OUR BABIES

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2765, 8 May 1916, Page 3

OUR BABIES

TBT HYGIU/I Published under the auspices of the Boyal New Zealand Health Society for the Health of Women and Ohildren. "It is wiser to put up a. fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." THE SOCIETY'S BOOK. The society's book, entitled "Feeding and Caio of Baby," can bo obtained from the Matron, Karitane-Harris Hospital, tho Plunket Nurses, and the honorary . secretaries of the societies. Price, Is. As the book has now teen registered to go by magazine, post, the postage is only ljd., including the war stamp. "Feeding and Care of Baby" can also be obtained from the leading booksellers throughout the Dominion. THE USE AND ABUSE OF CASTOR OIL. A bottle of castor oil is to be found in almost every home, and there is probably no better household .at i rient lor use where a. baby is suffering from an ordinary sudden attack of infantile diarrhoea. The advantage cf castor oil for.clearing out the bowels at the start of diarrohea, is that, by a secondary action, it tends to be constipating.

Now, this secondary, aE.trin.gent, 6inding, or constipating tendency of castor oil is the very reason why it. should not be used whore a toby is suffering from constipation, bcrause with each successive dose tho taby is left more and more bound.

Another common abuse of caster oil is tho giving of a small dose to t!7o sowborn baby. This meddlesome notion of artificially cleansiug tno system of tho natural blackish-green contents of the bowel in the first few days of life is wrongj and harmful—no purgative of any. kind should bo needed, and the routine use of castor oil is quite unjustifiable. . A third mistake which mothers are liable to make in regard to castor oil is the use' of the medicine when a child is seized with sudden acute abdominal pain. In this connection I cannot do better than quote a warning which appeared somo time ago in the British Medical Journal. The author was Dr. Moynihan, the leading English authority of tho day on the surgical aspects of intestinal disorders. Ho wrote as follows:— AVOID APERIENTS.

"By some means or another parents should be made to _ know that the dosing of children with aperients is an evil, and that they must put a check upon those 'purgative-loving propensities' which seem inseparable from motherhood. I would like to have the power to write in every nursery in the Kingdom in large letters in the most prominent placo the two words —Avoid Aperients. "To give aperients to children suddenly seized with acute abdominal pain is homicidal, yet it hardly occurs to any mother or nurse-to do anything but this, tho most disastrous thing of all. '-.

"The onset of sudden intense pain in the belly is Nature's special dangersignal pointing to obstruction of the bowels by.kinking or tucking-in, and is also her way of proclaiming the onset of appendicitis. Nurses ought to know that tho pain may not be in the 'ower part of the belly, where the appendix is situated, but at the top of the belly, in the region of the 'pit- of the stomach.' This. fact is most misleading, both to parents and nurses, because they aro apt to conclude that the child has 'swallowed something.'•

"The first symptoms of an attack of acute appendicitis, is pain. It is always pain, and never sicknessor vomiting, nor mal-aise, nor any other symptom whatever. The pain is absolutely abrupt in onset. ... It may be rapidly followed by shivering, sharp rise of temperature, vomiting, diarrhoea, etc." What, does the mother do in such a case!' Having jumped to tho conclusion that the child has been eating green fruit, or other indigestible food, sne flies to the castor-oil bottle. The proper treatment is absolute starvation, ijvon water being given sparingly, if at all, until the doctor arrives. Tha child should be put to bed, and hot .fomentations should be applied to the abdomen. Such measures can do no harm, always afford some relief, and are equally applicable to sudden obstruction of the bowel. In either case the use of purgatives and delay in calling in medical aid, often puts the clu'ld beyond the hope of recovery before the doctor arrives on the scene. Castor, oil docs not cure constipation, but makes it worse.