different practices in different countries

[codswallop]

My confessional booths abput sterilisation and microwaves have made me realise how different things are done abroad..

Is it true that the "Europeans" never warm milk or wind? This is what I have been told..

Any other different things>

In Switzerland they definitely wind but most babies here are breastfed at least to begin with so not so sure about the warming of milk. Having said that we never had problems getting hot water to warm a bottle here. We served cold from as early as we could manage (dd had very few bottles before 6 months anyway ) out of convenience. Breastfeeding in public is rarely a problem.

Other differences I've noticed :

Pain relief options for giving birth differ - no gas/air, but can ask for natural birth, water pools seem to be often available, plus epidurals and other relaxants/analgesics.

Weaning

• forget baby rice, start on veg then fruit
• dairy products introduced later, from 7/8 months
• manufactured cereals contain chocolate, biscuit and other flavourings even from 4 months!
• cereals can be fed from a bottle if mixed to a "brei"(watery soup) consistency, and there are variable teats designed to deal with this
• sterilising is unusual but you can get microwave and steam sterilisers
• fennel tea, herbal teas and "sirop"(squash) used as drinks from young age - in a bottle !! -we used the tap water as it is straight from the mountains!

Dummies are introduced early (in hospital) and weaned late (you see kids on the ski slopes with them!)

Health Visitor waits for you to contact her at one of the baby clinic sessions once she has made an initial phone call to introduce herself. Far less dogmatic approach regarding weight gain etc and it is up to you to follow up any concerns with dr at one of the regular check ups.

Vaccination schedule now differs to UK (esp timing of MMR/DTP booster and availability of Meningitis C).

Schools :
-The kids do not start state run Kindergarten until the August after they turn 4 (and must be 4 by end previous April) and enter school at 6/7 - no formal learning until school (ie letters, reading etc). Usually Kindergarten is 1/2 days only.
-From Kindergarten onwards you are actively encouraged to allow your kids to walk there alone if possible (most are assigned to a local one)

• Terms and holidays are staggered across the country, with 2 week breaks in October and February/March and a longer holiday around Christmas, end April/May and July/August
• School sessions are staggered so kids may be coming and going home at different times of day, even within the same class, and most return home for lunch.

Hope this is of some interest, I may think of a few more as other posts come in, and will be interested to compare here and UK to elsewhere.

Swiss school sounds much more sensible!

I know that in Japan vaccination schedule is different. There are less, they are spread out more and there seems to be more parental choice in which ones are given. (They also offer extras such as Japanese encaphalitis.) If I remember correctly they start school at 6 (but could be 5- can't remember). Also they do a wierd thing in hospital where your baby is originally fed at set times and weighed before and after feeding, and then you are told when you can go onto demand feeding. Oh and when you are pregnant you get given a little photo album from the beginning to out all your scan photos in (and they seem to have loads of scans). No idea about sterilising/weaning practices.

no gas and air in Spain either (much to my dismay).

Also they do wind babies - and how! They smack the poor little blighters senseless almost! I'm not sure about warming milk, but people never seem to get confused when I ask them to warm dd's milk!

I had no health visitor, but I think this is because I don't live in a city.

Like Switzerland, many baby foods contain chocolate / flavourings and all savoury ones contain salt. You also get instructions to add cereal to bottle here. In general the Spanish are less uptight about baby food I think which is good in some ways, but obviously bad in others. You can buy jars of E102 here.

In Andalucia anyway over 80% of baby girls have their ears pierced. Apparantly they do it in the hostpital.

