The maternity¹ package - a gift from the government - is available to all expectant mothers.

 

It contains bodysom, the box becomes a baby's first bed. Many children, from all social backgrounds, have their first naps within the safety of the box's four cardboard walls.

 

Mothers have a choice between taking the box, or a cash grant, currently set at 140 euros, but 95% opt² for（选择） the box as it's worth much more.

 

The tradition dates back to 1938. To begin with, the scheme was only available to families on low incomes, but that changed in 1949.

 

"Not only was it offered to all mothers-to-be but new legislation meant in order to get the grant, or maternity box, they had to visit a doctor or municipal pre-natal clinic before their fourth month of pregnancy," says Heidi Liesivesi, who works at Kela - the Social Insurance Institution of Finland.

 

So the box provided mothers with what they needed to look after their baby, but it also helped steer³ pregnant women into the arms of the doctors and nurses of Finland's nascent⁴（初期的） welfare state.

 

In the 1930s Finland was a poor country and infant mortality was high - 65 out of 1,000 babies died. But the figures improved rapidly in the decades that followed.

 

Mika Gissler, a professor at the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, gives several reasons for this - the maternity box and pre-natal care for all women in the 1940s, followed in the 60s by a national health insurance system and the central hospital network.

点击收听单词发音