For five-month-old Jack Seddon, priorities include sleeping, eating and a regular burp.
But Jack's mom Renee Moodie has other considerations. His long-term health, for one.
She has opted for a pioneering new scheme that stores a baby's stem cells, which can be used if Jack contracts a rare disease like some forms of leukaemia.
At the moment the service involves sending blood taken from the umbilical cord to Belgium, where the cells are extracted and stored. The cost is R9 600, but that is expected to drop when the storage moves to South Africa, which should happen by the end of the year.
Moodie's GP told her of the scheme before Jack was born. She researched it on the Internet but initially found it too expensive: "With the exchange rate it would have cost about R20 000, not including the fees to retain the umbilical cord fluid. I thought, 'Oh well, so much for that, we can't do it.' "
Then she found out about the South African scheme, which includes storage of the cells for 21 years. Of the R9 600 cost, which she funded from old unit trusts, Moodie said: "It's still quite a lot of money but it was a bit more within my grabbing range.
"If something serious is going to happen to him somewhere along the line, unit trusts weren't going to help him. Stem cells might."
After paying a R600 deposit, Moodie was sent a kit, including a bag for the blood to be stored in, and papers to be signed. Blood was taken the moment Jack was born and while the umbilical cord was still attached to placenta.
The blood kit was picked up a couple of days later, but in the meantime "it was just kind of sitting in a cupboard beside my bed in the hospital. All the medical staff were fascinated and the nurses were asking me about it. My gynaecologist was deeply interested in it."
Moodie said she would tell Jack when he was old enough to understand.
Dr Steven Purcell, an anatomical pathologist with CryoClinic, says about 120 families have opted for the programme through the business so far. Purcell chose the scheme for his own child recently.
"I think it's important to emphasise that the present range of benefits is for rare diseases. It's additional protection against rare types of leukaemia," he said.
"Parents will always rely on the advice of medically trained professionals. Seldom is a decision made solely by the parent."
Health benefits include the regeneration of bone marrow and help with curing the non-malignant aplastic anaemia. Purcell said the treatment could begin to reverse a "remarkable range of diseases" including multiple sclerosis, chronic glomerulo, nephritis and Crohn's disease.
"It has resolved diseases in situations where the patient has not really been cured but has had a bone marrow transplant for another reason."
In Europe, Purcell pointed to a "profound improvement" in heart functions in patients, which "demonstrates the ability of stem cells (to help) organs to repair blood cells". There was also a possibility that auto-immune conditions could be helped with further research.
Purcell added that the procedure was a standby treatment for rare childhood and adult disorders.
"We have seen this involved in the repair of other organs such as the heart," he said.
However, Purcell said there had been "too many misquotes" around the issue, and parents should be aware that the scheme was not a miracle cure for all diseases.
"It's a scientific possibility. We are not trying to create false hope."
Moodie also said she was under no illusion that the procedure was a "cure-all".
There is also a 3 percent to 4 percent failure rate of the process, usually in difficult births, when under 60ml of blood is taken. This can mean an inadequate number of blood cells is drawn.
"A lot of people will do anything for their children. One has to look at this as life insurance.
"We hope and pray that they will not have to be used," said Purcell.
Moodie said: "It's the sense that if something dreadful happens we're got this supply of a precious substance."