OUR BABIES

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14829, 21 November 1913, Page 2

OUR BABIES

(Bt Htojia.) ("Weekly ~Prsss and Referee.") THE LONDON CONGRESS OF INFANT MORTALITY AND CHILD WELFARE. (Continued.) LONDON, September 4. Last week I devoted a portion of my article to describing and-commenting on a visit paid to the London Hospital, in company with members of the Medical Congress, and shall now continue the subject.

In the first baby's cot we saw there was a tiny, whining infant, left to jtself with a feeding-bottle tHree-quarters full. I picked up the feeder (which had m> cover), and found that the milk was almost cold.

One marvels at such careless and faulty treatment exhibited to the world under tho very eyes and countenance of eminent doctors and nurses. These authorities are responsible not only for an example set to a large section of tho medical and nursing professions, but tho London Hospital is regarded by the teeming millions of the East End as embodying that is best for tho welfare of suffering humanity—from the cradle to old age. Our readers can judge for themselves as to how the difficulties of the problem of reform in such matters strike us on this side of the world 5

Wo have been working among mothers in Bethnal Green, not far from tne London Hospital, and were puzzled at first to find how universal was the "dummy habit," whereas in St. Pancras one sees a considerable number of babies without the abomination.

Now we know tho reason: as I said last week, the use of the dummy is absolutely forbidden in tho St. Pancras School for Mothers. Further, hygienic cradles are not only on exhibition in that school, but are supplied, provided with a chaff mattress and a piece of blauket and waterproof, at Is 6d each. I shall have something to say later as to the scathing condemnation and denunciation of the dummy at the dental eection of the International Congress. EXERCISE. As regards the need of exercise for both mother and child, nothing in the whole proceedings of tho Congresses was more striking than tho way in which this important factor of health was-left out of account, apart from what the 'lentiste said in their special section as to tho necessity of adequate us© of mouth, jaws and teeth, in order to ensure proper formation and development of the parts and freedom from decay. Aβ regards expectant and* nursing mothers, we sat hour after hour listening to delegates (both men -and women —mainly doctors) describing the ways and means bj which they got more nourishing materials for mothers, and were inducing them to take more'foodL.

But fresh air was scarcely mentioned, and. exercise not at all, until Dr. Truby King drew attention to the fact that, even in England, probably lees than a fifth of the mothers really suffered from lack of food, and that the general tendency was rather to over-eat, especially where ignorant nurses told expectant women, as they so often did, that they must "eat for two" —two who at most would not weigh more than about one and a-twentioth!

Dr. King spoke strongly as to the experience and conclusions arrived at by breeders of the lower animals, who one and all give exercise the first place for the welfare.of mother and offspring. He specially' cited horses, cows, dogs, and sheep, among which he said practical experience showed that parturition was rendered unsafe and difficult if insufficient exercise was provided or induced —the offspring of indolent mothers being inferior among the lower animals just as they were in the case of human beings. At tho concluding meeting of the Infantile Mortality Congress the Chairman, Alderman Broadbent.. referred to these and other allusions to the lower animals as ''a strange new element in the proceedings of this Congress, coming from abroad, which had proved very thought-provoking!"

However, what interested us most in this connexion was the emphatic testimony as to the paramount importance of exercise for women . that followed once the subject had been broached. Several doctors got up one f after the other to support its claims, and to state quite unequivocally that the tendency of mothers was to over-eat nowadays and to cause indigestion, because adequate exercise was not taken.

Dr. Eric Pritchard, physician to a loading London hospital, said that even among the poor of Marylebone it was the woman who had to work hard at charring and scrubbing who came off best at child-birth. "While deprecating over-work, and claiming proper exemption from /undue drudgery or excessive work of any kind, he sai<l it was most important to protest against inactivity and indolence, and especially to make clear that over-eating, combined with undue passivity, was a far more common source of trouble at child-birth and afterwards than shortness of food, on which so much attention tended to be fooussed.

As regards the children, what strikes us one and all coming from New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, is the extraordinary way in which children in tho "West End aro coddled in houses or wheeled in perambulators and gocarts for years after they ought to bo spending most of their timo out on the grass in the parks or on sand heaps, quietly busy m their own little ways, or laughing, shouting, running, playing, romping, and tumbling over one another. Of course, all English children of the well-to-do arc not spoiled. One sees very marked exceptions. For instance, next door to us there is a doctor's family where the children are sturdy, ideal "littlo out-of-door romps and splendidly developed. Indeed, while one swallow does not make a summer, these children tend to support John Burns's contention that "doctors' families aro tho best off, as 6hownby an infantile death rate of only 4 per cent., as compared with 10 per cent, or more in the general community. :, EXERCISE FOR JAWS AND TEETH. t As for exorcising the jaws,'there is a general agreement that the worst teeth are not found among the children of the poor in the East End of London, where they tend to take "what's going," and often get most damaging food, but among the spoiled indolent pap-fed children of the West End, where neither the mothers nor the nurses seem to have any idea that the jaws and teeth, are intended for use in infancy. On the contrary, they almost invariably cut off the crusts; »nd, if any meat is given, they nnely minoe or even pound it, and never dream of giving raw apples, etc. As

a result, the food is bolted almost without chewing or mixture with saliva, and indigestion, bad teeth, and adenoids naturally ensue. One sees many a sturdy, healthy child in tho worst' quarters of the East End who would moro than hold its own against the soft, fat, pampered children of the "West End. Indeed, there are in all directions most cbnvinving object lessons as to the equal or greater national need-for the domestic education of well-to-do girls and mothers, as contrasted with confining training in motherhood to the poorer classes, who alone receive attention in these matters here in England. All our experience on this side of the world goes to -confirm the wisdom of tho policy which our New Zealand Plunket Society has always pursued in this matter, and which is so clearly embodied in ths printed rules just received from Christchurch:— This form of education ("Education in Motherhood") will be free, because it is in the highest interests of the State that, as far as possible, every woman in the Dominion shall be induced to avail herself of the services offered by tho Society, with a view to the betterment of the race —the recipient herself b*ing always regarded as n potential health-advo-' cate and teacher. Of course, the majority of the children of the East End are gravotr damaged and more or le?s stunted through tr.e unhealthiness of their homes and adverse conditions of life, due largely to the' ignorance of their parents. But what one feels most strongly is that for the "East Enders" there is ©vary excuse, compared with wealthy families in the West End However r oven among the well-to-do the fault is the fault of society rather than of tho individual. What right has the nation to expect anything of its most favoured girls when they come to be mothers if their whole environment, training, and education have left, out of account normal all-round development, high domestic and womanly ideals, and especially if tho subject of motherhood has been tabooed and the care of children never even mentioned?