parents at Child Development

Today in a bus I heard a little talk between two young women about all advantages and disadvantages of their own baby-sitters. That is why I decided to know why mothers need a nanny and what every woman should do in order to find a good one.
The more time a mother spends with her baby, the better it is. It is necessary to wait as minimum one and a half year and only after that to think about the job. Three year is the best alternative.
A housemaid is much better than any baby-sitter. She not only exempts a woman from housekeeping, but she also will be able to walk with the baby when he is sleeping and will stay with the child if a mother needs to left him for several hours. However, when the child is staying awake, alongside with him should be his mom. If it is necessary for a woman to go to work, she must choose a baby-sitter at the age of 30-45. It will be ideal if she married and has her own children preschool and school age. It is really important because all children are very sensitive. If a baby-sitter has her own baby, she necessarily possesses emotional and practical experience in relations with children.
If a baby-sitter has not her own children or if a baby-sitter is a woman of pensionable age, who wants the grandchild, there is a high probability that this very woman will transfer outstanding mothering feelings to the baby. This baby-sitter will be attached to the child very much. And firstly this situation is too dangerous for the mom, because she may begin to be jealous. As a result, the atmosphere in the house will be negative and it will have an effect on baby badly.
A baby-sitter not under any circumstances should exceed her authority and replace the mom. The most dangerous are advertised super-nannies such as teachers and doctors. They can literally enslave the whole family. For example, a baby-sitter accustoms the baby to eat or to sleep only in her presence. After that it will be very easy for her to manipulate the mom. That is why every woman should watch closely in order to keep all positions in the family in the same place. May a child have so called ceremonials, which makes the mom, for example, a special song before dream.
It is very important that a baby-sitter has the same positions to the upbringing as parents have.
We suppose that you have chosen a baby-sitter. But let she spend about a week with the baby under the supervision. It is a good chance to understand suit this baby-sitter or not!
However, if you want to find a good and responsible person you should use the next question during the interview.
1. The first and the most important is “Tell me please about your experience.” It is very important that a baby-sitter worked with children at the age of your own baby. You should know in details how many children were in the charge of this woman. As two-week experience you hardly like. Try to know if this baby-sitter looks after for several children in the same time. The question about recommendation is both important and unimportant. Some parents prefer them, the others trust only themselves.
2. The second is “What did you do before?” This question is about profession. The main plus is experience in the child institutions and appropriate education such as pedagogical, psychological and medical. It will be very good if she has additional experience and skills. For instance, knack of massage, knowledge of languages, music and so on.
3. The third is “What situation is more serious, when baby is crying or when he is too active and energetic?” This question helps you to know the character of your future nanny as well as possible. If she chooses the first variant, it means that your nanny has not enough patience and she can easily get angry. In another case it means that she is not energetic herself and hardly she will encourage active games.
4. The forth is “Do you smoke?” I think this point is very important because healthy of the baby depends on it. If the nanny says yes, you should take obligation from her not to smoke when the baby stays close.
5. The fifth is “Describe, please, your daily routine, working with the baby.” Of course the future baby-sitter can embellish the reality, telling how they firstly sing songs and read fairy tales, and then go to park in order to work up an appetite. But in any case in her answers will be some nuances, which she will not be able to keep back. If the nanny simply lists daily affairs, which have their own time, there is a chance that she will be attentive to the internal development of the child.
6. The sixth question is “From your point of view, how looks the ideal baby?” This question helps to know how this baby-sitter can cope with difficult situations. If she wants the baby will be happy, it is a big plus. If she dreams about calm and accommodating baby, will be careful! Probably she afraid weeping and will yield in difficult situation.
7. The next question is provocative “The child has fainted away. Your actions?” Due to this question you can easily check the quickness of her reaction. If she does not know what to answer, think, suit this woman to you or not. If she answers that will call the ambulance or will connect with parents without delay – you are lucky, because you have found a really good nanny.
8. This questions concerns food which a baby–sitter prefers. Your baby needs balanced food. As in the most cases your nanny will cook it is really very important to know what she knows about dietetically food.
9. The ninth question is “How do you spend your holidays?” or “Do you have a lot of friends?” This question helps you to know your baby-sitter is homebody or soul of the party. Yes, of course, your baby needs active games, but sometimes he wants to rest. It is very useful for you to know who visits the baby-sitter in your absence, how often rings the telephone and so on. You even can return home earlier in order to check your baby-sitter.
Of course, there are much more questions every mom can ask, bur I hope that these once will be able to help every mother to find good and responsible person.

