I’ve been thinking a lot about food these days. Food in liquid form, such as breast milk, the magic potion our bodies create to feed our children, but also food in a figurative sense; the hugs, love and overall nurture babies need at the beginning of life.
As your First 1,000 Days correspondent, I think about my own daily diet too. I wonder about the right balance between readings that enhance my understanding of this crucial period of life and those that just throw me into despair.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been overdoing the latter. Too much hopeless information, too quickly, without the chance to digest it properly.
This is why I’m taking advantage of this newsletter to pause and look back at some of the articles that my fellow writers at The Correspondent have produced that have made me think about the beginning of life from a different, more foundational perspective.
This comes with a bonus: the beautiful images that accompany these pieces are a fruit of the creative labour of many makers and our in-house image editors. Kudos to Lise Straatsma and Yara van der Velden for their hard work!
Maternity wards are a great place to learn what quality healthcare can (and should) look like
Dr Njoki Ngumi was, until recently, a medical officer in a busy obstetric and referral hospital in Nairobi, Kenya.