Ermm - not sure what the UK vaccination schedule is, but babies here are routinely vaccinated against hepititis B, meningitis C and all the usuals (MMR at 15 months - is that what it is in the UK? )

Interesting thread ...
Holland ... I think oxocube will know more but my SIL had my niece in Holland and my nephew in the UK and she noticed some differences ...
They are much more into 'natural' birth although she did have pethidine ... I believe the C/S rate is lower. For 10 days after she got home she had a 'Kraamzorg' ... a midwife (I think) who comes to your house EVERY day ... from 9-3!!! She does whatever you want her to do ... cooking, cleaning, make tea for visitors, look after the baby while you rest, do a bit of shopping... my SIL found it a bit wierd as she is very independent but thought it was a great idea. My brother had his dinner cooked every night by the lady ...
Not sure about immunisation there ... but I know my niece was up to date when they came to the UK when she was 15 months.
Breast feeding is the norm .... in public, wherever ...
Now NZ ... Don't know all the doings but here is what I do know..... Alcohol of any description is really discouraged in pregnancy ... they say that apparently even one small glass of wine a day can cause fetal alcohol syndrome (or whatever they call it)
Like UK ... nuts are a no no ... but you can have any kind of soft cheese ... all cheese is made here and has to be pasteurised.
Usual no nos are liver etc.
Erm ... they have a wonderful society called Plunket ... that do what health visitors do ... all nurses and you take your child to the Plunket centre for checks rather than the doctors surgery ... Plunket also have playgroups and toy libraries ....
Breast is best here ... I see a lot more people b/fing in public than I ever did in the UK.
No fish for babies until 9 months (no idea why)...
All the usual aguments for and against immunisation ... it is encouraged though ... especially HepB as it is a real problem in the poorer parts of Auckland.
Children start state run Kindergarten at 3 and a half (3 afternoons a week) and at 4 go to 5 mornings a week. They start school 'on' their 5th birthday ... unless it falls in the holidays or at the weekend (derr!!) then they start the first Monday back. My DS' birthday is at the end of November (3 weeks before the start of the long summer holiday) so they have a cut off date that is mid Nov ... any child after that starts the beginning of the school year in Jan ...
Phew ... can't think of anything else ....

Fascinating thread - particularly interested in 4 year olds walking to kindergarten by themselves in Switzerland - seems inconceivable.

Only experience I have is (south) Germany where it seems to be the norm not to automatically wind babies - ie after a feed baby is put down in cot and only winded if s/he doesn't settle.

Interesting reading - good to hear about different countries and different ways.

We can learn from each other no matter where we are!

Will be checking back on this for (hopefully) even more interesting info.

Thanks!!

Yes, it's true about the 4 yo in Switzerland. But the starting age is different from gemeinde to gemeinde -- Liz, my son would have started kindergarten this year (ie next Sept). He was 5 in January.

Ooh, and tell them more about the times. One of my acquaintances has a child who goes to school around 8:30am, comes home a bit before noon, leaves again around 1:30 or 2ish and then is done around 4pm. No school lunch or anything like that. On Wednesdays, she doesn't have class in the afternoons. If her teacher (any teacher, any subject) is sick or out, she's sent home (with the assumption that Mom is there). There are very complicated holidays and teacher days off. It boils down to that if a teacher cannot come in on a day, the students are off. No notice, no nothing. And different schools have different hours. It is impossible to plan anything around Swiss school hours. You're on call and need to home, the entire time they're at school. Otherwise you could end up with your child sitting on your step crying for a couple of hours because you went shopping (because they had school -- it's just that their teacher decided not to come in without any notice because of a funeral and while I can understand the funeral, I cannot understand the no notice.. it's always taken a day or two to plan it, in my experience) anyway,you went shopping, she was supposed to be at school, but got sent home because no teacher was there. And she's what, 9? (Not my child..)

Then there's the whole "we don't have bullies" attitude -- apparent in the lovely queues wherever you go. Don't even ask me what happened to the preteen girls who were messing around on the waterslide in front of me carrying my toddler son (who is very fond of the slide which is usually quite reasonable). Just fyi, no one got hurt.

Sorry Liz, not getting at you.. it's just that I'm going through that adjustment period now. Plus, you're so sweet about those things.

