OUR BABIES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 121, 15 February 1919, Page 7

OUR BABIES

\)U m'GKIA.I

Published under tho auspices of tho Royai i\ T ew Zealand Society lor tno Health of Women and Cluldron. "It is wiser to put ui> n leucu it tno top of a precipico than to ambulance at the bottom.

AJ? INSTRUCTIVE CASE. Frnm time to time Motorics of babies are submitted to us lor comment and advice Tho following recent cast -nill u<j interestinir and helpful to parents ai ""Koto, on tho Case as S'.PPMAt nine weeks of age the baby a mw ld it^vSr^d°that 'nothing wo»ld improve tlie milk supply, so . tary had been resorted to. i j * , is verv careful, and does ineutiling iiiJj is necbssary; but she toks is somewhat spoiled. 13 a3 y, healthy, takes all his food, l.a .good mo tions. is never s ck, is firm but .ot iru and is kept. outside always Ho ij Bleep during the day. and i . wnkenu at nieht, He screams a good deal, some times for two hours at a time, and nothing wiil pacify hiui. At seven month, he was getting through 40oz. or n'jman fsed milk daily, and he was said to be always hungry. COMMENT. While it is very difficult to deal » for her own child, or can be rnaut 14, hi by auy reasonable approach towaiub pio nP i« hVErienc on her part, ten jears «v 8 0, Fmproised by the statements of various writers and of mothers theni»elre; » to their milk diMsreeir.g with the babs. were prepared to believo that- it v• • an extremely uncommon thine for uio Almighty to fail mother andchild_m tliw most important matter; but adds to our conviction that, nnp-iking one may assume thcie is no Sift wrong with a mother's mto. especially lor her own 'baby, and.tut, if her habits aro reasonable, tho Iduuit of a breaßt-fed baby to thrive miM be duo to causes other than t-lio tion of her milk. Formerly i\e ly got mothers milk suckled baby was not flourifchiuk, but the oomoos tion so rarely deviated much from tho noi-mal that wo became satisfied that wo mast look in other directions for (he educes underlying the non-thri\ing °l ! oin:"ii.-VitU rare exceptions, where a bibv fails to thrive ou a normal supply nf iis mother's milk, and oil this account the 'baby ;s weaned and fed artilicially, he thrives even less satisfactorily "J 'he course of a week or two on the artificial food, though • it may have appeared to suit him at-first.. Almost any of the ordinary cimnses in a baby» *°°,4 .M* cause a temporary lessoning ot distiiro rnces This has been attributed to the new food proving unsuitable at first to the microbe infesting the . alimentary tanaC ivhish have ben causing troublesome symptouie. However, in quite a short time a new generation or class or mi'iobes, iuct as hostile, or more so, than the first, tVani, flourishes in the new contents of tho alimentary canal, and often proves a worso enemy than the first tl Po°nt 3.— Orcrfesdiiig is by far the com- [ monest anil msit serious error mado in ! tho case cf breast-fed bstbies, especially during tho first month.. We have P™ved this over and over again, Indeed, tliosp of us cloßeily associated with tho Kan-tane-Harris Hospital liavo comc assume, -practically as a, matter °i cou"C' that, if a baby has failed to do well at the breast, and even if it has been weaned on this account-Jor several weeks. ; 'we shall be &ble to set. things right in i tho course of a very snort sojourn at : tho Kaiitanb Hospital merely by regu- i luting tho mother's liaoits and dealing . with her and her , baby on tho lines in- . dicated on pages 11 to 17 of the society s pamphlet. "Natural Feeding of Infants. Wo cannot sufficiently emphasiso tho transcendent importance of bringing homo to everyono who has to do with the late of babies the fact that without tho means of having n, failing breast-fed infant balanced accurately beforo and after nursing each timo for a complete period of M hourß with scales that can be trusted to ireigh to » auarter of an ounce, alt attempts at treatment aro mere guesswork and empiricism. , If it is objected that there aro difficulties in tho path, of anyone trying to got such weighing carried out properly, wo oan only say that wo liavo never found tlieso difficulties insuporablq. We hnvo repeatedly induced parents in this country whom nve havo never seen to borrow tho grocer's Bcaleß from Saturday to Monday and wo havo successfully directed them how to get a . baby on the right track bv means of directions telegraphed on the Monday ill response to a message received by telegram that morning gnitie the results of tho weighings. When in England nearly years ago • Dr. Truby King had two nurses working among the very lowest slum population of London, keeping a dozon weighing machines constantly going so as to obtain accurate records in regard to UlO breastfeeding of between 50 and 60 babies. Some of these records were continued for four months, and the nurses -were surprised to find what could bo done under very adverse circumstances in the way of establishing satisfactory breast-feeding. One of tho most interesting cases mb odo whore a, mother had made the most disa-s-I trows failuro in tho rearing of her two previous babies, both of whom had become piteoUßly ricketty and deformed, On going to one of tho London schools for mothers, blio had been told that, as the baby was not thriving on her milk, buo must begin to supplement. She applied to one of Dr. King's nurseß to nsl{ if there Tvero no other course opon to her, Boeing tho disastrous condition that had been brought about through/ early bottle-feeding in provious cases, and the excellent* way in which her two first children, brought no solely on the 'breast, had thriven. Those people were exceedingly poor; they had only about 17s. 6d, a. week for a large family. The mother i?as given half a pint of extra milk a dayfor herself, besides beinfir directed what to do in other ways to improve her breast supply. Ihreo months later tho nurse and the mother brought the baby, a picture of health and fitness, for exhibition at a meeting which Dr. King addressed at tho Imperial Institution. The child was being solely breast-fed, and -was gaining at. the normal rate. This baby was actually used at tho meeting for demonstrating how wo balance the babies before and after nursing. , Point 4.—Between 11 and 13 weeks of ago 1 baby gained lloz, for the fortnight, being an average of sioa. a week. Of course, tho recorded gain for the last week,was only 30z.; but one docs not regard a-single variation as reliable, bccausc of the vary, ing conditions as to tho fullness or emptiness of bladder, rectum, et<\ Now sJoz. <a week means a gain at tho rate of just over lilb. a calendar month of tho average 30.V days-or tho normal increase. ißut -wero the gain only at half the normal rate tho whole effort should in tlio oaso of a breast-fed baby, to bring mother and child tip to tho normal stan* • dard by overy ia-vaila-blo meanß. and not to countenance the giving of any artificial food •whatever, except as a last resource. On the whole, the uso of bottlo-fccdmg in tho oarly months, even though it, is only intended to give a few ounces, menus tho abandonment of brenst-focding in a short time-; and wo axe almost as much air aid of the use of the bottle in the case of young babies as was the London mother we have referred to. The« notes aa to giving humanised milk at an fcarly stage, when the baby had begun to pain fairly well on the breast, aro puzzling, and wo do not understand

how a baby o-ould possibly thrive aad go up properly in -weight when taking, and apparently assimilating, a quart of .milk though its weight wis only ISJIb. (weighed in clothes) and ago a littlo over six months.

Tho craving for, food, screaming, etc., point not to normal hunger, but to, anabnormal ravenmisncss due to indigestion, etc., caused by irritation and overfeeding "Graving" is always mure insistent than normal appetite, yet it is an indication for reducing and not increasing the quantity o£ food. The more food one gives a baby with an Abnormal craving and indigestion, the less possible does it become for tho child to gain or even sustain its weight.