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Why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes

• duncan_bayne 13y ago
  Because they're easy to cut to size: http://satwcomic.com/no-invitation http://satwcomic.com/no-invitation
• ars 13y ago
  The BBC seems to have taken the story down. You can see a list of what goes in the box here: http://www.kela.fi/web/en/maternitypackage http://www.kela.fi/web/en/maternitypackage
  • hkmurakami 13y ago
    seems to be working fine for me as of 22:53 PST
    • eksith 13y ago
      Not working for me either at the moment, but it's in the search index : http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=finnish%20babies http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=finnish%20babies Edit: Had the archive url here. Google cache instead : http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22751415 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
• pointyhats 13y ago
  They should do this in the UK. From observing the locals, the maternity grant (until yanked by the government) was used to buy designer gear for the mother, cigarettes and some expensive fashionable buggy for the baby (usually topped up by the baby's grandparents). Unfortunately essential stuff was forgotten. This solves those problems.
  • thejosh 13y ago
    Same as Australia in most cases unfortunately.. They have now removed the "Baby Bonus".
    • dools 13y ago
      Really? In "most cases"? My wife and I, and all our friends who have kids (which is the majority of our friendship circle now) used the baby bonus(es) to buy, you know, stuff for our babies. Like clothes, sleeping gear, safety stuff for round the house, prams (one for the first and a dual P&T when the second came along ... both off gumtree). We used it to pay for the ridiculously high electricity bill caused by having a heater running all the time to keep the temperature optimal so our baby would sleep properly in our shitty rental house in winter. We used it to pay for proper car seats, to have those seats properly installed, to install a metal grate so crap doesn't fly from the back of the car into our children's faces when we stop suddenly. Whilst there were some pretty high profile cases of misuse (especially when it was given as a lump sum payment when it was first introduced as pork barrelling measure to gain ground amongst "Howard's Battlers") I think your claim that it was misused in "most cases" only goes to show that you don't have kids.
  • oracuk 13y ago
    Could you publish a citation referencing these problems?
    • pointyhats 13y ago
      Stand outside ASDA in Feltham or Hounslow and observe.
      • peteretep 13y ago
        So, no?
        • pointyhats 13y ago
          Not everything needs citation in the form of a survey or scientific paper. I doubt the results of it would be honest as the people who they would be surveying have an interest in lying about the things they have purchased with it. Some things are blatantly obvious if you peel your eyes occasionally and observe humanity.
          • brazzy 13y ago
            Please read up on the difference between anecdotes and data, and selective perception.
            • pointyhats 13y ago
              I know the differences, probably more than you realise. I presented a hypothesis, which you can turn into a theory by sitting outside ASDA for a bit with a clipboard and a copy of SPSS. My suggestion was that you should try it.
              • brazzy 13y ago
                Then you should know that your hypothesis remains unsupported by any data until that is done, and that it's not the job of people who doubt your hypothesis to do so. Apart from that, the location itself would introduce a bias, and I'm curious how exactly you would recognize women in the process of spending the maternity grant.
  • HaloZero 13y ago
    They also had a maternity grant though the box was just opted in 95% of the time though
    • pointyhats 13y ago
      That is because the 140 EUR grant is of significantly less value, which is absolutely wonderful motivation to do things properly. I applaud what they do in Finland.
  • BSousa 13y ago
    In Portugal, it's the same for most 'grants'. The day after they are payed, there are more drunks in the streets (Wife works in an ambulance, calls for drunk people laying in the floor are 3-4 times more in the days following pay than in the rest of the month)
  • josephlord 13y ago
    Having done a little research the grant is £500 available to parents receiving an income related benefit (including some in work benefits) [1]. It was changed a couple of years ago to apply only to first children rather than each child which I presume is the yanking referred to. Essential stuff being forgotten. That happens there is a lot to learn quickly being a parent. Can you show that reckless spending caused necessary items not to be affordable when the error was realised? "Expensive fashionable buggies" can easily cost more than £500, pushchairs are unsuitable for very young infants, those on low incomes are unlikely to have cars and may need a better buggy than those only nipping out of car although I'm sure there are solutions well under £500 especially if you look at 2nd hand. I do agree that a universal box would be a good idea even though I'm not comfortable with your lazy tabloid stereotyping of "the locals". It may be that the box should be supplemented by a cash grant (of a reduced amount) for those currently entitled to the grant. [1] https://www.gov.uk/sure-start-maternity-grant/overview https://www.gov.uk/sure-start-maternity-grant/overview
• Aloha 13y ago
  Mirror: http://updatednews.ca/2013/06/03/why-finnish-babies-moslty-sleep-in-cardboard-boxes/ http://updatednews.ca/2013/06/03/why-finnish-babies-moslty-s...
