Why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes (2013)

Apparently in America it can cost tens of thousands of dollars to give birth in a hospital.

Also, 'skin-on-skin' contact after giving birth is a chargeable extra.

We don't know how fortunate we are here in the UK with the NHS.

We had our first baby in June. We're expats, without any family around. Kraamzorg was a godsent. The nurse turned what's been a chaotic and frightening time for all of my acquaintances back home, into a blissful week.

We'd take a long nap every afternoon, and wake up to a fresh bowl of fruit salad. We had such a peace of mind to know that we were being supervised and taught by a pro, and that we therefore could do no wrong.

We were a bit skeptical about the Dutch system at first, but I really grew fond of their approach.

It is very much a standard post natal package in Switzerland, and in France too IIRC. We had tons of visits for the first one, quite helpful, spread over longer period. Only 1-2 for second one, but it could be more if needed. The only difference is that they don't do cleaning, at least ours didn't.

They are called "sage-femme" in french (wise woman in literal translation). Most od advices were nothing new to my wife since she is a doctor, but even for her sometimes best practices brought something new and more efficient/safe. And of course regular basic checks on the baby are helpful without the need to visit doctor.

We never paid anything extra, covered by health insurance.

It's divided into two parts in Denmark, After birth of the first child, you're offered to stay at the hospital for a few days (unspecified duration, depending on issues being faced) to get help with getting breastfeeding going, diapers, and monitoring the babys health.

After you get home, a nurse will schedule regular (weekly at first, then gradually longer between) visits to weigh/measure the child and record if the baby appears to be developing correctly, and provide advice in matters concerning childcare. This goes on for the first year.

I would not exist if my mother had been in the US or another location with private healthcare when she was pregnant with me. She had a tough pregnancy and had to take a significant amount of time off work and was on bedrest for approximately 3 months. During those ~3 months, she had a medical professional come to her home every day (her midwife and doctor alternated days). This would simply not be possible if healthcare were not free at the point of care as it is in the UK and many other countries. I don’t know much about the postnatal care, and I know things have gotten worse in the UK over the past decades, but I’m eternally grateful to the prenatal care that the NHS provided.

Sounds sort of similar to a doula here in the UK, but they're not very common in my experience.

In Korea there are birthcare centers where mothers can go for two weeks to a month to rest and recuperate after delivering a baby, and nurses will care for the baby and teach the mothers how to care for the baby. Of course food, laundry etc are taken care of by the centers. Hospitals offer that service as well, but bed spaces are typically more limited in hospitals.

Its fantastic, indeed. But you need to insure yourself if you want the costs to be reimbursed, and its never free to insure yourself outside the basisverzekering (basic insurance package, the mandatory default which has become less and less over the years). Our first one was due in February, second in September. Both came roughly on time. But you start your insurance package in December (before new year) so for second we had to pay ourselves cause was conceived in January, while first one was 7 months in so a very easy choice.

> Sure, it's mostly symbolic

Is it? The maternity box is worth a lot, and that the box itself doubles up as a crib (by design) seems like a huge convenience.

I’m not sure if saying it’s a beautiful message does the initiative justice. It was introduced all the way back in 1938 for low income families at a time Finland was quite a bit a poorer country.

I remember reading that a big goal initially was to reduce child mortality rate. One only gets the box if you visit a doctor during pregnancy for consultations which often wasn’t the case back then. But I don’t have source at hand writing on the phone, so might be wrong on that.

We got a one of these in Scotland, and I have to say a few years on, we're only just getting rid of the last of the items. Some items were arguably more useful than others (but I think the inventory is reviewed and updated constantly) - we never used the baby box as intended and it could be argued that we never really needed the support, but I can't understand the people who would argue against such an initiative.

People in this country were up in arms when this was first suggested ... bristling with the absolute indignity at the thought of money being spent to help others.

In Sweden new parents get a few pieces of pine and an Allen key.

There are ~3.75 million babies born in the US each year [1]. If each baby box costs ~200 USD [2] the country could supply baby boxes for all babies with an annual outlay of ~750 million USD.

[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/births.htm

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29646674

> Other countries give welfare benefits in form of money but that can be spent on things like addictions

Why is it that when discussing welfare benefits the topic of them being spent on addictions is often brought up.