I think that this question disturbs every man and every woman throughout the world regardless their religion and age. However, in reality what does it mean to be mother and to be father?
All people suppose that the destination of every woman in the Earth is to continue human race. But our forefathers thought that if a woman had not children she could not be valuable. They made believe that only after a woman understood what it meant she would be able to feel her feminity completely. The birth of child is a miracle, which approaches every woman to the God. Everybody knows that practically all religions have a cult of mother.
A lot of women explain that they are not ready to be a mother. Furthermore, they frequently approach to this important event very irresponsibly. It is not a secret that the majority of them even do not plan the birth of their children. They become mothers in consequence of silly fortuitousness. A lot of women do not want to have children because these living beings limit their liberty. Moreover, children need many financial charges and very often they spoil a figure.
Nevertheless, if a woman decides to become a mum, it is necessary for her to raise the next question: Why I need this baby? It is not a secret that the most commonly used answer is I need someone in my old age, who will be able to offer a glass of water. It turns out that parents take care of their children only because they need someone, who will be able to look after them in declining years. And if a baby does not justify their hopes in future, he will receive reproaches about his ingratitude. However, it is necessary to remember that a child is not a bank to which people deposit their money with hope to receive interests in future. He must be desired. It is essential to take care and love him without selfish ends.
Every woman must evaluate her readiness to become a mother and it is necessary for her to think about what she will be able to give her baby. And the most important thing here is spiritual values. An educational program, elaborated for the majority of schools and universities, has not a goal to educate women in the sphere of motherhood. That is why if a woman decides to chose this way, she will have to study a lot in order to behave in a proper way during her pregnancy, childbirth and in post-natal period. It is really very important because the future of every child depends on it.
And now I would like to speak about men and their attitude to fatherhood. It is not a secret that for the majority of men fatherhood is not the most important and significant affair in the life. The first positions occupy their career and job. And it is useless to blame our dear mankind in selfishness and loss of consciousness. Simple the nature decided that in all periods of time men were getters and bread-winners, while women were the keepers of house fireside. Although, in spite of continuous pressure of work, they have to participate in the upbringing of their children. Every child needs not only maternal, but and paternal love and kindness. He carefully keeps an eye on the behavior of his parents and tries to imitate it.  And then in the future he will try to build his family according to the model in which he lived and grew up. That is why it is very important for every child to see under his very nose deserving example of both parents.
The desire to become father is frequently unconscious, at the level of instinct. All men simple want to continua their family and they do everything no to let it disappear.
The same way as women, all men should think carefully about their preparedness for this serious step.  They should begin to think about what they will be able to give their children. It is essential to weigh all merits and demerits. Psychologists believe that if woman feel motherhood in the first period of pregnancy, man begins to feel his fatherhood not also after baby birth. That is why in order to speed up his knowing of responsibility, man should prepare to the birth of his child together with his wife. Moreover, he should help her during the pregnancy, childbirth and in post-natal period.
So as we can see in our society both of parents should be responsible for the birth of healthy and valuable baby. The way to motherhood is very important in the life of every woman. And man has not to keep his distance. During the pregnancy he should take care about future mother and future baby by her deliverance from housekeeping. It is important to create in the house friendly and positive atmosphere. Sometimes a woman, who waits a child, has different whims in food and desires. In accordance with Kazakh folk custom, all wishes and desires of future mother are holy and father makes unbelievable efforts to satisfy them. Besides, fathers must remember an advice of ancient Greeks: a woman, who waits a child, should look at beautiful statues, pictures and listen to pleasant music. Accomplishment of all these conditions will help an expectant mother to give birth to healthy and cheerful baby!!!

If  you are going to smoke, make choices so the kids aren’t affected!
I got the information that tobacco carcinogens found in urine of smokers’ babies have detected cancer-causing chemicals associated with tobacco smoke in the urine of infants whose parents smoke.
Parents who smoke are passing detectable levels of cancer-causing chemicals to their infants, according to new research of the Cancer Center at the University of Minnesota.