Belgium (well, my experience of it):
No gas & air or pethidine for childbirth, so you have the choice between no pain relief or an epidural - 90% of Belgian women go for the epidural. They don't even really teach you what to do for a natural birth in antenatal classes, 'cos they assume everyone will have an epidural.
Bf approved of in practice, but not much support or knowledgeable medical staff in my experience. Dummies given immediately after birth, and often used til the child is 4 or 5. I was classed as "long term breastfeeder" once I'd been bf for more than 3 months! Most Belgian women go back to work full time after 3 months and stop bf then, if thay've made it that far. Very little info about expressing etc given, though you can buy the (manual) pumps etc.
No HV as such - you have one visit after the birth ("to check where the baby sleeps", they told me), and all the HV told me was to not drink any orange juice if I was bf. Then you can visit the free clinic at weekly, and later monthly, intervals and get free vaccines if you like - but the queues and the unimpressive doctor put me off and no-one ever checked up when we stopped going. We had dd's vaccines etc done by our GP, but no-one ever asked whether we had kept the recommended timetable (we didn't, especially for MMR).
Baby rice often added to bottles when baby is under 3 mths. First food at 4mths is fruit, followed very quickly by meat (!). Jars of babyfood nearly all have added sugar and salt. So do baby rusks/biscuits. Veggie babyfood very hard to find. Once dd started nursery aged 12mths, we were shocked to find the children were regularly fed "steak americaine" - raw mince to you and me!

A large number of babies start full time child care at 3 months (local authorities provide lots of nurseries; not too cheap but you can offset costs against tax; you have to register the child when 3mths pg to get a place though), often from 8am to 6pm or even later. Nursery school, free if at a state school (and no problem getting a place unless you're very fussy), starts at age 2 1/2 (literally on the child's half-birthday if you like) and is usually from 8.30am to 3.30pm, with a possibility of supervised play until 6pm if necessary (costs a few Euros per day). There is no school on Wednesday afternoons, for any age, but there are extra-curricular activities if you like. School itself not obligatory until the calendar year when the child turns 6 - so in the canse of dd, with an April birthday, she'll be 6 1/2 before she starts primary school. As Belgium is a multilingual country, the second national language is usually compulsory from age 6; some nurseries also offer it.
Oops - this has ended up really long!

Blimey Sprout ... isn't it funny how different Holland and Belgium are (unless I have got it wrong ... where IS oxocube?) considering they are next door and most people think they are the same country or at least the top half of Belgium is because of the language!!!!!
I'm glad I don't live there actually ... why do they go back to work so quickly ... do they not have good maternity packages??
Are there very few SAHMs??

I will post more late as I am off to car boot sale but being Belgian, married to a Dutch and working in the UK as a doula.... I do not agree completely with what SProut wrote.... but the bulk is correct.
BTW B and NL are very different in this area... B being more like F in this case. Belgium pays about 3 1/2 months maternity leave (which was better than UK).
I have also stats which I'll share tonight when I have more time to post about childbirth and BF in different countries.... like 13% episiotomy in UK, 60% in France !
Gas and air is VERY much a British (and Aussie) thing... it is not used in many many countries.
I disagree about

And I feel Lizs comments are true for German speaking CH but I have 2 women relatives in Geneva/Lausanne area and they have a different experience.

In germany th ekids I au paired for were barely potty trained by three and had coccoa out of botles..(MInd you in birmingham my Hv told me not to give my child tea!!)

Hi JJ,

Hadn't appreciated that even starting age for Kindergarten could vary so much within such a small geographical area ie. across a lake! I count myself grateful that ds can go to an International school with relatively sensible, and consistent, hours and substitute teachers available - although I do count 2 months off in the Summer a little excessive (mid June to mid August).

As to the behaviour of the native inhabitants' offspring, and have to admit some expats too, well let us just say that parental supervision can be minimal and similarly I understand is the case in school playgrounds, so it is the ideal breeding ground for anti social behaviours and bullying to develop.

