But a baby gift set the couple received from the government made things clearer. Sanan now knows that playing with his son is important to develop the baby's brain.

Sanan's son is just one of almost 800,000 babies across the country who have received the gift sets in the past year.

"The obvious benefit is to create awareness among parents about the importance of their baby's development in the first two years, which is the golden period of life," said Bovorn Ngamsiriudom, deputy director of the Department of Health.

The one-year project, which ended last Thursday, had a budget of about Bt300 million. Gift bags were distributed to parents of all babies born during the period.

The gift set includes a multicoloured blanket designed to stimulate infants' visual perception, materials of various textures to foster their sense of touch and small sound-producing gadgets to develop their hearing ability.

There are also CDs of lullabies, fairy tales for mothers to read to their babies and a manual explaining how to use all the items.

All the items have been designed to give infants a range of stimuli at a vital, yet often neglected, stage of their emotional and intellectual development.

Unfortunately, the government has not yet decided if it will continue with the project.

"We have not allocated any budget to continue it," said Bovorn.

According to an unofficial evaluation of the project, 82 per cent of 3,000 parents surveyed understood how to use the gift sets they had received, while 76 per cent realised that the set was only a guide to suitable playthings for babies at different ages.

Dr Chittinun Tejagupta, a paediatric expert from Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, said the project could be more effective with a smaller budget by distributing gift sets only to needy parents.

"It is unnecessary to give sets to babies at all social levels. For example, privileged parents might need only a guidebook on how to improve the baby's learning process and they could choose and pay for toys themselves. A needy family could be given the gift bag and receive advice from medical officials about how to use each of the items," she said.

Public health centres could pinpoint underprivileged families, she suggested.

Chittinun said toys in the gift set suited children of different ages, so to avoid confusing parents it might be better to hand them out progressively, rather than all at once.

"We should give parents only a few things suitable for newborn babies at first. When they bring their babies to the doctor the next time, medical staff could give them more items and advise how to use them," she said.

Chittinun said research showed that Thai children rarely got musical toys, which can improve temperament and concentration, so such toys should be included in the gift sets.

Chatrarat Kaewmorakot

The Nation