Baby.
ISBN: 1 84425 059 8
Hardback £12.99. 160 pp
Hayes Publishing

HELPING FATHERS COPE WITH BABIES

Fathers are given practical advice in how to help cope with bringing up their baby in a new book from best-selling doctor-author Ian Banks.

His latest book, Baby, is produced by motoring publishers Haynes as a tongue-in-cheek owner's workshop manual - "a user's guide to all models, shapes, sizes and colours".

But behind the humour is a serious message - that men can help their partners care for infants "without having to hang their masculinity on a peg."

Dr Banks, who is 53 and has four children of his own, insists that what makes his book different is that it tells men about babies, rather than preaching about how to be fathers.

"I'm not into this New Age, Modern Man stuff', he says. "Apart from anything else, young fathers especially can find the expectations of them and the role they should play utterly dismaying.

I don't want to make them feel they should become experts in nappy rash and baby talk. I want to provide handy information that will help them cope, either on their own or with their partners, not turr them into virtual mothers."

He has designed a car manual-style fault-finding chart for problems ranging from rashes to diarrhoea and describes "how to maintain baby's bodywork in optimum condition, prevent corrosion of vital parts, and decide when to call in professional assistance."

President of the Men's Health Forum, he also tells dads what sort of performance to expect from birth up to the age of two, what to do in emergencies from scalds and choking to bangs on the head, and how to handle teething, bath time, dressing, car rides and crying.

As well as input from other medical professionals Dr Banks, whose previous Haynes "workshop manual", Man, became an instant hit - he is also author of the NHS Direct Health Care Guide - sought advice from his wife Hilary.

"A first-time mother will probably have already acquired know-how from growing up within a family, but if she needs more she'll happily ask for it from her own mother or from her older, female friends and neighbours.

"On the other hand the average chap wouldn't dream of trotting along to his mum, or discussing the problems of nappy rash or bottle feeding with his mates in the pub - how wimpish could you get?

"But fathers, especially first-time fathers, do need to know what's going on where baby is concerned, especially when it comes to health and accidents.

"Caught on their own in what they see as a crisis most of them either do nothing at all, frozen with doubt, or completely over-react, phoning their GP in a frenzy and demanding his child be rushed to casualty."

Dr Banks, who works in the accident and emergency unit at Belfast City Hospital, was a TV repairman before becoming a doctor, and he and Hilary did not plan their first child until he was 33 and training for medicine.

The others - they have two boys and two girls aged from 10 to 18 - arrived by the time he was 40.

"There is no ideal age to be a father", he says. "The main thing is for both partners to enjoy a taste of life before planning parenthood, so that when a baby arrives it is a joy and not a burdensome strain on finances and freedom."

From a male perspective, the book seems a good idea – and one very middle-aged lady, a mother and grandmother who thought she knew everything from pre-conception to adulthood, told me she rapidly learned something new!

For every copy of The Baby Manual sold, 50 pence will be given to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity, helping to support the work of the hospital.

Bill Stevenson