A new-born and lots of babies with drips in their heads

Tan and I took Leilei to our cousins’ house where Tan’s mum is staying. A while later we got a call from one of Tan’s friends saying a cousin had given birth the day before to a daughter. So we left Leilei to buy a present and went to the hospital to see them. The mother looked fine and not as though she had been in labour 24 hours previously. The father looked fine too, although he hadn’t held the baby as of then.

The happy couple with their new-born

What shocked me was as we were entering the hospital there must have been 30 or more babies outside the entrance with drips attached to their heads. I even saw nurses putting the needles into them – a process that the babies didn’t seem to enjoy. Later I asked Tan why so many kids of all ages were on drips (it’s not just hospitals – there are plenty of clinics on the high streets full of young children on the drip). She said it was the quickest way of administering medicine. Simple as that. Why wait for tablets to be digested when you can put the stuff into the blood stream straight away. Fair enough I suppose. Oh yes, and the babies with the needles in the heads? Well the veins in the wrist are too small at that age…. Stands to reason really.