HERESIES OF BABY CULTURE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 265, 5 August 1919, Page 10

HERESIES OF BABY CULTURE

NEW VIEW I r OR DOCTORS. Tho question whether doctors aro properly cducatcd in regard to infant and child- welfare was raised by Dr. W. R. Ramsey. Associate Professor of Diseases of Children, University of Minnesota, at a conference held under the Local Government Board, tho,roport of which is just issued.

"Heresies lliandcd down from time immemorial still exist, ami if we are going to do anything fundamental ill regard to infant and child welfare," he said, "we must get tho doctors properly educated, we must got the nurses properly educated, and then the public will get properly educated; or else wo must cducato tho public first, and they will compel tho doctors to get educated. "I think the sooner we realise that tho medical man is regarding, for instance, the child as a miniature adult the better. I was taught that tho eamo dosage and the same things apply to infauts, only varying in degree, tut it has been found that (ihc child has a physiology and a pathology of its own, and that tho question is not one eimplv of clinical medicine, but ono of nutrition, depending upon an exact knowledge of feeding and general hygiene. "Tho average medical man approaches the child from tho pathological standpoint. He is interested in wheliher tho child lias pneumonia or ha.s a, heart, that is dilated; but ho is not particularly interested in the normal child. The normal infant is a most important thing to tho student. If he knows tho normal infant, then, of course, ho quickly recognises tho abnormal one. / "Each child is a 'law unto itself,* and must be studied individually. Certainly tho man who knows breast feeding anil insists upon it will probably save ten times moro children than tho man who knows Ihow to diagnoso pneumonia or a right-sided heart.

"There is not anything in the vnols field oii medicine that requires more judgment, more experience, and a moro thorough analysis than the question of feeding infants. A' few years ago in America probably not moro than 30 or 40 per cont. of our womon were nursing their children. The country was flooded with literature on patent foods. Women were told how much easier it was to feed their babies artificially, and that all they had to do was to add water and serve. The_ result was that doctors becamo contaminated with the idea, the nuvse6 they to,ught—or did not teach—wore imbued with the eamo opinion, and as a result tho public thought that breast feoding was practically an impossible thing." Then, by_ means of propaganda, a change set in and women soon saw that tiliey were wrong. Well-to-do people began to regard the feeding of infants as a "The people who before thought it was a disgrace to nurse their babies are now very proud of it; it i 6 quite tho thing to do." On the question of the doctor's knowledgo of infant caro and feeding, he said:—"T.hero is a tremendous lot to do yet in the way of educating the doctor. Tho average doctor to-day in the city and ih tho country has about th» samo traditions as tho average midwife or tho average grandmother regarding the cara of children. Tho doctor believes, and tho nurse backs liinj up that the baby must be bathed immediately after birtH. Tho result is that tho baity may be exposed for half an hour or moro iii a room of low temperature, and many of tihom dio as the result of tho loss of heat so caused.

"It is n very common thing to wash or swab out the baby's mouth daily, a proceeding which accounts for many of the cases of stomatitis in young infants; it brushes off the epithelium and thrush follows. Certainly a large percentage of the bad dysnepsia in young infants is due to the classic dose of castor oil being given on the third day.'" '