COST OF A FIRST BABY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 211, 9 July 1943, Page 7

COST OF A FIRST BABY

To The Editor, IR,-I was deeply interested in your article "There Aren’t Enough of Us." However, if I had not during the last year produced a baby which, considering wartime conditions, did not seem extremely expensive to us, I might have been permanently discouraged from any such efforts by the budget quoted. I hope I can reassure some prospective mothers that it is not necessarily so expensive, First of all, many hospital boards provide excellent annexes where for no extra cost one can obtain excellent nursing care and treatment, including ante-natal advice. The food may not be so daintily served and there is not the same privacy, but during an average stay of two weeks there is surely compensation in the knowledge that both mother and baby are getting the highest standard of nursing care, As the public hospital in our town has no maternity annex, I went to a maternity home which was privately run. The choice of rooms lay between a single room at £4/4; a double room at £2/17/6; or a large room for six patients for which there was no extra charge. The item of £1/1 for "extras" sounds like a profit-making item, and 8/6 worth of chloroform would be enough to bring about 60 babies into the world without causing their mothers much pain, Other drugs which are commonly used to ease childbirth are provided without cost to the patient under the Government Maternity Benefit, which also provides the necessary antiseptic lotions and creams, and a small! but sufficient quantity of olive oil. I was required to provide:

which is far from the £2/6/6 quoted.

The cost of materials is certainly higi if and when they are procurable, but home-made clothes last longer and give better service. Such articles as night: dresses, petticoats, singlets, and coats should last for some months if not made too small, Napkins are expensive and very necessary. Gone are the days when Mama could phone Papa during a spell of wet weather and. ask him to invest in an extra half-dozen at 9/11. Now Papa’s evening by the fire is spoiled by the damp nether-gar-ments of his offspring draped on every available piece of furniture, But as | was able to buy only yesterday napkin material of excellent quality at 2/6 a yard, and one dozen can be made from nine yards, I should think that napkins at 30/- a dozen are a profitable line. I should like to see the shaw! which cost £5/5/, as I thought mine was very nice, but it cost only 37/6, The larger items which one requires can often be purchased second-hand at a saving, and a tin of stain does wonders, Our expenses were:

The only consolation about this ex- | penditure is that one can spread it in theory over several babies. The more you have the less the average cost will be. Could the Government not see its way to subsidise the makers of prams and napkins if necessary? Possibly we will have to wait until the babies themselves organise a union, "YOUNG MOTHER?" (Taranaki),

6 yards butter-muslin 1 nd cotton-wool Safety pins Powder Laat ae SNUG es ~wococa

Bassinette (second-hand) .. Mattress and Blankets (new) Pram (new) . Cot (secondMattress (new) wow th NCON"N Ne om eooco ona