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Concerns of new moms covered, but not all babies are born white

Book: Baby and Child - Questions and Answers

Book: Baby and Child - Questions and Answers

Author: Carol Cooper

Publisher: Penguin

Reviewer: Amanda Ngudle

If I had read this book before having a baby, I doubt I would have felt as if my parenting was performed on blind faith.

Carol Cooper, a medical practitioner and mother of three, including twins, has laid out this midwife-cum-wise mother of a book to answer the many questions every new mother has.

As an experienced mother, armed with medical experience, her advice doesn't just churn out solutions, but gets the reader to the core of causes of ailments such as colic, jaundice, detachment anxiety and bonding problems. You get a sense that motherhood, though tedious in its demands, has a natural backup in the form of mother nature's instinct.

This is a book you need to keep close at hand with its step-by-step questions that follow your baby's development.

In all her comprehensive answers, an elaborate explanation follows where the answer either raises more questions or might be culturally controversial.

The only hassle with this book is that it speaks of babies as if they were all white.

In one section Cooper suggests looking at the back of the baby's neck to check if she cold.

"If her skin is pale and has a tinge of blue ." is a definite reference to white skins. In another section she says to not the baby's hair because there isn't much of it anyway. Black babies are often born with their hair demanding a wash every day. Also, the question- and-answer format is too clinical.

But generally, this is a perfect book to give to mothers-to-be.

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