HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 90, 5 February 1947, Page 8

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

WHEN INFANTS VOMIT MAY BE WRONG FEEDING (By the Department of Health) When an infant vomits, there may be cause for alarm. On the other hand it may be of no moment. Here are some of the causes: Overfeeding at each feed is countered by retui’ning the excess straight away, undigested, and without upsetting baby in any way. This is easily rectified by shortening the feeding time as indicated by test feeding results, and by giving a little boiled water just before the feeding time. If the baby be bottle fed, vomiting may be due to dirty bottles or teats or stale milk, but this cause is quickly eliminated by cleanliness and a safe milk supply. Some babies get the bad habit of bringing up food, vomiting part of it and re-swallowing the remainder. This is rare in breast-fed babies, occurring in bottle-fed ones from the fourth month or later. The infant regurgitates part of the feed into the mouth, loses some, takes . the balance down again, and goes on doing this until it loses a large part of the feed. The way to break this bad habit is to thicken the feeds with some patent food until they will hardly run off a spoon, and so make regurgitation difficult. Distracting the attention as the child prepares to ’“ruminate”—so this habit is called—is the other line of attack. Swallowing air between meal times is another bad habit that causes vomiting. It begins with the wrong feeding rate—too small or too large a hole in the teat, or through the now rare habit of dummy sucking. When the air is brought up there’s some vomiting. This habit is checked by rectifying the rate of feeding, and by using a small gag to keep the lips open in reaily bad cases so that can can’t be swallowed. . -

Wrong feeding may be a cause of vomiting—too much fat, or too much carbonhydrate. In these conditions the bowel will be upset and Plunket nurse or doctor will need to be consulted. With any obstruction or spasm in the alimentary tract vomiting occurs, accompanied by contsipation, and much distress, calling for the doctor’s aid. Lastly, vomiting may mean the child is sickening for one of the common infectious troubles of childhood, if no other cause seems to apply.