Letters from Burma by Aung San Suu Kyi.

A Baby in the Family

A couple of weeks ago some friends of mine became grandparents for the first time when their daughter gave birth to a little girl. The husband accepted his new status as grandfather with customary joviality, while the wife, too young-looking and pretty to fit into the conventional idea of a cozily aged grandmother, found it a somewhat startling experience. The baby was the first grandchild for the "boy's side" as well, so she was truly a novel addition to the family circle, the subject of much adored attention. I was told the paternal grandfather was especially pleased because the baby had been born in the Burmese month of Pyatho, an auspicious time for the birth of a girl child.

In societies where the birth of a girl is considered a disaster, the atmosphere of excitement and pride surrounding my friends' granddaughter would have caused astonishment. In Burma there is no prejudice against girl babies. In fact there is a general belief that daughters are more dutiful and loving than sons and many Burmese parents welcome the birth of daughter as an assurance that they will have somebody to take care of them in their old age.

My friends' granddaughter was only 12 days old when I went to admire her. She lay swaddled in pristine white on a comfortable pile of blankets and sheets spread on the wooden floor of my friends' bungalow, a small dome of mosquito netting arched prettily over her. It had been a long time since I had seen such a tiny baby and I wast struck by its miniature perfection. I do not subscribe to the Wodehousian view that all babies look like poached eggs. Even if they do not have clearly defined features, babies have distinct expressions that mark them off as individuals from birth. And they certainly have individual cries, a fact learned soon after the birth of my first son. It only took me a few hours to realize that the yell of each tiny, vociferous inmate of the maternity hospital had its own unique pitch, cadence range and grace notes.

My friends' grandchild however did not provide me with a chance to familiarize myself with her particular milk call. Throughout my visit she remained as inanimate and still as a carved papoose on display in a museum, oblivious of the fuss and chatter around her. At one time her eyelids fluttered slightly and she showed signs of stirring but it was a false alarm. She remained resolutely asleep even when I picked her up and we all clustered around to have our photograph taken with the new star in our firmament.

Babies, I have read somewhere, are specially constructed to present an appealingly vulnerable appearance aimed at arousing tender, protective instincts: only then can tough adults be induced to act as willing slaves to demanding little beings utterly incapable of doing anything for themselves. It has also been claimed that there is something about the natural smell of a baby's skin that invites cuddles and kisses. Certainly I like both the shape and smell of babies, but I wonder whether their attraction does not lie in something more than merely physical attributes. Is it not the thought of a life stretching out like a shining clean slate on which might one day be written the most beautiful prose and poetry of existence that engenders such joy in the hearts of the parent and grandparents of a newly born child? The birth of a baby is an occasion for weaving hopeful dreams about the future.

However, in some families parents are not able to indulge long in dreams over their children. The infant mortality rate in Burma is 94 per 1,000 live births, the fourth highest among the nations of the East Asia and Pacific Region. The mortality rate for those under the age of five too is the fourth highest in the region, 147 per 1,000. And the maternal mortality rate is the third highest in the region at the official rate of 123 per 100,000 live births. (United Nations agencies surmise that the actual maternal mortality rate is in fact higher, 140 or more per 100,000.)

The reasons for these high mortality rates are malnutrition, lack of access to safe water and sanitation, lack of access to health services and lack of caring capacity, which includes programs for childhood development, primary education and health education. In summary, there is a strong need in Burma for greater investment in health and education. Yet government expenditure in both sectors as proportion of the budget has been falling steadily. Education accounted for 5.9 percent of the budget in 1992-93, 5.2 percent in 1993-94 and 5 percent in 1994-95. Similarly government spending on health care has dropped from 2.6 percent in 1992-93 to 1.8 percent in 1993-94 and 1.6 percent in 1994-95.

Some of the best indicators of a country developing along the right lines are healthy mothers giving birth to healthy children who are assured of good care and a sound education that will enable them to face the challenges of a changing world. Our dreams for the future of the children of Burma have to be woven firmly around a commitment to better health care and better education.