The researchers collected urine from 144 infants, aged 3 months to 12 months, who lived in homes where at least one parent was a smoker.
Urine from nearly half of the infants contained detectable levels of NNAL, a chemical byproduct produced in the human body when it processes NNK, a cancer-causing chemical, or carcinogen, found only in tobacco.
“You don’t find NNAL in urine except in people who are exposed to tobacco smoke, whether they’re adults, children or infants,” study team member Stephen Hecht  said.
In the families of babies who had detectable levels of NNAL, family members reported smoking an average of 76 cigarettes per week. For babies who had no detectable levels of NNAL in their urine, the average number of cigarettes reportedly smoked by family members was 27 per week.
Levels of urinary NNAL in the infants were higher than that seen in older children and adults exposed to secondhand smoke.
The researchers suspect this is due to infants being less able to move around and avoid the smoke.
They also hypothesize that it might not be enough simply to stop smoking in the presence of babies, since NNAL and nicotine could potentially cling to dust and the surfaces of household objects.
A previous study by Hecht and his colleagues indicated that the first urine from newborns whose mothers smoked during pregnancy contained even higher levels of NNAL compared to babies in the current study.
My husband is smoking a lot. About  70- 80 cigarettes a week. I don’t like it. I think that the best thing for him is just to quit smoking. But that can be difficult. So at least I force him to smoke outside or it’s going to impact my child’s health.

Pregnancy was always considered the most important period in the life of women of all nations. That was usually a period when women were to observe special rules, and these rules were as a rule similar with different people.
People from Latvia - a country on the Baltic coast next to Lithuania and the Russian Federation - hope that the Goddess of Fate smiles kindly on their newborn baby. Latvians believe the Goddess of Fate, or Lamia, determines a child’s future the second he’s born.
They may also pray to Mara, or Mary, for help in childbirth. It’s believed that Mara rules the human body and can make a woman’s labor easy or difficult. Young wives will often try to get in Mara’s good graces with gifts even before they become pregnant. In ancient Latvia, babies were usually delivered in a small building called a pirt. Pirts are similar to Finnish saunas and are designed to be used as steam baths. Mothers, infants and midwives return to the pirt three days after a baby is born for a ceremonial bathing of the mother and the new baby called Pirtizas. Women who helped with the birth may also attend and take part in the ceremonial feast which follows. When leaving the pirt, a new mother will often leave a gift for Mara

Nine days after the baby is born, his or her godparents host a name-giving ceremony, or Krustaba, at the parents’ home which lasts two days. In Latvia, a baby girl has two godmothers and one godfather. A boy has two godfathers and one godmother. Parents usually appoint relatives as godparents. Latvians believe children inherit their godparents’ good qualities, so they select someone they’d like their children to emulate. In addition to participating in the name-giving ceremony, godparents are expected to raise the child in the event that the parents cannot.
The name-giving ceremony begins in the morning. Guests arrive bringing gifts for the baby and food for the feast. Talk is happy that day; it’s believed that there should be no unpleasant conversation at the ceremony. And women wear their best and most expensive jewelry. The actual name-giving ceremony is performed at Mara’s church — a sacred grove of oak or birch trees. At the church, guests receive a quick meal of bread, milk, cheese and honey. Guests eat the meal while standing. They then form a circle around the child to insure good habits and sound physical development of the child

The child is placed in water and the clergy performing the ceremony asks the godparents if they will accept the child and lift her into Mara’s sun or leave her in the water of the Vala Mate (Mother of Spirits). The godmother lifts the infant out of the water and holds the her in front of the symbol of the cross while all the godparents promise to care for the child. At that point the selected name is bestowed upon the baby. In Latvia, the godparents select their godchild’s name

When the newly named child returns home, everyone welcomes the child as a full-fledged family member, and the child’s name is announced. Songs of praise and good wishes are sung at a feast, and the godparents perform a ceremonial dance with the baby. Guests join in and soon everyone is singing good wishes for the child while executing a light dance step and passing the child from guest to guest

On the second day of the name-giving ceremony, the godparents attend the preparation of the cradle. The godfather first leads a party of guests to a nearby woods and selects a suitable pole for the cradle while other guests prepare a light basket to hold the infant. The godfather fastens the pole between the ceiling and the wall and affixes the cradle to the other end. The godmother places the baby into the cradle along with a gift. The other godparents and guests also place a gift in the cradle. The name-giving ceremony concludes with guests giving thanks for the new family member. And, they give the baby their best wishes that life will smile kindly upon him.

Such a beautiful and interesting ceremony! I also want to have 2 godmothers! So they can care about me!!!!!!! I just don’t like that godparents select their godchild’s name! I think that biological parent’s should choose it. This is their decision.