• nej 13y ago
  Title of this article sounds a lot worst than what the article presents (thankfully). This is off topic, but as refreshing as this article is, I wonder how many readers avoided reading this due to the title as it could've been a very depressing article.
  • MojoJolo 13y ago
    Me. I thought it was bad news. I saw this in frontpage a few times today. I just read it because I don't have something to do. And well, that was refreshing. It's cute.
  • adaml_623 13y ago
    That's interesting because I looked at the title and assumed almost the direct opposite to you. I assumed that I would read the article and find something uplifting and happy about babies in Finland. And something interesting about cardboard boxes in Nordic climates. I visited Iceland years ago and observed that babies were often left outside in prams (rugged up and only during the day) and it turns out that the locals believe that it's quite healthy to do so. Reading about this more recently shows that this isn't unique and a lot of cultures in colder climates do this.
• steve19 13y ago
  But does it decrease infant mortality? According to the CIA Facebook 2013 figures, Finland has the 12th lowest infant mortality. Not sure if this means the scheme works, or if simply paying a pregnant woman $50 each time she visits a doctor prior to birth would be a cheaper alternative (with the same outcome). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mor... The WHO recommends countries record all babies born alive as live births, but some countries don't if the baby dies soon after (this makes them look better).
  • davedx 13y ago
    Did you read the article? "In the 1930s Finland was a poor country and infant mortality was high - 65 out of 1,000 babies died. But the figures improved rapidly in the decades that followed." It's now 3/1,000.
    • riffraff 13y ago
      correlation/causation. E.g. Italy does not have baby boxes, and child mortality went from 60/1000 to 3/1000 in the last sixty years too. This happened basically everywhere, and either cardboard boxes play a big role and are used everywhere, or the effect is quite limited.
      • vidarh 13y ago
        The article does not claim that the cardboard box itself played a big role. It implies that the requirement to get prenatal care in order to receive the box played a role. EDIT: And it's not even making a strong claim about that. From the article "Mika Gissler, a professor at the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, gives several reasons for this - the maternity box and pre-natal care for all women in the 1940s, followed in the 60s by a national health insurance system and the central hospital network."
        • riffraff 13y ago
          well the thing about the article is that it singles out finland as if something special happened there, while similar improvements happened basically everywhere in the first world I wouldn't dream of saying national healthcare in finland is the same as italy or US, which appears to imply that what really happened is mostly just science marching on and general improvements in wealth.
• schoper 13y ago
  If we lived in a world where journalists knew the slightest bit about critical thinking: Hmm, I wonder if the cardboard box cuts Finland's infant mortality. Maybe I should look up infant mortality for Norway and Sweden? Oh, it's exactly the same as Finland's? Can't be the box then. I'm willing to bet that U.S. infant mortality is the same or even lower -- for people of Finnish descent.
  • jeremysmyth 13y ago
    I'm willing to bet that U.S. infant mortality is the same or even lower -- for people of Finnish descent. Why?
    • dalke 13y ago
      I believe that comment is supposed to be an allusion to the following: A Scandinavian economist once stated to Milton Friedman: "In Scandinavia we have no poverty." Milton Friedman replied, "That's interesting, because in America among Scandinavians, we have no poverty either." Indeed, the poverty rate for Americans with Swedish ancestry is only 6.7%, half the U.S average. Economists Geranda Notten and Chris de Neubourg have calculated the poverty rate in Sweden using the American poverty threshold, finding it to be an identical 6.7%. (Quoting from http://www.newgeography.com/content/001543-is-sweden-a-false-utopia http://www.newgeography.com/content/001543-is-sweden-a-false... )
      • vacri 13y ago
        Sounds like Friedman stopped at the first 'why' instead of going to the usual 5+.