If an addiction is a problem, treat the addiction instead of treating welfare recipients as children. How pissed would you be if your employer dictated how you spent your wages because certain activities went against their beliefs. No donating to your local church because they believe religion is silly and their employees shouldn’t be wasting money on such things. People would be pissed. An extreme example I know but helps get the point across, but same could also be said about any vice we partake in.

Coming from a shitty childhood myself such things were often brought up and implemented poorly which tbh actually hurt us as kids growing up.

Yeah a few will exploit what ever system that’s put into place, you have only got to look at most tax systems to see that, but you don’t punish the many just because of the few.

But just a bit further down the article

> Mothers have a choice between taking the box, or a cash grant, currently set at 140 euros, but 95% opt for the box as it's worth much more.

Bulk ordering and a fairly consistent birth rate will mean the government are not paying retail for these items so the box can be worth more than straight cash even if the cost of the government per box is close to the cash grant but gives an incentive to parents take higher value to them option.

Sorry for the rant, it just pisses me off having been though it. EDIT: Also lack of coffee, I'm grumpy without coffee :-P

I would appreciate this baby box even as a parent fortunate enough to afford the material goods it contains. A large part of its value lies in the time and effort saved and the psychological comfort in knowing I haven’t forgotten anything essential.

It appears that the CPSC in the US has decided that it's safer for babies to sleep in objects that can be tipped over (must have legs) than in a box on the ground.

CPSC has always been a way to get your chief competitor's products banned! Good old fashioned American corruption!

As a non parent surrounded by friends having kids I often wonder how much money and faff is wasted on things kids won’t even remember.

I went with this solid wood crib from IKEA and stained it myself. Looks great pretty darn cheap and easy to break down and store. Can also convert to a trundle style and double as the child’s first real bed so it gets several years of use.

My wife got one of those boxes from a places that gives them out for free but the kid out grows it fast and it is hell on your back since it is really unsafe to leave it on a table or dresser where it could be easily knocked off. Now it collects dust and junk and I can’t get her to dispose of it.

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/sniglar-crib-beech-50248541/

Check out your local Buy Nothing group on facebook as well. I have gotten tons of baby stuff from there. While we have purchased quite a few things over the past year, had I had a little more patience, and had my wife been more on board, I am pretty sure we could have acquired pretty much everything except diapers from Buy Nothing.

I have several kids. Let me share some experiences with you:

A card board box is probably fine starting out, but your baby will out grow it.

The sleeping container should have walls high enough to prevent him/her from climbing out - this might take 9 months, but younwill want it

You NEED to remove all fluf and excess padding in your DIY "crib". Babies can suffocate on cute "fluffy" blankets

If you build a wooden crib, pay special care to the distance between vertical bars. Specifically, you want narrow slats so your baby cannot stick his/her head through it

My current child is in a portable "pack and play". They are cheap, portable, and fit in our closet. She turns 2 next month and it was a really good idea.

Bear in mind:

* Mass manufactured Finnish ones have a base-mat that fits snugly. A very slight gap is a suffocation risk.

* When your first baby arrives, you spend a lot more time than you're used to on your knees. Cribs, being raised, are far easier on your knees than a box on the floor.

Not sure if an Amazon box would be equal, they have a smell to them. It looks like the Finnish boxes are wrapped in some material and I'd guess that some kind of checks would be made to ensure safety.

I wish your family all the best.

For the early months (or longer if you child proof the entire room), you can do just the crib mattress directly on the floor. This is also an easy way to set up a secondary nap spot somewhere else in the house (since it's safer for small infants to sleep in the same room as an adult vs. by themselves).

If your baby is due in 4 weeks it’s likely it’ll be quite a few months until a crib is needed. The first months will pass in a tired blur of the baby sleeping only on you or your partner, followed waking up the second you try to put them on anything else. Once they use a crib though just buy one — you won’t have time to build and it’s important to make it safe.

Don't forget about wet cardboard smell, which is full of weird volatile organic compounds.

Don't stress too much about it. Very few items are really necessary for a newborn, most things can be gotten when you need them.

As DIY projects go, check out something called a "baby nest". It's an insert that can be used for either a shared bed or a crib, easy to sew and can be convenient.

At least four factors differentiate the two:

1. Finland had only one scary and ravenous empire near its border. Poland had two: Russia and Germany/Prussia, or even three, if you count the Austro-Hungarians.

2. Finland is much easier to defend.

3. Finland was a free, market-based country since WWII, whereas Poland had to implement the insane communist policies. So, essentially Finland had a 45-year head start over Poland in building free society and economy.

