A/70/213 the right to receive the necessary physical, social, psychosocial and spiritual care to ensure their development and promote their best possible quality of life. 36 Symptom management and pain relief are central to children’s palliative care. Health systems must have adequately trained professionals to assess and treat pain in children of different ages and developmental stages and ensure the availability of paediatric diagnostic procedures and palliative care medicines in paediatric formulations. Palliative care for children must also involve ongoing support to the child ’s family throughout the course of treatment and, should the disease be the ca use of death, into bereavement. 37 Moving beyond a biomedical model of child health care 53. The different elements that form article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in particular paragraph 24 (d), (e) and (f), including pre - and postnatal care for mothers; access to education and information on child health and nutrition, advantages of breastfeeding, hygiene and sanitation and prevention of accidents; and the development of preventive health care demonstrate that during the process of adopting the Convention there was a broader understanding of how to promote and protect the health of children. 54. Since the adoption of the Convention in 1989, there has been increasing evidence of “new morbidities” in childhood related to the understanding that physical and mental health in early childhood are affected by the environment, including relationships within the family, the community and the broader society. This understanding has led to positioning developmental and behavioural issues becoming central components of modern paediatrics. 55. Modern health systems and modern health policies should not be limited to a biomedical model of addressing separate diseases and managing them with advanced biomedical interventions. Addressing social and other underlying determinants of health by applying modern principles of health promotion, primary care, mental health and integrated health and social services is legally required by the right to health, including in early childhood. 56. Experts recommend major changes in routine baby medical checks to detect and address social and emotional difficulties, which could be early signs of toxic stress, as a means of reducing many of society’s most complex and costly medical issues, from heart disease to alcohol and drug abuse. 38 In addition, some of the evidence-based health interventions that are included in the “zero draft” of the new global strategy for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health, such as nutrition counselling and “kangaroo” mother care for small babies, can be very useful in assisting main actors adopting a modern approach to health int erventions. 57. Currently, primary health care and paediatrics need to be equipped not only with modern lifesaving medicines and vaccines; it is equally important to employ modern interventions that go beyond the biomedical model and to use effective __________________ 36 37 38 15-12535 African Palliative Care Association (APCA) and WHO, A Handbook of Palliative Care in Africa (Kampala, APCA, 2010), p. 48. Available from africanpalliativecare.org. Ibid., p. 10 and note 34. See, for example, C. Gerwin, “Listening to a baby’s brain: changing the pediatric checkup to reduce toxic stress”, Harvard University Center on the Developing Child. Available from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/stories_from_the_field/tackling_toxic_stress/ listening_to_a_baby_s_brain/. 13/25