Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Bringing up Baby in Czech Republic (2)

First part here.
 
Another topic I would like to talk about is medical care. I can speak basic Czech and I am now familiar with the medical vocabulary surrounding taking care of a baby. The doctor is very nice and helpful and we're getting the treatment free, as our baby is under my health insurance. Of course we paid for some extras such as non mandatory vaccinations. The non vax trend is unfortunately spreading here as well, but we have a level headed doctor.

The state run clinic or poliklinika we go to is well equipped and the child section is friendly. The visit schedule at the doctors is divided so that sick kids go in the morning. There are a lot of mandatory visits and all the info is in the little booklet where the doctor writes down the baby's health status. You have to have an attending doctor, here, who follows your child's development. You can change the doctor but I think you can have only one at once, since you have to register. This doctor will refer you to specialists if needed. I have been in contact with doctors at the children's hospital and I found them helpful and well trained. They do speak English but as I've usually noticed here with doctors and other officials, they would rather not, if they can avoid it. I also find that that, at least our doctor prefers not to take risks and a day or two in the hospital will be prescribed more easily than in France or Romania.

Kids here are not better behaved then children elsewhere, nor do they eat all their carrots and peas. Maybe they are more attached to the mother, since they spend more time with her but in Romania and France, I've also seen kids who would not stay 10 minutes alone with another caretaker and who are what you'd call spoiled.  Kids here do spend a lot of time outside, this is in the culture of doing sports, outdoor activities, but I am sure they also love the Nintendo DS and I have seen some who were mesmerized by their tablet. It's true that, compared to French children, Czechs are not so used to travel long distances from an early age: the country is smaller too and there are not many in our case, where grandparents are 3 countries away and we have to travel a lot (4 trips in 7 months).

These are my notes so far on having a baby in the Czech Republic. I'll write more as I learn more but so far it looks like a great place to have kids.

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