Many important issues regarding healthy baby (or child) contests have been detailed in recent correspondence(l-3). Healthy child contests undoubtedly provide ample opportunities for educating and helping the parents for betterment of child
health in an informal interactive manner which is often not possible in day to day clinical practice. In this connection, some more suggestions are:
1. An ideal and natural venue for such contests is a well maintained and easily accessible garden where kids are at liberty, playful, familiar, enthusiastic and more interactive. It will also eliminate the possible chance of bias which is possible if such contests are held in a private
nursing homes.
2. In places like Rajasthan where extremes of weather are routine, the most comfort- able season is around October (till mid November).
3. It is best held at week ends, preferably on a Saturday evening.
4. The age of participating children must be raised to 5 years. Allowing another age group of 3-5 years will provide an excellent opportunity to discuss about preprimary
education, second booster of
OPVIDPT (which is sometimes not remembered because of larger gap between first booster at 15-18 months age and second booster) and further motivating parents for purchasable vaccines.
5. While scoring for immunization, it will be inappropriate to give substantially higher marks to those who have opted for costly vaccines. Those parents who protect their children with government sponsored vaccines at regular intervals but are not able to afford costly vaccines must not be given a perception of inferiority or guilt.
6. Healthy baby shows can also be utilized to motivate the parents to adopt a small family norms. In fact, a pediatrician may sometimes be a better family planning counsellor(4).
7. During these gatherings, gender bias against girl child by parents should be strongly condemned. To make this goal optimistic, judges can also select "best parents" on the grounds of their attitudes towards rights of child.
Ravi Goyal,
Consultant Pediatrician,
58 I-A, Talwandi,
Kota 324 005,
Rajasthan, India.
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