Even very young children are not closely supervised at public playgrounds because of the alleged "safety" to the extent that I recently had to physically remove the feet of a little boy, probably aged 3ish, from stamping on the fingers of my screaming dd (not yet 2) on a climbing frame. He stared blankly at my protestations (my German is not too good and he may have had a different language altogether for all I know) but his mother was nowhere to be seen. I guess this could just as easily happen in UK too but I don't feel that parents would keep quite sucha low profile in those circumstances. It is horrible to feel so powerless to prevent exposing your own kids to this, or indeed to protect others when you witness it.

Anyway to get back to the original thread I thought of another Swiss quirk,

You are supposed to have the names for your baby sorted before you go in to deliver, for both sexes just in case, and you should name the baby within 1/2 hr ! It is also supposed to be on the Swiss list of approved names, but I know many who must have circumvented that! I wonder if France is still strict ?

Also you can remain in hospital for up to 10 days, or if you leave earlier, a midwife can visit you at home but it is up to you to arrange it. We left hospital with dd with no discharge paperwork and no visits postnatally arranged. I then visited the ob/gyn at 6 weeks and took dd to paediatrician for her first check at 4 weeks.

tschuss,

Pupuce, I hope I didn't sound too negative about Belgium! And I know that there are a lot of differences between how things work in Flanders, for example, and here in Brussels.
In fact, I have really appreciated a lot of things about living here - not the least the really good health system and access to specialist doctors when necessary - and I'm very pleased that in November, if all goes well, I will be giving birth here and not in the UK.

But when you compare some things to the UK, especially things like bf, childcare etc, it's just clear how differently things are done. I lived in Germany for 5 years before moving here, and there things are totally different.

For me, it really wound me up to start with that I didn't know the "right" way to do things, but now I've realised it just goes to show there isn't a single "right" way on a lot of these issues, and you just have to weigh up all the options, make your decision, and try to stick to it - even if people think you're mad.

Pupuce,
I am quite willing to believe that there are variations between German Switzerland and the French part (and Italian part too),probably also from Canton to Canton.

Agree with you Sprout that sometimes it is good to hear different views and choose what suits you. I think this is one of the biggest benefits of having lived outside the UK for a while - you challenge the accepted methods and feel freer to adopt what suits, but I think this does take a while to accept because it does bring a certain insecurity and added responsibility. Have to confess when I do have a question it is still more often to the UK I turn for information. Thank you Mumsnet

Oh dear this could be a very long post i fear cos things are dramatically different in Greece from UK.I'm going to start at the very beginning....
Abortion is still the main form of birth control.Not unusual to hear of women who have had many abortions over the years.Consequently many women then have trouble concieving when do eventually want children so there is a high number of IVF births here.Most births are with private doctor and hospital.Cost us 2000 GBP in 1994.Have to stay in for 5 days (makes money for hospital) babies kept in nursery except for feeding times.Not bought to you in the night unless you make a tremendous fuss.Babies given sugar water in bottles at night in hospital!!
Many mums still don't go out for 40 days after birth.Babies most definitly do not.Often one of grandmothers moves in to help for this period of time.
Breast feeding is encouraged in theory but no real help available.As maternity leave is only 12 weeks after birth not easy to continue-very few mums carry on after 6 weeks.But milk only until 6 months very very few babies will be weaned before then.Milk is always warmed up-even for much older children and its very common for children to drink from a bottle until they go to school at 6.(they usually cut the top of the teat of to get a quicker flow of milk!)A working mum legally is allowed to finish work one hour early throughout the first year of babies life.
Most child care here is done by granny.She knows all the old wives tales and continues to believe them!State nurserys are few and far between places are allocated to those with both parents working and only those with low income levels get plaaces.(which is only right if places are limited)There are more private nurserys these days but are expensive compared to salarys.
All children start school in September-no staggered entry.So kindergarden will start in the September 5 years after birth and school the following September.So a child born in January will be 6yrs and 9 months when he starts school.
Schhol day 8.15-1.30 Only 5minutes between classes though so I think actual teaching time is similar to UK.I like the educational system very much-Ist 2 years is mainly maths and Greek( with of course art pe music ).Then hisory and religeon is introduced in yr3 & 4. Yr 5 & 6 geography and science are introduced.2 weeks holiday Christmas and easter.3 months in summer(terrible for working mums) but great for me as I get to come home for a nice long holiday!!!
There are many differences here with Uk.Some drive you to distraction.(Our paediatrician wouldn't even discuss with me not doing MMR.)And if the child is vaccinated they can't be accapted at school.Like Spain we also have to hep B and meningitis C.Other differences are heart warming and make me glad my kids are growing up here.(very child loving society)
Hope this was of interest and not too boring!!!!

