Maternal & Newborn Atlas
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Reading path: your baby's first year

A suggested reading order for a baby's first year: feeding, sleep, growth checks, milestones, and vaccines. It is a reading order, not medical advice and not a care plan.

  • Reading path
  • In this atlas

Overview

Technical summary

An editorial sequence of 10 steps over 10 records, drawn from pages in this atlas that exist today; it links only to existing records and each step restates what the linked record says. It branches nowhere and is not a care pathway. The plan also named MedlinePlus pages on infant and newborn care; they are not repeated here. Several pages cover advice for one country or one trial population, and each page states its own scope.

Who this is for

Parents and carers of a baby in the first year who want to read about feeding, sleep, growth, milestones and vaccines in a sensible order.

Reading order

  1. Breastfeeding

    Feeding. The hub for the breastfeeding pages in this atlas: what breastfeeding is and what support for it has been tested.

  2. Breast pumps

    Feeding. Breast pumps are regulated medical devices in the United States. The page describes what they are used for from a short consumer overview; it is not medical advice.

  3. Mastitis and related breast inflammation during breastfeeding (mother)

    Feeding, for the mother. Mastitis is inflammation of the breast, usually while breastfeeding. The page rests on an international health agency's review of 2000 and records no treatment advice.

  4. Safe infant sleep

    Sleep. Advice on where and how a baby sleeps, taken from a US government safe-sleep campaign's own pages.

  5. Infant growth monitoring

    Growth. How growth charts are used, and the 2010 US advice to use the international growth charts for children younger than 24 months.

  6. Developmental milestones and surveillance

    Milestones. What development in the first year covers, and that the normal range is wide. The page records no milestone ages.

  7. Vaccines in infancy and pregnancy

    Vaccines. What childhood vaccines are for, and that a national schedule exists. The hub for the RSV and whooping cough pages.

  8. RSV lower respiratory tract disease in infants

    Vaccines and antibodies. RSV is a common virus that can cause serious lung infections in babies. The page links the two ways studied to protect babies: a vaccine in pregnancy and an antibody for the baby.

  9. Nirsevimab

    Vaccines and antibodies. An antibody given to the baby as an injection. In a large trial it lowered RSV lung infections that needed medical attention in healthy babies born at 35 weeks or later.

  10. Whooping cough (pertussis) in young infants

    Vaccines. Whooping cough can be especially serious in babies who have not had the vaccine. The page links the evidence on the vaccine given in pregnancy.

Record details

Record id
maternal:reading-path-first-year
Content hash
ffc1546f0b01d2fcb166241eee6218ff1a065142b773d0cfd9dcda72bf6b771d