OUR BABIES

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 167, 10 April 1920, Page 5

OUR BABIES

IB f Htobia.T •

Published under the auapiceii of tho Itoynl New Zealand Society for the , Health of V, r oracn and Ohildreif. "It Ib wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at Ibe bottom." TWO QUESTIONS. A mother, writing of the parly days after hot- baby's birth, asks whether she was wise in refusing to be (emote. 1 by alittle vegetable marrow, bccause sue hail previously found that marrow sometimes disagreed with her. :■ She. puts a further question, asking if she would be wjw in trying gradually to habituate the baby later ;o tolerating the disturbing cffecls which, judging from her own previous experience, a little marrow taken by herself might tend to exercise over the quality of her milk in the direction of making it disagree with the baby. As other readers of this column may have similar ciuestionings with regard to particular articles of diet, wo shall deal with the matter on general principles'. ■ REPLY. 11) There is not the slightest doubt that when laid up in bed after childbirtn a woman should avoid anything and everything that she knows by previous experience tends 1o upset her iiv any way. It, does not suffice to adopt a regimen whlcn .may be perfectly suitable to ninety-nine women out of a hundrcc placed in similar circumstances, if such regimen Includes, for instance a singie article of food tlct us say vegetable marrow) which has tended in the past to interfere with digestion ,or with feelings of comfort and well-being. It does not mattor in the slightest whether this tendency to disagree arises from the intrinsic nature of tho food, or is due to the fact that the ■mother has not been in the habit of chewing it sufficiently, or to a personal peculiarity in her oivn digestive organs. 'Hie first fortnight after childbirth should never bo chosen as the time for making experiments of any kind. The food taken by.the lying- : n mother should be of a kind that previous expcrienco has indicated as beuelicial and suitable, not only in its genoral nature, but suited to herself; and, let. me emphatically repeat, the diet at such times must not include food materials which past experience has ready indicated as tending for any reason to dsagree. (2) The sccond question is not so easily, answered, l'eople in general are- far too apt' to .indge of the intrinsic digestibility or indigestibility of a food material by the results which they have observed to follow on til# taking of such substancn by themselves, or the report of similar experiences !>V others. Disagreement, la regarded as unquestionable evidence of indigestibility, whereas, in reality, it maj 1)0 nothing of the kind. l'ain in the abdomen, flatulence, etQ., arising after taking food is assumed to aUord a simple illustration of cause and eiiect—the food alone being' taken into account, not the way in which the food has been dealt with by the person taking it. A noted physician was'in the habit of telling his patients that they suffered from indigestion bccause they did not take enough indiiestible food. The Beeming paradox is not difficult to explain. Digestion means, in general, the process by which food is dissolved ■ and absorbed into tho circulation; and naturally thoso substances will bemost readily and qufckly absorbed which need the lea&t. work to be dono on them by the digestive juicesr-in order to enable them tO'Pass in a state of clear fluid into the cells and tubes, of the body. Judged 'from this standpoint "predigested' foods—that, is to say, foods that have been partially dissolved by sub.iection to the action of extracts of the digestive glands o£ the lower animals (e.g., peptonised milk, peptonized gruel, etc.), would be rej-nrded as tho most desirable and digestible of. foods i and so they may be sometimes for temporary use during sickness-yet tho habitual adoption of such foods would tend to render tho digestive, powers of the in. dividual weaker and weaker, oil account or their failing'to give adequate work to the mouth, jaws, teeth, fitonmol*, inteu tines, and various digestive glands of thi> individual taking them: ■ A mother confined to a' peptonised diet would tend to become gradually unable properly to complete-the digestion oi even the most soluble of such preparations (much less would she be able to digest ordinary normal food). Thus it is that in the end the most easily digestible material* are capable of bringing tho whole organism • rnto a, state of extreme inefficiency—the degeneracy of Vdlencss-whiie the habitual use of foods needing a considerable amount of work to be done on them prior to swallowing would bring the whole digestive apparatus and aiomr with it the whole organism, Into a state of hig» efficiency and good health. In the case of a nursing mother the former state would be associated with absence or unfitne«s of milk supply, while the latter would naturally tend m the reverse directionthere would... bo a free flow of healthy