  • codeulike 13y ago
    It doesn't say the box cut infant mortality, it says that in the period 1940 to 1960, a combination of the box, encouraging visits to doctors and the national health insurance system cut infant mortality.
    • 13y ago
• jszlasa 13y ago
  A start up (or Google) ought to give a similar kind of thing to their employees on their first day. At minimum it would get marketing buzz.
  • Nursie 13y ago
    ?? "Hey Bob, glad you could join the team! Here's a big cardboard box to sleep in, it should fit under your desk nicely. You'll find a couple of onesies in there, some shampoo and shower gel, toothbrush, toothpaste etc. You'll never need to leave the office again!" "Oh, and don't worry about that 'I'm sleeping in a coffin' feeling, it goes away after a couple of weeks"
    • codeulike 13y ago
      That convinces me its a good idea
      • jszlasa 13y ago
        Agreed. At my first company we used to make sure every employee had a fresh packet of business cards and a mug on their desk for the first day. A nice box packed with thoughtful stuff you'll need is a good idea especially if it includes a few pair of gender-neutral-adult-size-onesies emblazoned with the company logo.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• ProcessBlue 13y ago
  Lovely article. However, I must say that the box is only the tip of the iceberg. It's been almost four years since we went through the gauntlet so my memory may be a bit fuzzy but if I remember correctly the FREE tier of forming babby in Finland includes: - Initially monthly (increaing to weekly) pre-natal checkups that include bloodwork, metabolism tests, ultrasounds and any treatments necessary to ensure the baby's and mother's health. - About 12 hours of parental training which I found surprisingly useful (containing none of the Lamaze class stereotypes I had been expecting). Also, our group of people contained an absolutely adorable teenage couple, everybody else was in their late twenties to mid thirties. - The whole "actual business". Now this bit we did have to pay for, about $80 per day that we stayed in one of the maternity ward's private rooms with full room service. - First weekly and later monthly post natal checkups (also for the mom) including vaccinations. At two years the schedule switches to annual checkups and starts including dental chaeckups. At some point during the first months a doctor actually visits your home to check up on how you are dealing with the whole situation. If there are clear indicators of problems (e.g. alcoholism) the doc can point you in the direction for help. - You start getting about $150/month from the state for the baby (until it is 18 years old), this is about half of the cost of municpal daycare. In addition to this you get financial support during (m|p)aternity leave (the amount is actually scaled based on your salary). Maternity leave is about 100 days, paternity leave is about 50 days and on top of that you are entitled to 160 days of parental leave (either mom or dad can take this). Your place of employment can get state compensation if they decide to pay you a full salaray during your leave. Then there is a general child care leave than can extend to three years, it gets nitty gritty with the bureaucracy of compensations but effectively it is possible to take care of your kid for the first three years and still have your old job back when you're done. In our circle of friends there are at least a couple of "career women" who have checked out for ~5 years to have two kids and successfully gotten back into the game. So yeah, the box is nice but it is only the icing on the fabulous cake that is having a baby in Finland :-).
  • jan_g 13y ago
    It is worth noting that all this is not free, but paid for by the tax payer. Many European countries have similar arrangements. Personally, I think all this is money well spent by the governments as it gives nice financial boost to young parents and a sense that someone/something cares about them and their baby.
• xmr 13y ago
  Is it possible to buy these and get them shipped outside of Finland?
  • ProcessBlue 13y ago
    The box is heavily subsidized and even Finns can't buy them directly. Some people re-sell theirs but mostly on finnish language baby websites.
