"Should We Have A Baby In Wartime"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 204, 21 May 1943, Page 18

"Should We Have A Baby In Wartime"

(Written for "The

Listener" by DR.

H.

B.

TURBOTT

Director

of the Division 01

| School Hygiene. Healtr

Department )

one couldn't help overhearing a loud-voiced conversation between two young women. One young matron said very dogmatically, "Oh, no! we've decided we are not going to have any children during wartime,’ and then went on to give reasons why it wasn't "right" to have children while the country was at war. Then yesterday lI happened to read a medical book which pleaded for an increased birthrate and -seemed to establish the thesis that it -was better for a woman to have, her first baby between 21-25 years, and after the first to continue child-bearing at approximately three to four years intervals until the family comprised three or four children. S TANDING in a tram the other day, There is no valid reason why children should not be brought into the world, upside down and warring as it is. Surely every woman still desires to become a mother, and it must be a funny man who is happy to be married and happy to remain childless. Wartime babies are just as heathly as peacetime ones. So long as there is food, there is no evidence to show that babies are born handicapped through wartime causes. In long-suffering England, through blitz days and calmer periods, maternity and child welfare services have been available for expectant and nursing mothers and young children. Rationing schemes were varied in favour of mothers and young children so that they received sufficient milk, extra meat or iron preparations and vitamins. Mothers and children have also had priority in evacuation schemes: in short, the,nation has recognised that children are of first national importance, Child-bearing has markedly increased in safety as recent advances in medical science have been applied. And if antenatal advice and diet are honestly followed, healthy well-formed babies are usually the result. : Children make a difference; the house becomes more of a home than ever. Though we may be at war, that is no reason to forgo children’s love and laughter. They try the patience desper‘ately at times. So did you fray your parents’ equanimity when you were little! But mostly it is joy and pleasure to have children about. Why should the Nazis or Japanese steal this from us? In New Zealand the war has not interfered with out ante-natal and maternity services, and dietary shortages can so far be overcome by substitutes. War may take the father from the home, but if so a baby offsets the wife’s loneliness and keeps her occupied in the best of all war work. .And children will be wanted to build the better world of the future. In spite of the dangers of the times, and counting all the costs, there is only one urgent national answer to the question "Should we have a baby in wartime?"-YES!