Also high rate of caesarians here- I think these days you virtually get one on request.Birth- high intervention,with drips etc,induction if you even go a few days over.On the bed from the minute you are admitted,very few dads present at birth.Home birth almost unheard of.

I'd just like to say again that this is a really fascinating thread ... am reading each post avidly ... so incredible that we get so worked up about this and that and our neighbours are doing things completely different!!
GRMUM ... after all these months have only just worked out that the GR meant Greece ... thought it meant "grrrrrrrr" as in grumpy!!!
More please everyone ...
Where IS oxocube????

Holland must be like Switzerland when it comes to naming a baby though not quite as bad, if I remember correctly it must be done at town hall within 48 hrs but fortunately as dd was born on friday evening we had the weekend.
Also the Kraamzorg can do this for you (they do everything else) if you are very incapacitated and dp away etc.
We returned to UK when dd was one week so can't report much on post-natal, bf etc but the synopsis here of the Dutch is spot on so far.....

• Epidural is a dirty word
• Gas and Air.......what's that
• Overall standard of care is very high
• Kraamzorg is free and worth her weight in gold, the one I had was so popular with previous mothers that they had sent plane tickets for her at all subsequent births (The family moved to Belgium).

Very interesting thread btw don't know if it makes me a bad mother but I NEVER warmed my dd's milk, I bf for 6 wks only so after that it wasn't unusual for it to come straight out of the fridge......

Just remembered ... school dinners seem to be a totally British concept .....

ooh no ghosty- they're in Japan as well.....

Oh ... I didn't know that jimjams ... see, you learn a new thing every day!!

For Denmark:

Very few epidurals although starting to rise as Danish mothers start to realise that almost every other country gets them and so have started to demand them. Midwives still very reluctant, though. Almost all midwives trained in acupuncture and most mothers will use it at the start of labour.

Hospital stays vary but for first child will basically be until b/f is established. Bottle feeding almost unheard of here. For subsequent births, mothers can opt for private room with bed for partner and discharge the morning after the night following the birth (if you see what I mean!).

HV/nurse calls immediately after discharge but then tends to let you call her rather than have any formal visits/progress checks. HV is responsible for implementing 'Mother's Group' for about 7 or 8 new mothers who all live within walking distance of each other. We've found this to be the most fabulous arrangement and is a smart idea by the Danish govt. They cut their costs whilst we get a ready made support network on our doorstep.

Maternity leave is about 11 months. First 5 on full pay. Final 6 paid by the government at nearly £1000 after tax (yup, that's right!).

Never heard of nut allergies. Breatfeeding until 6 months the official line and most mothers b/f until going back to work.

Vitamin D drops given until 1 year and Iron drops from 6 months.

Kindergarten from about 9 months provided by the state at token cost and run for 8 hours/day, 5 days a week, no school holidays. Purpose built premises, staff all educated to degree level, food provided and 80% organic by law.

Babies sleep outside in almost weathers (and seem to like it!).

Proper school starts around age 7 but slowly moving to 8. Real emphasis on play and forming relationships.

Vaccination scheldule different from UK but can't remember it off the top of my head. Very little (almost no) concern over MMR.

Phew! I sure I'll remember more after I click 'post'!

Can anyone else hear that noise?

School dinners exist in Belgium, too, thank goodness!