  • squidi 13y ago
    Seems not sadly, but it would make a great gift. Lots of people will complain about how the state is getting involved in peoples lives etc so it would have been funny if we could buy them online from overseas too, thus creating a profitable business
  • tommis 13y ago
    Unfortunately you can't, but you should be able to buy most of the items off the shelf in Finland (except the original cardboard box). This page displays the contents of this years box with the contents: http://www.kela.fi/aitiyspakkaus http://www.kela.fi/aitiyspakkaus Here's an infomercial demoing the contents: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVPw2_A9V5Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVPw2_A9V5Y Lot of the clothes are from finnish company Reima, which have an online shop: http://www.reimashop.fi/ http://www.reimashop.fi/
• lysium 13y ago
  Funnily enough, in Germany parents are advised to not let their newborns sleep in somewhere with all four sides closed (as is the case in this box). The alleged reason is to reduce the risk of sudden infant death.
  • cafard 13y ago
    Fashions come and go in advice. Generations of American babies were put down to sleep on their sides, now the thinking is that they should be on their backs.
• bryanlarsen 13y ago
  The first thing that I noticed about the box is that all the baby clothes are sex-neutral. Here in North America it's almost impossible to find baby clothes that don't immediately scream "I'm a boy" or "I'm a girl".
  • belorn 13y ago
    To my understanding, parents in Finland don't normally know the biological sex of the child before birth. If the box is given before the actually birth, then it makes sense to make the colors gender neutral.
    • ProcessBlue 13y ago
      The option to know (during the second ultrasound exam) is there, we for example did know. Some people choose not to know and many more keep the gender a secret from others until the baby is actually born.
      • Trufa 13y ago
        Interesting, I understand not wanting to know and I also understand wanting to know, but why would people keep it a secret? (Just in case I'm not judging, just curious)
        • bzbarsky 13y ago
          Because some people basically go batshit crazy when they find out and start getting you super-strongly gendered stuff, and you want to put off having to deal with that crap for as long as possible is one reason. For example, if you have a baby shower _before_ the birth (yes, ok, you're having a baby shower to start with) and you haven't told people the gender, there's only so much bad they can do along those lines...
          • Trufa 13y ago
            Interesting perspective, thanks!
• RyanMcGreal 13y ago
  Now this is my kind of nanny state. A thought: This program started for low-income families but was extended after a few years to all families. The nice thing about universality rather than means testing is that a) middle class families are more apt to continue supporting it if they can experience its benefits first-hand; b) you save the money that would otherwise be spent testing, enforcing and auditing the system; and c) it builds solidarity and shared values rather than socioeconomic conflict and what I've come to regard as revenge egalitarianism.
  • arethuza 13y ago
    One question I find interesting is to what extent governments should be in the business of building solidarity and shared values. Personally, I'm all for it - but that's a product of my age (40s), location (Scotland) and where I grew up (a small village in the North of Scotland). NB Having a father who served in the RAF during WW2 probably influenced me far more than I realised at the time - my political views around 20th century history are now almost identical to what his used to be.
    • king_jester 13y ago
      The better question is why governments spend so much time trying to reenforce social stratification by placing so many qualifications on social programs.
      • toyg 13y ago
        Money. Resources are limited, so it makes sense to prioritise (Whether the resulting accounting efforts end up costing more than it's otherwised saved, it's another matter).
    • RyanMcGreal 13y ago
      > to what extent governments should be in the business of building solidarity and shared values. To the extent that government is the actual exercise of the public's solidarity and shared values, I'm inclined to think it does have a legitimate role to play in giving expression to those values.
• gdonelli 13y ago
  It looks like the baby has been photoshopped over the box...
• pvdm 13y ago
  Nordic countries gets it, in more ways than just this.
• glennos 13y ago
  I imagine the stress that this would take out of new parents' lives would be enormous. Apart from the physical and financial pressures, one thing that I think would weigh on me most when becoming a dad would be "are we doing this right?" Especially for those that don't have parents or an experienced role model to help them, at least as a concept this seems like a fantastic program for a govt to run.
• cdoxsey 13y ago
  Infant mortality rates can also be quite deceptive in that they aren't measured the same way between countries. "Even the use of the most fundamental term, “live births,” greatly distorts infant-mortality rates, because often the infants who die the soonest after birth are not counted as live births outside the United States." http://www.nationalreview.com/content/infant-mortality-deceptive-statistic http://www.nationalreview.com/content/infant-mortality-decep...
