"As a new parent, it's common to feel overjoyed and excited as your little one starts to hit new milestones. However, as the baby reaches the 3 month mark, drooling may increase, leading to a rash on the face and neck. Dr. Spoorti Kapate, consultant Pediatrician and neonatologist at Cloudnine Hospital, Electronic City has an informative video on Drool Rash in Babies that can provide you with all the information you need to treat this condition"

"The right way to burp a baby is to hold the baby on your shoulder and gently pat or rub the back and keep the baby upright position for 10 to 15 minutes and help the baby burp or you can make the baby sit on your lap, hold the neck of the baby and the head of the baby. With the free hand just gently pat the back of the baby. That will also help the baby burp. So we recommend to try burping the babies for atleast 10 minutes because it I not necessary that the babies will burp immediately. There are times where the baby will not burp at all. So keep the baby upright for atleast 10 to 15 minutes. After that the baby will not burp you can keep the baby down"

"So meconium aspiration means that intrauterine or when the baby was inside the mother's womb due to any kind of stress the baby has passed meconium or the first stool and it gets mixed up with the amniotic fluid and sometimes the babies can aspirate it which means that the meconium can go into the lungs of the baby. Once the meconium goes inside the lungs there is no way to take it out if it is this slight mechanism in the nose or the mouth you can just suction it out . But apart from that if the meconium has gone into the lungs there is no way to take it out. So this condition leads to a medical we call it chemical pneumonitis. So meconium aspiration actually leads to chemical pneumonitis which means that the baby has pneumonia because of it. The baby will have breathing difficulty. The difficulty could be from mild to severe where in mild you might just have to give a little bit of oxygen, moderate maybe you'll have to give put the baby on a respiratory support called HFNC and if it is very severe may also need ventilation, which means that we put a tube inside the baby's throat and put the baby on the ventilator and help the baby breathe better. So again depending on the severity of the condition the baby can stay in the ICU for like I said depending on the condition from one day to a few weeks. The treatment is basically oxygen you give antibiotics to control the infection and you give whatever breathing support that the baby needs and you wait it out there is no way to fasten the process of healing. In a chemical pneumonitis the body automatically absorbs this meconium that has been aspirated and the baby eventually gets better. So it is very hard to say how long the baby is going to be in the ICU it depends on the condition of the baby"

"WHO recommends exclusive breast feeding upto 6 months of age, which means you are not supposed to give water, digestive enzymes, honey, gripe water, animal milk, anything apart from breast milk to your baby upto the age of 6 months"

"So first let me tell you what a preterm baby is. Ababy who is born before 37 weeks of gestation we take it as a pre-term baby. A baby who is born before 37 weeks is not supposed to be born the baby was not supposed to come out the baby was supposed to stay inside. So sometimes it can be a little difficult to manage a baby as compared to a term baby . Depending upon the gestation of the baby, that means that depending upon how early the baby is born, the pediatricians or the neonatologists decide if the baby should be sent to the mother's side or should be admitted to the ICU and the baby might need support. Most of the neonatal intensive care units have a guideline and that depends unit to unit most of them admit babies born less than either 34 or 35 weeks or whose weight is less than 1.8 or 2 kgs into the NICU. Any baby who is above this age, that this gestation or the weight they are shifted to the mother's side. Now there are a few things that you need to take care of when it comes to a pre-term baby . Pre-term babies or babies who are small for their weight, which is low birth weight babies a low birth weight babies who's less than two and a half kgs of weight such babies have low subcutaneous fat. So these babies are prone for hypothermia which means that the babies might not be able to maintain their body temperature. If the temperature of the hands and feet is as warm as the tummy of the baby then it means that the baby is normal. If the hands and feet is cold and the tummy is warm it means that the baby is going into cold stress which may eventually lead to full blown hypothermia which will eventually go there so you have to make sure that you rub the hands and feet put on socks and mittens and put some warmer clothes on the baby. Make sure that in winters especially you use woolen clothes and not just cotton clothes. You have to make sure that sometimes even if the baby is wrapped properly the baby might not be able to maintain the body temperature. In that scenario you can do something called skin to skin contact or KMC to maintain the baby's body temperature so what you do here the baby's naked body is brought in contact with the mother and around them a shawl or sweater or a blanket and this way the mother is trying to give the warmth from her body to the baby's body. So this way also the baby's body temperature is maintained so hypothermia is one thing second thing is feeding very important babies who are born preterm might not be able to feed like a term baby feeds. Why again because the baby was not supposed to come out the baby was supposed to stay inside. So feeding can be a little tricky in these babies in terms, that this the coordination between sucking and swallowing appears generally between 34-35 weeks and if your baby is born at that time you will notice that the baby doesn't swallow the milk properly . The baby might not latch at the breast the baby might not suck longer even if the baby's sucking might suck for like a few seconds and then sleep off or the baby might not finish the entire feed that baby is supposed to take. So what we recommend is that you breastfeed the baby and after that you pump out your breast milk using a breast pump or manually and then you top feed the baby with the palada. This way you ensure that the baby has taken the adequate amount of feed because you know once the baby is breast feeding you wouldn't know how much the baby has taken and like I said the baby might not breastfeed really well so you give measured feeds to the baby and the third thing is infection very important any baby for that matter is prone for infection because their immunity is low . Preterm babies all the more so you have to follow the same guidelines you wash your hands with soap and water you sanitize your hands make sure that who's coming in contact with the baby is healthy and not sick and so the basic hygiene guidelines have to be followed. How to raise a preterm baby - I have talked about how to care for a preterm baby. Raising a preterm baby maybe would be the same as the term baby. The only thing that you have to be a little vigilant about is the development of the baby so at 3-6-9 months post birth, you make sure that the baby is either evaluated by a Pediatrician or a Developmental Pediatrician to see how the development is going and then every time the baby comes for vaccination. You can keep checking and monitoring the growth in terms of height weight and head circumference of the baby"

"What happens is when the baby is inside the mother's womb whatever nutrient is needed for the baby oxygen and the nutrients is given through the placenta umbilical cord to the baby. When the baby is born the umbilical cord is cut. At the same time the baby starts crying which is equivalent to breathing in newborn babies and oxygen is supplied to all the major organs of the body . If the baby doesn't cry that means that the oxygen is not being delivered to the organs of the baby. When the oxygen is not delivered it means that the functioning of that particular organ is going to be hampered and when the baby breathes or cries oxygen is delivered through the heart and you know pumping of their heart to all the organs at the same time. So all the organs are basically affected if the baby doesn't cry at birth because we know oxygen is very important to sustain life. So to answer the question if the baby doesn't cry it affects the organs all the organs most importantly the brain but does it happen immediately? No because most of the deliveries that happen are attended by a pediatrician or a neonatologist be it in a hospital or a nursing home or even the government hospitals PHC, CHC, the delivery is attended by a pediatrician or neonatologist. So if the baby doesn't cry at birth the pediatrician the doctor will give an artificial breath to the baby using equipments like a Ambu bag or an I Puff or a Neopuff so even if the baby is not breathing we will give an artificial breath to the baby and ensure oxygenation. But if the baby doesn't cry for a very long time say 10 minutes and we are trying to give artificial breath to the baby. Beyond that time that can have harmful effects . So if your baby doesn't cry at birth and we give a respiratory support to the baby and the baby starts crying say within 10 seconds or 30 seconds or less than one minute the effects are not detrimental but then if it goes beyond. The longer the baby goes without crying and we have to give artificial breathing to the baby the poorer the baby's condition would be and the higher the effect of non-oxygenation would be"