We Know Where You Live
I saw the new Mütterberaterin Wednesday. She's younger than the one we saw in Small Village, but seems experienced. I liked her. Small Boy flashed her a smile, so I guess he approves too. She gave him a yellow rubber duck to hold during the weigh in - anybody who gives him a yellow rubber duck to hold! is okay in Small Boy's book. Although she is younger than our old MB, she must see more babies in Big City, so even though she has fewer years on the job she's probably seen her share of babies. Small Boy checked out fine. He's slowing down on the length measurements - given that he had been at the 95th percentile there was really noplace else for him to go. Regression to the mean and all that. Holding his own, or down slightly, on the weight curve but the MB saw nothing to be concerned about. He's doing all the right developmentally appropriate things, perhaps even a bit early, and is attentive and alert. Alert. Yeah, that's one word for it. Oh lord is that boy alert.
And how did I find this new Mütterberaterin? Well, in this post, An American Mama in Berlin wrote about a visit from the Jugend Amt - the office in charge of young people. They're a little more laid back in Switzerland, but they do keep track of you. I assumed the old Mütterberaterin would inform the new Mütterberaterin. Well, it doesn't quite work that way. The city informs the Mütterberaterin when a family with a child under five moves into town. Then the Mütterberaterin sends the family a letter with information about the Mütterberaterin system, hours and telephone numbers. Then it's up to you to go to them. And how does the city know when a family with a small child moves in? Why, when they register, of course.
We know who you are. We know where you live. We know how old your children are.
Shiver.
2 Comments:
The Big Brother aspects of it may feel a bit creepy, but what a wonderful system for providing health checks and parent education. In the U.S., making an appointment with the pediatrician and paying for a doctor for every little thing is such a drag, and so many kids fall through the cracks without health insurance.
Sandra, I do really like the Mutterberaterin system for developmental checks. Anything that involves actual physicals (immunizations, ear infections, etc) does involve going to the pediatrician, and then we pay for every little thing (Switzerland does not have national health care in the model of most of Western Europe - in fact, it's remarkably expensive!), but for basic growth, development and nutrition and to ease your mind about little questions the MB is great. When the baby is born you get a little health notebook from the hospital that you bring with you to the MB and the pediatrician, and all the basics of the kids' updates (just weight, height, immunizations - if there are actual health issues those would be in standard medical records) are recorded in there. That way, if you change doctors or MBs, you bring the notebook to the new one and they can see just what's been going on. It is a great system, and especially for a first time parent it's very reassuring to be able to show the kid to somebody experienced every 2 weeks if you wanted to. And the MB is free!
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