OUR BABIES.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2355, 11 January 1915, Page 9

OUR BABIES.

fBT HTGXU.I Published - under the auspioM of tho Society for the Health of Women and Children. ~. * "It ie wiser to pnt up a fence ittho too of a precipice than to maintain, an amuu lance at tie bottom." THE CURSE OF SUMMER. While summer-time is delightful to all of us, and its warm days and bright sunshine tempt people into the open air and thus tond to banish tho "colds, sore throats, and "chest affeotions" of tho damper, chillier seasons of the year —while this health-giving effeot of summer on young and old alike, is recognised in every temperate region of the world, it is also found that summer kills far more babies than any other season of the year. Why is this? Why should summer not be the safest instead of the most dangerous time of year for infants P Tee reason is not far to seek. Most babies are fed on liquid food which is specially liab'e to ferment in warm (veather. Milk becomes infested with miorobes; in other words, goes bad and becomes poisonous, more readily than any other food, and if we are not careful in the selection of a milkman it may have gone bad in warm weather before reaching the home. So long as an infant is suckled, and the mother is not only regular, and Careful in her habits, but also gives the baby all his simp'o primary rights (outing, fresh air, sunlight, exorcise, etc.), there is no safer season than summer. But, however oareful the mother may be as to general hygiene, summer is dangerous, and often fatal, if there is any carelessness. in artificial feeding (wnether re- 1 sorted to in the early months or coming in the natural course later on at weaning or afterwards), simply because miorobes grow apace in warm weather if milk is not properly attended 1 ' to. Why Bhould diarrhoea single out babies and calves and leave the rest of nurslings more or less exempt from this special curse of summer? In warm weather the young of horses, pigs, dogs; oats, and the rest are almost uniformly healthy, while calves in. all directions are victims to "scouring," and few babies escape the same scourge under the name of "summer diarrhoea." Why Does Nature Single Out Calves and Babies? Calves axe sacrificed because man takes the cow's milk for himself, and feeds the calf out of a bucket. The baby is sacrificed because the mother's breast is denied to it atao, and improper food, contamina.ted with germs, is substituted for the pure, perfect, bloodwarm, living stream direct from the proper source. The important .practical question which we have to face at the present moment is this:— Are 111-health and Diarrhoea Inevitable During Summer Time for Calves and Babies who Cannot be Suckled? Certainly not! In both cases the trouble arises not from the mere fact of artificial feeding, but because proper care ie not exercised to secure suitable food and to prevent fermentation. For babies, humanised milk supplies by far the nearest approach to the mother's milk, and if kept cool and given according to the directions contained in the instructions issued by the society, there would be little risk of disease. Even with breast-feeding a baby may suffer from summer diarrhoea, but immediate suitable treatment of such infants, or of those who have been judiciously fed by artificial means, soon brings about rocovery in the great majority of cases. Among babies who have been improperly fed, on the other hand, the risk of death from an attack of diarrhoea is very great indeed, and'lasting debility is often left where the baby doeß not actually succumb. Professor Budin showed that the number of artificially-fed babieo who died in Paris per week was about 20 in winter, but that iu mid-summer the deaths rose to almost 260 per weejt. This ie very strikingly shown in a diagram given on page 40 of the society's pamphlet, "What Baby Needs." A rise in the death-rate among infants similar to the above oocurs in New Zealand during warm weather, varying with the locality and the heat of the particular summer. Knowing the cause, the disease is one of the most easily preventable, and the mother who allows, her baby to succumb during the next few months should feel, in nine cases out of ten, that she has herself to blame. It is not Nature or Providence that inflicts the curse of summer diarrhoea, but the mother herself. That this is literally and absolutely true will be realised by anyone consulting the Paris diagram, which shows that over 1000 babies died in six weeks when the weather was warmest. Amongst breastfed babies the death-rate for the same period averaged only 20 per week. The deaths that did take place in either class were mainly the result of ignorance and carelessness (especially careless feeding of mother and child, the of tho long-tube feeder, lack of fresh air and exercise, irregular habits, failure to keep the breasts and tlie clothing oovering them clean, and use of dummy or comforter for the baby). During the Bame three or four fatal summer mouths scarcely a death from diarrhoea occurred among the babies whose mothers were availing themselves of rational advice tendered at the four creches then established in Paris on modem lines. About half of these more fortunate babies -were suckled, and the rest were bottle-fed with milk supplied at the special "Babies' Milk Depot." In the provinces a similar result has been acMovcd. Thus Dr. Dufour, tlio pioneer in Normandy of tho rational care of babies, including the use of humanised milk, shows that while the death rate among infants averaged 55 for the four principal towns, the death rate among babies whose mothers attended the depots and got proper advice and food was less than 3 per cent. —in other words, only one-twentieth of tho mortality which took place among the babies whoso mothers persisted in going their own way in spite of warnings and advice.