The Yomiuri Shimbun
Parents of infants in the earthquake-ravaged areas of Tohoku and Kanto are faced with caring for their children without such necessities as disposable diapers and powdered milk, both of which are in short supply.
In light of this, a number of family-oriented organizations are offering much-needed advice on how to take care of babies during this stressful time.
Since the March 11 quake, a 34-year-old mother of a 3-month-old baby has spent her nights at an evacuation center near her home in Miyagino Ward, Sendai. Even if she were to try to buy diapers, she would have to wait in a long and winding line at the supermarket.
"I couldn't stand there holding my baby in the freezing cold," she said. She has stopped changing the diapers when the baby urinates.
Shizuoka-based nonprofit organization Dakko to Onbu no Kenkyujo recommends an alternative to the disposable diaper that can easily be made using a plastic shopping bag:
Cut the handles and sides of a bag. Spread it open [see illustration]. Place a cloth, such as a towel, at the center of the open bag. Place your baby on the bag as you would with a diaper and use the handles to tie the front and back together.
Carrying your baby on your back for long periods of time without a carrier can be a serious burden on your arms, legs and lower back. "If your child can hold up its head on its own, you can use a single rope to carry the child on your back," the organization says.
Here is how you do it:
-- Place a towel on the baby's back and pass a four- to five-meter rope around the baby's back and beneath the child's armpits.
-- Hoist the child onto your back.
-- Lean forward with the child on your back, making sure the rope is taut.
-- Bring the rope over your shoulders to the front of your chest and twist the rope ends a few times. Pass one end underneath the child's bottom and the other around the child's lower back, and bring both ends to your front.
-- Tie the two ends tightly at your stomach. Make sure your child is at a height where he or she can see over your shoulder.
This will work even without a bath towel, and also can be used to carry adults.
Tokyo-based Shizen Ikuji Tomo no Kai (Friends of natural child-rearing; http://shizen-ikuji.org) has a number of helpful suggestions. One is for feeding children who are in the midst of being weaned. The organization suggests crushing or dividing the adult food distributed at evacuation centers for use as baby food.
The group has another less-than-orthodox suggestion: "Though you normally shouldn't transfer food mouth to mouth for fear of causing cavities, a mother could soften food by chewing it a bit and then give it to her child," an organization member suggested.
Some people are worried about stress leading to a temporary inability to breast-feed, or a lack of nutrition in the breast milk resulting from an imbalance in the mother's diet. Showa University Hospital pediatrician Katsumi Mizuno offers some hope: "Just look at your baby and continue to breast-feed; you will eventually start lactating again."
As long as your baby seems healthy and continues to urinate and move his or her bowels, your child is getting enough breast milk, he says.
La Leche League Japan, a private organization that promotes breast feeding, offers counseling for breast-feeding mothers who have been affected by the quake at their mobile Web site (www.llljapan.org/i/).
(Mar. 23, 2011)
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