Best ideas usually come when we look at the world around us. This was true in the case of our Maternity Suitcase, one of the main elements of 1000 Days program: a suitcase containing essentials for the mother and the child in the first period after the birth. The suitcase completes a personalized itinerary started before the fourth month of pregnancy by mothers participating to 1000 Days program. This itinerary includes medical exams as recommended by NHC and the attendance of encounters with professionals on birth and parenthood. Pianoterra’s Maternity Suitcase contains clothes for che baby and products for the hygiene and care of the baby and of the mother.
The idea of Maternity Suitcase, however, comes from far away. From Finland, to be precise, one of the European countries that in the last 80 years witnessed the most evident improvements in the lives of women and children. Back in the ‘30s, Finland was a very poor country, with staggering infant mortality rates. Then, Finnish government decided to donate to mothers belonging to poor households a “Baby Box”, a cardboard box that could become a handy cradle for the first months of the baby and was full of items useful to mother and baby. Over the decades Baby Box changed a lot, according to changes in Finnish society: no more dummies or baby bottles to encourage breast feeding, no more disposable diapers, replaced with more eco-friendly washable ones, and so on. Today the Baby Box is part of a comprehensive program for all future moms, regardless of their income or their social status, as a tool to give all children an equal start and to sensitize parents-to-be to the importance of preparing as best as they can to parenthood. This program requires first of all that the future mother undergoes all the basic prenatal exams since before the fourth month of pregnancy. As a consequence of this decisive action from Finnish state, Finland is today an actual paradise for mothers and children, with the among the best indicators in the world concerning mother-child health, girls education and gender equality.
Pianoterra’s 1000 Days program wholly embraces the basic principles that inspired this long term project. We, too, think that healthcare, prevention and an equal start for everyone in life are the key factors to improve in the long term the lives of new generations.
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Learn more on Finnish Baby Box:
Ecco perché i neonati finlandesi dormono in una scatola di cartone