Today, people speak a lot about the importance of applying bringing-up methods even before babies are born. Some of us believe the tendency has outlined just recently, however this tradition was popular even in the past centuries.
By Candidate of historical sciences, lecturer in History of Medicine Larissa Kondrashkina
in Ancient India and Ancient China, parents began to inure their babies to understand the arts three months after the conception. For this purpose, pregnant women had only fine things around them and listened just to fine music; they ate tasty meals sanctified in the church. These measures were believed to make unborn babies beautiful and talented. I also believe in that and trying to look at beautiful things and get positive emotions.
Nowadays, doctors say that contemporary pregnant women must have the same environment for better pregnancy and good future of their babies. In the old times, husbands in some provinces presented their wives with jewelry when they learnt about pregnancy. Pregnant women wore clothes made of delicate and expensive fabrics; the blue color was considered the most favorable for the development of unborn babies. Fine music was obligatory for pregnant women, as it is actually good for babies and mothers. That is why, artists in Asian countries regularly organized concerts for pregnant women thousands of years ago. Why I was born in 20th century? I also want some jewelry!
At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a special institute assisting women in childbirth in St.Petersburg, Russia, founded with the assistance of famous accoucheur Dmitry Ott. The doctor insisted that the hospital must have a concert hall with an organ. Every week, all female patients of the hospital were invited to concerts at the hall. It is pity they don’t have such tradition now.
In Ancient India and Ancient China, pregnant women always sang, drew birds and plants during pregnancy. These traditions may seem naive, but they do have an effect upon unborn babies. It is known that Napoleon’s mother drew toy tin soldiers and imagined they were battling. So, the future emperor probably knew the essence of battles even before he was born. In the cultures of many countries, arts were obligatory for pregnant women.
In Ancient China, pregnant women sang nice and quiet songs, at that the melody and the text were of little importance, as singing first of all helps bring much oxygen to the organism of a pregnant woman. Indeed, during singing we first take a deep breath, and then goes slow exhalation. So, singing is in fact a really esthetic physical exercise.
Contrary to many of the modern recommendations, many nations disapproved of walking during pregnancy. When it was evident that women were expecting babies, they never walked too away from the home. Moslem women were prohibited to go outside before the sunset during pregnancy. On the one hand, it is a good method to avoid heavy UV-radiation. On the other hand, Moslems believed that a baby would be born with too many birthmarks if a mother was exposed to sunrays for too long. I don’t like this one! What about fresh air? I think it is very important for pregnant woman to go for a walk. Besides it is really good for you legs if you have varicose veins and for you blood if you have anemia.
Contemporary couples often want to deliver their babies together. Many centuries ago, men in European countries often stayed in the maternity ward during baby delivery. They encouraged their wives and helped them endure pains and suffering. In addition to the moral support, husbands also served an actual physical support for women during labour pains. Men’s presence in the maternity ward was typical of men in Italy, Spain, France, Yugoslavia and Scandinavian countries. But in some countries, husbands were prohibited to enter maternity wards, as only women were allowed to see how babies come to the world.
It is arguable point. On the one hand it is good when husband is there. He can calm you down and support you. But on the other hand, the statistics shows, that number of divorces among pairs which gave birth together is higher than among pairs where the husband did not participate. A lot of men who took part in childbirth need sexological help after that.
Women who assisted in delivery, often stayed in the home for some time after the delivery to look after the house. Mothers were not allowed to do anything about the house for several days after delivery. Women in Arab countries had the longest after-delivery rest that lasted for 40 days when they were prohibited to do things about the house. Instead, they were focused on their health and on babies. A tradition similar to this was also popular in Europe and Russia. That is really good and right tradition. Especially for women who had Caesarean section.
In Russia, an accouche became the key figure in the house after a baby came to the world. This woman stayed in a house for several weeks and looked after the baby; she got back home only when the mother was strong enough again to look after her baby herself. This seems to be a wise tradition indeed. Women need some time to restore their health and energy after the childbirth. Doctors say it is important when a woman has someone to help her about the house and look after the baby when she is still weak after the difficult work of baby delivery. In Russia, the post-delivery period traditionally depended upon the well-being of a family. Those who had little money had no opportunity for long rest as they needed to work.
Baby delivery was not always a success in Russian villages, as there often were poor hygienic conditions. As a result, mothers could get infected and some even died in baby delivery. Women not only in villages but even in large cities died of childbirth fever because doctors were not always tidy when operating in the maternity ward. Doctor Zemmelweis from Hungary was the first who offered to wash hands before baby delivery, but his colleagues declared him insane because of this initiative. It was just several years later that the teaching of aseptic and anti-septic appeared. My God! I’m happy it was long time ago. It is not funny to die because of dirty hands.
So there are a lot of different traditions in different countries. Some of them are really beautiful. Some of them are not clear. I like this topic very much and I’ll try to find some more information about it!!!!!!!!

