Abstract Hygiene plays a very important role in our lives. It is often influenced by social, cultural, family and individual factors, as well as by knowledge about health and hygiene. The skin of a child is very soft and sensitive, and therefore requires careful and considerate care throughout the whole period of childhood, especially in the neonatal period and infancy. Skin care of newborns and infants is an essential attribute of the child?s health care. Such care is an individual matter, and it will always depend on family circumstances in which the child lives and on a suitable and proper approach of parents and physicians. The aim of this thesis was to determine the level of knowledge of mothers and the use of such knowledge in skin care of newborns and infants at home. The second objective was to prepare educational material for mothers. The thesis makes use of the questionnaire method. For this purpose, 274 questionnaires were collected. The questionnaire was distributed to mothers of newborns and infants, who take care of their skin at home. The investigation was carried out at pediatrics in the South Bohemian and Pilsen regions. The results of the research are introduced using graphs and some of the results are statistically evaluated by a chi-square test. Two hypotheses were set. Hypothesis 1: Mothers have enough information regarding the skin care of newborns and infants at home. Hypothesis 2: Mothers correctly use the acquired information about skin care of newborns and infants. We were successful in answering both hypotheses in the research study. The analysis and evaluation of the questionnaires shows that mothers are knowledgeable in treating skin of their children in the neonatal period and infancy. However, we managed to prove that some information of the parents is inconsistent with the literature. Therefore an educational material for mothers was created, focusing on skin care of newborns and infants. This educational booklet may be used at pediatric wards.

The importance of this thesis lies in finding about the current state of pain assessment and palliation at neonatal and infant wards of selected hospitals, in finding out about the extent of use of standardized rating scales for pain, in identifying the obstacles in pain assessment and non-pharmacological pain palliation, and particularly in the development of a standard for pain assessment and pain palliation for neonatal and infant hospital wards.

Nutrition of children of each age has its particular aspects. For the new born and infantile age it is mainly breast-feeding that is very significant. Nutrition with breast milk is ideally balanced, ensures the intake of high-quality nutrition that is well tolerated by the young organism and ensures the optimal growth and psychological development of the child. Thanks to its composition, breast milk increases the protective impact on the child with respect to infections and creates a natural bond between the mother and the child. In the Thesis, I was trying to look up decisive moments in the infantile nutrition concept both in this country and worldwide and to map the issue of breast feeding and formula feeding since the end of the Second World War up to the present. Also, I wanted to emphasize the irreplaceability of breast milk as wel as supplementing of artificial milks with probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics and their importance in the nutrition of children. Objective No. 1 of the Thesis has been to look up the key points in the infantile nutrition concept in the world since the beginning of the nineteenth century and since 1945 until this day in the Czech Republic. Objective No. 2 has been to prove that infantile formula nutrition has been focusing also on the immunological aspect apart from the nutritional ones. Objective No. 3 has been to create and aducational program proposal, which can serve as a practical guide for the application of theoretical data in clinical practice. Data necessary to achieve the determined objectives have been acquired by studing, analyses and comparison of available written documents relating to the natural and formula nutrition of infants. Most of these documents have been intended for the educational purposes at secondary school and universities in the Czech Republic. Also, data heve been taken from publications for parents and broad public published since 1945 until this day. By way of illustration, certain charts containing schemes of artificial nutrition corresponding to the time of creation have been used. On these schemes I wanted to show the chages in the concepts brought about by the development not only in the knowledge and thinking of people dealing with the nutrition of infants but also in the new possibilities and technology of the food processing industry.

This diploma thesis deals with infant massage and its associated effects. The work has been carried out through a qualitative method through a case study which monitors the close interaction between a child and their parent. The theoretical part contains information about the International Infant Massage Association, whose method of massage we have used to carry out this work. We also focus on the prenatal, perinatal and postnatal period in the research; both in terms of physiological development of the child under one year and in terms of the future mother. As for the mother, we are also concerned with their physical activity during pregnancy and after birth. We explain how important the actual touch is in a massage and discuss how the massage affects the baby and the technique used. The synthetic part contains individual case reports, evaluation. In conclusion, all participating mothers evaluate the IAIM methodology positively.

The main purpose of the research was to explore the role of the community nurse in the care of newborns, infants and their mother and how this kind of care could be included in the current system of preventive care for newborns and infants in the Czech Republic. The research was developed by qualitative and quantitative design. In the first stage of the research, interviews with nurses from the PLDD outpatient department and mothers of infants in the South Bohemian and Pilsen Regions were conducted. Non-standardized questionnaires for nurses and mothers were created from the obtained data. The statistical processing was carried out with MS Excel, where absolute and relative frequencies were calculated and the relationships among the variables at the significance level ? = 0.05 were tested by the use of the chi-squared test and the Pearson correlation coefficient was used. For the needs of the qualitative survey, a research group of six mothers of infants and seven nurses from the PLDD outpatient departments in the South Bohemian and Pilsen Regions was chosen by deliberate selection. For the quantitative survey, a research group of 254 mothers of babies aged 12-24 months was chosen by deliberate selection. The research group of nurses was chosen by deliberate selection and consisted of 196 nurses working in PLDD outpatient departments for more than one year. Multiparas have provably more information at leaving the maternity hospital about breastfeeding techniques, breast milk pumping, nappy changing, hygienic care and bathing, dressing, sleeping, umbilical cord care, and safe handling of the baby. Information about the prevention of sudden infant deaths or the storage of breast milk is at the same level for primiparas as for multiparas. It was found out that there is a statistically significant relationship between the level of awareness and the occurrence of problems in the first year of the child's life. The personal experience of nurses with the visiting service has an influence on whether they attach importance to this service. The current model of preventive care of newborns and babies needs to be critically analysed and appropriately complemented by interventions of the visiting service.

Changes in bone and mineral metabolism and the role of vitamin D in very low birth weight infants. Firstly, the aim of dissertation work was to estimate physiological parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels and their relationship with bone metabolism parameters in otherwise healthy preterm newborns with birth weight 1000-1500 g. Secondly, to evaluate vitamin D status in mothers and their very low birth weight infants (VLBW) at birth and at discharge with currently recommended supplementation of vitamin D. Thirdly, to compare clinical outcomes of VLBW infants with 25-hydroxy vitamin D [25(OH)D] levels ≤ and > 25 nmol/l in umbilical cord blood and finally to evaluate umbilical cord vitamin D as a risk factor for respiratory distress syndrome in preterm infants. It is a set of prospective observational studies involving immature newborns with birth weight below 1500 g. The parameters of mineral and bone metabolism were analysed in umbilical cord blood and newborn serum and urine during hospitalisation (PTH, 25-hydroxy vitamin D, S-Ca, S-P, ALP, U-Ca, U-P) and in pregnant women before delivery (25-hydroxy vitamin D). Bone mineralization was evaluated by bone densitometry. In a pilot study, from the total 134 examined serum samples for PTH levels the estimated reference range was 1.6 - 9.3 pmol/l. From the...