Babies breath more frequently, and the heart beats much faster than in an adult. These factors contribute to the infant's relatively greater requirements for food and fluids. Any dietary intervention has more powerful and serious effects on the young child. Similarly, when illness interrupts feeding, babies get into trouble much more quickly. A lot of this has special implications for the health care system.
Society is intuitively more nuturing of babies precisely because they are more fragile.
Children require special facilities that are more responsive including emergency rooms, laboratories and operating rooms in hospitals. Sometimes these are provided in Children's Hospitals but it is important that these special needs be given consideration in your local community as well. There are other implications of children's differences from adults which may be of interest. A young child's need for calories relies on a richer diet where many of the calories are provided by fat. Our society has discouraged high fats in adults to prevent heart disease.