There are some funny tips about pregnancy from Dominican Republic web-site!!!
• When a baby is just born you say “God Bless You” to prevent the child from getting the evil eye
• If you let a child see his or her reflection before they’re two years old they won’t talk.
• Put a small bracelet of beads on the child’s ankle or wrist to ward off evil and to bring prosperity.
• You must never say no if a pregnant woman asks you for something that you are eating, if you do you’ll get a sty. To be on the safe side ALWAYS ask pregnant women if they would like something of what you’re eating.
• Be aware of witches who try and eat babies ( from the legend)! That is really important!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• When very young children are given a nickname. No one will use their real name so as to deter attacks from evil spirits. This custom is very common it is said that a witch needs to know your real name in order to curse you. So in this way with the fake name it conceals their true identities from anyone trying to curse them.
• If you drop a spoon and the bowl of the spoon is up (it looks like a pregnant women) a new family member will be arriving soon.
• Some parents in Dominican Republic hang a baseball glove on the crib of a newborn baby boy as a good luck charm because they wish him to become a great baseball player.
• When a child bends over and looks at you from between their legs, it is said that they want another little brother or sister.
• A pregnant woman should not walk underneath a guanabana tree as she may lose her child.
• If a baby is getting sick or congested take a hair off a menstruating woman’s head and tie it around the babies wrist for 24 hours and the child will not get sick.
• When a baby has hiccups, put a hair from the mother’s head on the baby’s head until the hiccups go away.
Yeah, very important advices!!!!! I ‘m going to follow all of them!!!!

There are two important traditions in Eastern European culture.
The ceremony of the “first bath” is the first one. Only women can assist in the bathing of the newborn child, and the oldest woman related to the father of the baby is in charge of the event. Fresh, clean water enriched with flowers, money, honey and milk are thought to purify and join the newborn to the family. The elder woman gives the cleansed baby to the mother with wishes for the child’s moral, spiritual and physical integrity. She wishes for the child to marry, to be good-looking and healthy, to be respectful of his or her parents and to be a patient person. She wishes that the child thrives, grows to maturity, becomes hardworking and experiences good luck in life.
The second important moment related to birth is the Christening of the child, a ceremony in which the child is named. In the Eastern Orthodox church, the spiritual, or “God-parents” of the child have an important ceremonial function. Usually, the child will be named after the God-father, or after a close family member. Later, the God-parents will play an important role in the wedding ceremony of the child.
I like these traditions and think that they are very beautiful!

When my husband, my parents and especially my doctor found out that I am pregnant began to tell me that I have to be calm, I shouldn’t think about bad things and I shouldn’t have be stressed in any case. Because stress during pregnancy affects child. But how is this possible? Pregnancy is not a short period in our life. And during this time I have some problems at my work or my University I should solve. And sometimes nobody can help me and I should deal with all the troubles on my own. So I decided to look for some information about this and found a new study I agree with.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the National Institute of Child Health Development (NICHD) asked 137 healthy, pregnant women with low-risk, normal pregnancies to report on their levels of anxiety and stress between the 24th and 32nd weeks of their pregnancy, as well as six weeks and two years after the birth. The researchers also assessed the women’s feelings about the pregnancy. Two years later, the researchers evaluated the mental and motor development of the children born to those women, as well as the toddlers’ ability to control their behavior and regulate their emotions.
The researchers found that the mothers’ emotions during pregnancy were indeed associated with child development – but not in the expected direction. Women who reported more stress and anxiety during pregnancy had children who were somewhat more advanced in their mental and motor development at age 2. This remained true even after taking into account the women’s stress and anxiety levels after birth, which can influence child rearing in other ways.
In addition, there were no effects of prenatal stress or anxiety on the children’s ability to handle their own emotions or control their behavior with one exception: children of women who reported more negative feelings about being pregnant had somewhat poorer behavioral and emotional regulation. It’s not known, however, if this is a specific biological effect or whether women who were highly negative about being pregnant treated their children differently after birth.
A developmental psychologist and professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health say that «While these findings may seem counterintuitive, chemicals that are produced by stress have a well-known influence on organ growth and development. Mild to moderate stress has been proposed to be important to successful adaptation to the environment after birth and necessary for optimal brain development.» She notes, however, that study participants were well-nourished, financially stable women who were not receiving psychiatric care. “These women experienced the typical types of stresses and anxieties that accompany juggling the many roles and responsibilities of modern life,” she said. “It is possible that the results might be different if the study had included women undergoing more chronic, physical, or severe turmoil.”
So we can “stop worrying about worrying”. I think it is great!!! And I am sure, that my child is not gonna be unadapted to this life, because she is already solving some problems with her mum!!!