4. Finland is much less populous. It's much easier to bring wealth via industrialization to a country of 5 millions than to country of 38 millions.

>"It’s a particular comparison point for me, as it has a similar (vaguely) recent history to Poland, having regained its independence in 1918, and living in Russia’s shadow most of that time. The difficult, exploitative years under the Russian thumb are usually blamed for most of the mess in Poland right now. Clearly there is another way."

Poland seems to be doing much better than many of the other countries which suffered behind the iron curtain. The comparable countries would seem to be the other former members of the Warsaw Pact: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, and Romania.

Was this special box something you purchased or something you put together yourself?

I mean, they've been doing this for decades. Don't you think their dataset is probably more informed than your speculation?

Don’t worry, in my experience the vast majority of infants, while fairly moist, are not particularly flammable.

This is really odd comment. Like, yes, if you leave it outside in the rain that probably isn't the best for it, but it is a bed thous usually stay indoors. I don't get what your imaginary scenario is where the structure of the box is randomly compromised by the moisture.

The flammability is even more strange. Again yeah, maybe don't put your baby box right in from the of the fireplace, but you probably wouldn't leave your baby there unsupervised anyway. Also babies usually aren't smokers so you don't have to worry about them dozing off with a cigarette and burning down the house.

apparently co2's density is only slightly higher than the other gases, so they all mix. Otherwise all of the atmosphere's co2 would be at ground level too, wouldn't it?

Disclaimer: this is just my general impression after googling around for how much CO2 buildup/concentration might be a factor/cause of SIDS after becoming a parent. It's by no means any kind of reputable research, just the googling of a dad.

The relative differences in weight/density between CO2, nitrogen, and oxygen just aren't big enough to matter much compared to the other forces that mix room air: convection, currents from forced air HVAC, air leakage, etc.

Air is already 80% nitrogen, and when we exhale we only drop the % of oxygen from 20% to 16%. And consider the fairly small lung volume of the kind of infant who would be sleeping in the box.

I'm sure you could get CO2 buildup in the box in very controlled lab settings, but in general practice as a crib it doesn't seem to be an issue.

And in case you were wondering about the general case: is CO2 buildup an issue for infants? The answer seems to just be: no, and it doesn't even depend much on how much you run your HVAC or if you have a fan or how hole-y your crib is, etc. Room air just mixes enough normally that it's not that big of a deal.

is cardboard airtight?

Gases really like to mix, much more so than liquids. The box contains a baby that causes air movement (breathing and moving), I would be surprised if the box contains substantially different air than the immediate surroundings.

Effectively no, first if you look at the picture there are holes on the sides and no body is putting the lid on.

More widely Cold CO2 from dry ice or pressurized tanks is a problem because it’s both releasing a lot of CO2 and that CO2 is very cold which means it sinks quickly. On the other hand babies breath is both fairly slow and has a relatively low CO2 concentration which makes it easier to mix with the air. On top of this breath is warm so combined with a convection current from body heat in otherwise still air it has a tendency to rise which improves mixing.

An extreme version of this happens when a baby or small child falls down a pipe and can avoid suffocating for hours.

You don't put the lid on, mate.

Condoms will hopefully prevent a second box arriving too soon.

Getting pregnant too early again is not recommended. The body of the new mother should get some time too fully recover.

Women can be very fertile right after birth, although most don’t get their periods for months while breastfeeding.

We got like 100 condoms after birth, which would mean years of sex given the stress and discomfort after birth.

Actually, immediately after the birth of a child is a time when a lot of people re-think their birth control strategy.

If the box is designed for that purpose then it's designed for that purpose. Then it's not plain wrong. The article is not saying that all the kids have an equal start in life so not sure where you got that from.

Your reasoning is like saying Red Cross isn't designed to reduce the suffering of people because there are still suffering people. It's an odd claim to make.

Read "equal start" as "guaranteed minimum".

Public schools are very good in Finland.

I don't get what your comment is trying to say. If someone doesn't want to take the box they take the cash. If they take the box and immediately throw it into trash that is on them. Everyone still gets equal start.

> Does anyone have experience trying this out?

Everybody in finland?

There's a widespread legend that poor parents in the US would put a dresser drawer on the floor. Sometimes the baby came before all of the preparations had been made. Sometimes folks were just poor, or smart, or both.

Probably besides the point, but you have an extremely skewed idea of what prompts a visit from Child Protective Services in the United States.