  • miloshadzic 13y ago
    I don't think the point of the article was to compare infant mortality between countries. Finland had a problem with infant mortality and this is one of the steps they took to improve. The program seems to be working well and makes the Finns happy.
• ceautery 13y ago
  I like that Finland has added cloth diapers and taken the bottle out. I wish, though, that sleeping with baby wasn't stigmatized, and that ultrasounds weren't deemed to be expected and normal during prenatal care (you may not hear or feel it, but watch a baby who is further along react - they freak out). Anyway, the Finns seem to have their hearts in the right place. Well done.
• uiwntelnz 13y ago
  Along with this, does anyone know if Finland provides coffins for their recently deceased?
  • zurn 13y ago
    And do they get shipped to you shortly before you die?
• smallegan 13y ago
  Do all Finnish babies wear the same clothes then? Seems like a decent way to mix up who's who :-)
• rayiner 13y ago
  > It's a tradition that dates back to the 1930s and it's designed to give all children in Finland, no matter what background they're from, an equal start in life. What a wonderful idea. My daughter was born in Chicago last year, and the hospital (Northwestern Memorial) gave us a little starter kit with bottles, pacifiers, some swaddling blankets, etc. I remember thinking as I walked out the door of the hospital that this was the last time that these kids would an equal shot at life.
  • gbog 13y ago
    Not sure that the pacifiers are a good idea, do they have them in the Finland box?
    • rayiner 13y ago
      What do you have against pacifiers?
      • tptacek 13y ago
        Nipple confusion.
      • gbog 13y ago
        It's inconvenient and better avoided. Toddlers cry, that's the normal thing. Some are unbearable and then a pacifier is ok but they become addicted and you're easily in deep shit if you travel and forget them or lose them (I had one in each pocket when taking a plane). I guess most kid don't really need it, parents need it, when they can't bear the cries. But even then I think you just postpone the annoyance. I have a friend whose pacifier story would make a good tv show, with the kid solemnly taking the thing in the dustbin and the father frantically searching the bin at 2am.
        • rayiner 13y ago
          > Toddlers cry, that's the normal thing. Right, but toddlers also normally nurse to comfort themselves. If you're not breastfeeding (or if you're like me and you're the night-time parent but have no breasts) then a bink can be pretty clutch in terms of getting the kid to sleep so you can go to work in the morning.
• yoster 13y ago
  I would see how this box would give Finland one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates. You can't lug a crib with you to different rooms. With a box, you can bring it to the same room you occupy, greatly increasing the observation time of the baby. This is a nice gesture of this country. I can't say the same for the blatant waste of taxpayer money I experience in my country.
• calinet6 13y ago
  Gotta love that Infant Mortality graph... if that's not direct proof of a systematic effect and success then I don't know what is.
  • pondababa 13y ago
    How about something that accounts for all the other medical advances over the past century or so? I'd say they likely had some input on that graph.
  • refurb 13y ago
    I'm pretty sure the discovery of penicillin had something to do with the drop in infant mortality as well.
  • ars 13y ago
    > if that's not direct proof of a systematic effect and success then I don't know what is Two graphs. One for a country with a box, and one for one without. Interestingly people have made such graphs, and there is no difference.
• squozzer 13y ago
  It's a pretty interesting case of how an idea becomes an institution.
• joshdance 13y ago
  I think the article is interesting, but they make the claim that the box may have helped lower infant mortality. Is that supported by any data? Would love to see a study, maybe pair Finland with a close neighbor country that does not provide the box etc.
  • sesqu 13y ago
    Well, setting prenatal care as a prerequisite for the box almost certainly did.
• lucb1e 13y ago
  Turns out the Netherlands also knows this kind of "happy box" as we call it, and my parents had one as well. I never knew!
• Uhhrrr 13y ago
  I'm jealous - not of the Finnish babies, but of the companies who provide the boxes and the contents. It must be a nice sinecure. You'd probably have lots of free time to send press releases to the BBC.