Vitamin

"Should I give my baby a few supplemental drops of vitamin D?" my sister asked me about the vitamins missing from breast milk. "The American Academy of Pediatrics said so."

"Though it may seem right for you to follow their recommendation," I murmured, not that enthusiastic, "it's optional in my personal opinion." There's really no scientific basis why I came to such conclusion. I have to admit it.

The simplest explanation would be that we're often bombarded with dozens of parenting dogmas - most of them conflicting - and each claiming to work. So it goes. What works for one may not necessarily work in another hemisphere. Foods that work in one culture, for example, will not be adequate in another. Well, so is vitamin B12, in a way. Vitamin B12 deficiency or megaloblastic anaemia, as every medical student learns in the first haematology class, is a risk for vegans who consume no meat because vitamin B12 is only found in foods of animal origin. Oddly enough, it was found that orthodox Hindus who had been quite healthy on a vegan diet in their native India began to suffer from a high incidence of megaloblastic anaemia after migrating to England for quite a while, consuming the same diet. This condition can be serious with nervous damage, and hey, even neuropsychiatric abnormalities. If it is obvious there is no real vitamin B12 in plant sources, the really interesting question is why so many Hindus are not affected in the first place. Not until the mid-1970s was the cause traced to vitamin B12 deficiency, which in India was prevented by insect contamination of grains. The same foodstuffs purchased in England were uncontaminated and therefore contained no animal source of vitamin B12.

In fact, neither plants nor animals are able to manufacture B12, so all animals obtain their (and our) supply of this essential vitamin either directly or indirectly from bacteria, which are the only organisms capable of making it.

All Fours

As my energetic little baby starts showing her kinetic energy, we know it's high time we do some childproofing around the house. Without the slightest idea of what to do, I ended up reading my favorite manual What to Expect the First Year.

I was taught that the best way is to take a baby's-eye view of our home. How so? Simply get down on my hands and knees, and crawl around the house. From there, alas, I will see the world in a different light and find a multitude of dangers I may not even have realized existed. I could have found hidden choking hazards such as the lost game piece under the couch and jettisoned food under the kitchen table. A carcass of cockroach, maybe.

Which brings me, somewhat uncomfortably, to the question of health care safety. It is not without irony now that the one who oversees patient safety in the hospital is often working at his consultant office without ever getting a look at the real world from down on all fours – but that is never, of course, the best way.

Smile

"Well, Jasmine didn't sleep well last night," my maid observed.

My wife touched the forehead and the nape of our daughter's neck, wondering. "Jasmine looks fine," I took a deep breath and asked my wife. "Do you think so?" Jasmine was sitting on the rug in our living room, her soft arms waving with enthusiasm, absolutely concentrating on her dad's making a tower of blocks.

At six months, she has been wearing an attractive smile on her dimpled cheek. So warm, her smiles and laughter, so catching and alive. While scientists have shown that simply reading happy words - verbs like "to smile" and "to laugh" - can bring a smile to someone's face, I don't need a scientist to prove that watching my daughter alone can serve the same purpose.

"I'm not sure," my maid said. "Jasmine doesn't eat very well."

Now we paused to listen to her. My maid nodded. "Like me," she said. "Can you believe it?" She was referring to her recent quarrel with boyfriend. Muddled and heartbreaking, the two of them talked as if their relationship was covered with ice. She didn't sleep or eat well.

My maid's voice was weary, but then a smile flickered across her face. "Oh, contagious - even my mood and appetite to a kid like Jasmine. Nothing's simpler."