I think that Asian cultures are very specific and incomprehensible for European and American people. For example, Chinese culture is very old and it has some very interesting customs.
Some of them are about pregnancy.
In Chinese culture, they function to protect the pregnant woman and child from ‘malign influences’ and to avert problems with pregnancy and birthing such as miscarriage, stillbirth, death of the mother and imperfections in the newborn.
Many customs relate to the behavior and environment of the pregnant Chinese woman. Working with glue or other adhesives may cause birthing complications and hammering nails is thought to cause deformity in the fetus. Restraint in day to day life is also required of the mother: the use of foul language must be avoided as this may cause the baby to be cursed. So may torturing, striking or killing an animal: anthropomorphic results may occur- e.g. if a rat is struck the newborn child will look like a rat and behave like one! (Actually I don’t understand it!)
Consequently, traditional Chinese society blames the mother of a child that is physically disabled or ‘deformed’ for the ‘imperfections’ of the child, as it is believed that this has resulted from the mother’s actions during pregnancy. In former times, infanticide often occurred in such circumstances, to spare the mother shame, public humiliation and ostracism by in-laws. Well I don’t think it’s right. Probably sometimes it is a mother’s fault if she smoked or drinked a lot during the pregnancy. But what about different genetic deviations and other reasons?
A pregnant woman is expected and encouraged to continue working, as it is believed that this will ease labour and delivery. Arguments and disputes are to be avoided as the baby may be disturbed by them. Nutritious foods and herbal soups should be eaten, and ‘sharp’ foods such as pineapple and some other fruits avoided as they may cause miscarriage. Eating squid and crab are discouraged: the former is believed to cause the uterus to ‘stick’ during delivery, the latter to result in a mischievous child. Overeating may cause an overlarge baby and thus a difficult labour and delivery. A pregnant woman should not walk around barefoot.
Rubbing the abdomen too often is thought to result in a spoilt and overdemanding child. No! I hope not! I’m doing it really often. I just want my baby know I love her so much!!!
Old traditions believe that the sex of a baby can be determined by the shape of the pregnant woman’s abdomen, especially after the first three months. If the appearance of the belly is pointed, then the child will be male, if rounded, female. Actually people from many countries think the same way. For example Russians.
It is considered insauspicous to give a name to an unborn baby, as this displays and eagerness on the part of the parents for a child of a particular sex, and may cause disappointment if the child is of the different sex. Probably it’s true. You never know exactly who is in there!
The major responsibility for care of the pregnant woman is taken by her mother-in-law, not her husband. I don’t understand why? Probably because long time ago woman usually lived in husband’s family after the marriage. But what about him?
The production of a male heir is of paramount importance in Chinese culture; indeed some Chinese may seek the help of a holy man or shaman if male offspring do not appear. Superstition has it that a couple should eat certain types of food for the seven days leading up to conception to conceive a certain sex baby: tofu, mushrooms, carrots and lettuce for a male child, pickles, meat and fish for a female.
Male descendents are essential to ensure the continuance of ancestor worship and the continuity of family lineage and name. Females cannot inherit, and in the Chinese family system wife lives with the husband’s family and is deemed as no longer part of her own family, but the property of the husband’s family. Female offspring are thus thought of as being only ‘temporary’ family members, while male offspring ‘belong’ to the family for their lives. Yeah, that’s why they all will have a big problem very soon. Chinese are allowed to have only one child by the government. And everybody wants a boy. So who is going to give a birth to children in twenty – thirty years?

Twins, who accrete by their bodies in a parent womb, are called Siamese. This term is connected with the pair of Chinese twins that were born in 1811 in Thailand (then it was Siam). Boys (parents have named them Chang - “left” and Eng - “right”) accreted in the field of a solar plexus. They had common navel and liver. When they were young they worked as sellers and messengers. At the age of 18 they immigrated to the United States of America and began to go on tour with improbable success. They married sisters, gave birth to more than 20 children and died in the age of 63.
Other pair - the well-known Siamese twins - sisters Blazhek - was born in 1878. Sisters became musicians - violinist and harp-player, one of them gave birth to the child.
In 1952 doctor Jacque Geller (USA) lead the first successful operation on division of Siamese twins. Now such operations are made even more often, and Siamese twins have more and more chances for a high-grade independent life.

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