OUR BABIES

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2878, 16 September 1916, Page 5

OUR BABIES

fBY HTGSU.I A NUESE'S LBTTEE. should very much like to ask your advico about a baby I bare under carq. alio is now fivo and a half months, old, and weighs 101b. lOoz. Her birth weight Is unknown, but she was in good condition'at birth. . , "I put her 011 No. 1 Huro&uised Milk in April; before that she was on a patent food. She lms never done very much, putting on 2oz. or 3fz. a week '/hen eczema eet in. "I found the milk was poor, and set 60oz. to got tlw right proportion ot fat. X asked the, doctor who was attending lier whether X might try egg yolk, and he agreed; so she lias nad that three or four times a week. _ She is constipated in spite of orange juice, prune juice, and olive oil. "Her hvgienio conditions are Quito good, but she is thin and flabby, and the eczema continues on face and head., one I la a very good baby, smiles every time one looks at her, and is s ßM®r cross. She is always hungry, and is led ©very two and a half hours. She scwis to digest her fooff,* as her motions are good, though constipated. "What I cannot understand '8 what became of the large quantities of food she took. She did not use it up in onergy, heat, growth, or weight, little comparatively passed away in retuae. ■REPLY. It is impossible to give an opinion with regard to the baby you write about, as wo liave not sulii'cient data to go upon. You do not say how much food the 5 baby actually took in. the 2*l hours. It would be necessary to know this exactly, aiu. also the exact composition of the food, before hazarding an opinion. It would not have been sufficient nr istate how much tho baby was supposed to be taking, but any food loft in her bottles would have had to be kept sum measured, and the amount subtracted from the quantity offered to l"=r. U> doing so an exact have been 'obtained. The great point in iiifant-teoding is j'arrvo «t tho "optimum'"—in other words the quantity' ol' food -best suited for inducing normal growth, and gain in weight; the use of anything beyond this mny retard growth more than keeping tho baby on short corfimona. Tour speculations us to what couk have becomo of tho food, scoins that there, ivae 110 apparent excess of matovin n the motions, and yet there iras little caiii' in weight, were natural; but there is a fallacy. 'Such a child may be expending useless energy in tho dtoccss.o. digesting, assmilating, and burning an oxcess of\food, and it might be gtvij off more thii* tlie normal excreta in tue form oi' carbonic acid gas from tho Jun£> *.nd urea from the kidneys—tneso k° lll S the main excreta in any ease. Many dyspeptics take an excess of iood, and remain feeble and emaciated nntu tner dipt is restricted io "what i& within their normal capacity; then thcy v may s bcgia to put on flesh quite satisfactorily.

HORACE FLETCHER. . The ca.so of Horaco 3?ietcher,_ which has given rise to a new word, "rietcncrism," well illustrates the point. lms mau, an American, was an apparently hopeless wreck, iinft invalid through indigestion, when hp entered on a- courso of experiment to boo how little food no could do with, provided it vcs oaten slowly and well masticated. f>ir foichifel Foster, Professor Chittenden, of loli University, and other leading physiolo-g-ists, woro amazed at tho resur. 11 lotcher not only beca-mo strong ant! weir, but when using not much more than half what had been regarded a3 the standaid allowance of food for man taking a feir amount of exercise, ho became quite athletic, though a middle-aged man. Fletcher's views have, been developed into a fad and carried to excess, but thoy contain ivn important underlying truth. Here was a.man who had been dull, torpid, badly nourished, and his last legs" because ho was giving ms internal organs too much work to do Tho fact is that most of tho energj derived from our food is used up in the internal running of . the organism, digesting assimilating, breathing, absorbing, secreting, excretjng, • circulating _tUo blood, ctc. If wo take au excess of food wo can thrust so much unnecessary and harmful work on the internal organs that other energies aro sapped, and presently nutrition itself fails. .Nothing renders a; person more flabby, dull, torpid, and sleepy than taking too much food, and. this is aggravated if the. naturo of the food is not that best adapted to the retirements.

Eggs for' Babies.

for babies, in a considerable proportion of eases tho yolk disagrees; and this may also apply to the waite. This matter is specially referred to by leading Continental authorities, and they tend to advise the' withholding of CRgs, 6ay, until after 15 months, and then to proceed cautiously. This is perhaps an extremo -new, but it is worth bearing in mind.

Von Pirquet's Work,

'l'he scentific work which most impressed us in Kurope in 1913, curiously enough, ■was Professor \ 7 on tirquet's experiments and demonstrations at Vienna University, dc-nling with the, results of overfeeding babies. Vori ifirciuet's.' diagrams' show very beautifuilly how, if the. amount ot food is kept below a certain minimum, gain in weight cannot take place. When the quantity of food is gradually increased a point is reached at which weight 'remains stationary. .' This Von Pirguet calls the "minimum." If tho food is cautiously increased further a stajre is reachcd at which gain is most rapid. This Von. Pirquet calls the "optimum" (though really the. best quantity to give would be"'rather .iess than wha.t would produce tho greatest ■ gain in weight, since we 6hould be overstraining the digestion. and tending ..to overfatton for the time being and'tending also to bring about a condition 'which would bo fallowed by a reaction and some'jntolerance of food). ' Food- pressed, beyond the "optimum" may not obviously do any harm for a few days, though the excessive internal work thrown on tho body is in reality injurious, and in a few days more the increase in weight begins to water. When the. allowance is further increased, gain in weight ceases, and if tho excess of food is continued tho baby begins to lost) weight. Our own experiences have been in entire accord with Von Pirquet's findings. Thus, in the ease of the baby referred to on pages 5S and 59 of the Society's book, "feeding and Care of Baby," the weight chart showed a remarkably' uniform and satisfactory gain week after week. Then there came a week in which the baby scarcely gained at all. On charting the food allowance and weight 'curve it was found that tha mother, during this last week, had increased the allowance of food to 2oz. above tho normal. ' The allowance of food was at once reduced to loz. below the average requirement (i.e., 3dz. less than the mother was giving). The result of this reduction was a normal increase in weight. Lengthen the Intervals. A gradual extension of the intervals botween feeding from two and a half to four hours ought to be tried. Probably thß resulting rest and timo for rccuperation would prove highly beneficial. Indeed, this extension of time alone might stop .tho tendency to eczema. Another points to bear- in miud is that reduction of sugar often makes all the difference in cases of eczema, its place boing taken more or less completely .by dextroso or even malt extract. •You say the hygienic conditions were good; but was the baby a true fresh-air baby; did tho mother massage her flabby limbs, etc., and give her sufficient exerciso and sensory stimulation—in fact, did she attend carefully to all the esses, tials for health laid down on pages 1 and 2 of the society's .book?