
🍼↗
Start feeding in the first hour after the baby is born. For the first 6 months, feed only breast milk, not even water. From 6 months, add solid foods, with an iron-rich animal food every day, and keep breastfeeding until 2 years or longer. If there is not enough milk or you can't breastfeed, use formula, and don't blame yourself. What you feed matters far less for the baby's safety than the sleeping position.
- Moderate value
- Evidence A
- Buys life
- For: Child under 3, Pregnant or trying
🌡️↗
Formula is not sterile, and it may carry a kind of bacterium. If a newborn is infected, between 40% and 80% die. When you mix, first pour hot water into the bottle, wait until it cools to about 73.8 ℃, and then add the powder. That kills this germ down to less than one hundred-thousandth (十万分之一) of the original. Hot water leaves a little less vitamin C, but the formulas that were tested still met the standard. Let it cool after mixing before you feed, and throw away what is left.
- High value
- Evidence A
- Buys life
- Disputed
- For: Child under 3, Pregnant or trying
🍯↗
Do not give honey to a child under 1 year old. This includes honey water, honey stirred into solid food, and pastries made with honey. Honey can carry bacteria that cause botulism. The gut flora of an adult can hold them down, but an infant's cannot. Home-made pickles and fermented foods follow the same reasoning.
- High value
- Evidence A
- Buys life
- For: Child under 3, Pregnant or trying
💉↗
A newborn has very little vitamin K stored. Without a supplement, there can be bleeding, and the late-onset kind is often bleeding in the brain. In places where this shot is not given routinely, 478 in every 100,000 (10万) newborns get this bleeding. The shot is estimated to cut it by more than 78%. Proper hospitals in China give it routinely, and for a birth at home or at an irregular facility, ask on your own whether it was given.
- Top value
- Evidence B
- Buys life
- For: Child under 3, Pregnant or trying
🌡️↗
If a child under 3 months has a temperature of 38 ℃, go straight to the hospital. Don't watch at home, and don't give fever medicine first and wait and see. At this age, even a serious bacterial infection may show only as a fever. So "looks alert enough" is no reason to wait at home. For a baby under 8 days old, even the guideline does not cover it, so go immediately.
- High value
- Evidence A
- Buys life
- For: Child under 3, Pregnant or trying
👐↗
A baby's head is large and the neck has little strength. Shaking hard can cause bleeding in the brain and eyes, and it can kill the baby or leave a lifelong disability. Gently rocking a baby to sleep does not count; the danger is violent shaking you can't control. When you are about to lose your temper, put the baby back in the crib and walk away for a few minutes. Letting the baby cry for a while is safer than holding and shaking.
- High value
- Evidence B
- Buys life
- For: Child under 3, Pregnant or trying
🧷↗
No official body has ranked "which brand is best." The only things you can check are two: the product-quality spot-check reports from the State Administration for Market Regulation (市场监管总局), and the regulators' investigations of specific incidents. Expensive does not mean safe, and imported does not mean up to standard. Buy a small pack first and try it for a week, check whether the child gets a red bottom or marks from elastic, and stock up if it fits.
- Moderate value
- Evidence C
- Saves money
- For: Child under 3, Pregnant or trying
🧸↗
A stroller, a swaddle blanket and toys are used for a short time, so borrow first, buy used if you can't borrow, and buy new last. A used car seat must be confirmed to have no serious crash history, no recall and all parts present; if you can't confirm that, don't use it. Sleeping on a mattress that another child used has been linked to about 3 times the risk of sudden infant death, so it is best to buy a new mattress.
- Moderate value
- Evidence C
- Saves money
- For: Child under 3, Pregnant or trying
🥜↗
Babies with severe eczema or an egg allergy who ate peanut regularly from 4 to 11 months old had a peanut allergy rate of only 1.9% by age 5, versus 13.7% for those who avoided it completely. For children who already showed some reaction on a skin test, the figure was 10.6% for those who ate it and 35.3% for those who avoided it. Take the child to the doctor before adding it. Never give a whole peanut, because it can block the windpipe.
- High value
- Evidence A
- Buys life
- For: Child under 3, Pregnant or trying
☀️↗
More than 80% of newborns turn a little yellow, and most clear on their own. If the baby is yellow before 24 hours old, or getting more yellow, or sleepier than usual and can't be woken, or won't feed, or is limp or stiff, go to the hospital the same day. Pale stool may mean biliary atresia, and also needs checking quickly. Too much bilirubin can damage the brain and leave a lifelong disability.
- High value
- Evidence B
- Buys life
- For: Child under 3, Pregnant or trying
🥬↗
Vitamin B12 is found almost only in meat, eggs and dairy. If the mother is fully vegan and does not supplement, her milk is short of it, and the child usually runs into trouble at 4 to 8 months: failure to grow, delayed development, and, if it drags on, nerve damage that may not be reversible. The child's solid foods need an animal food every day.
- Moderate value
- Evidence B
- Buys life
- Disputed
- For: Pregnant or trying, Child under 3
