OUR BABIES

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 160, 2 April 1921, Page 5

OUR BABIES

(By “Hygoia.”) r Published under the auspices of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children. “It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom.” HUMANISED MILK. What it is and What It is Not. After 15 years or consistent advocacy <on the part of the Plunket Society of the systematic adapting and modifying of cow’s milk for baby feeding where artificial feeding has to be resorted to, it seems strange that there should be any doctors or nurses holding wrong ideas as to our views, aims, and objects In that connection. /

From time to time a. Tlunket nurse still finds herself confronted with the questions: "Why does the society back humanised milk so strongly?” “Don’t you think you claim too much for it?” “Why don't you recommend something else?’’ The answer to all three questions is very simple. No Plunket nurse backs or recommends humauised milk if she can persuade or enable the mother to breastfeed her child; sho always explains that all forms of artificial feeding in early infancy are inferior .feeding, and that bottle-feeding should never be adopted except as a last resort. The Plunket nurse never tells the mother that humanised milk is the same or as good as human milk; on the contrary, she admits its shortcomings, but she points out that it is the best and safest substitute for mother's milk. The Plunket Society simply maintains that if baby cannot have the inestimable boon and privilege of being suckled—in other words fed naturally with the pure perfect food, filtered and distilled by the Almighty from the mother's blood—it is our duty to make such reparation as we can. and to show the mother J>ow to imitate human milk as nearly as possible. No Plunket-nurse ever says that humanised milk builds splendid babies, though she knows that with due care and attention to all the various requirements of infancy, strong, healthy babies can be reared on properly-prepared milk. Of course, it would be absurd to suppose that any such child would not be prejudiced in some direction by deprivation in all that is implied in being suckled. What harm is there in using, simple, good cow's milk, cane sugar, and water for baby-feeding; why should w» not gradually train the infant to tolerate, digest, and make use of whole cow’s milk bv -he time he is-six or nine months of

age? Tho great reason against this Btill common practice is that it runs counter to the whole scheme of Nature: that it puts an excessively heavy strain on the diges.tire organs, tends to poison the system, more or less, and gravely overtaxes the liver and kidneys—always kept hard at, work in their efforts to purify the blood and burn and get rid of the poisonous waste products of the body. The babyeven the healthiest baby is a constant poison factory', and fatal poisoning is only prevented by the unceasing work which goes on day and night in the excretary organs. If we train a baby to tolerate diluted cow’s milk, irfctead of depriving such milk of its great exhess of casein, we double or even treble the work of the kidneys, af.d upset more or less the stability and balance of the whole organism—including the brain and nervous system. The Whole Organism Damaged. If by giving a baby milk Intended for a calf—which has to grow three times as quickly as a baby—wo merely overtaxed and damaged tho liver and. kidneys, and ptedlsposed the victim to Bright s disease, it would he bad enough-hut we do much more than this, we damage the whole organism. One can never monkey, with Nature with immunity. There is always a nemesis in store which will manifest itself eooner or jater. ■What the Plunket Society really wants in to get the best done for the babies; it wants to ensure to every child as near sn approach to his natural rights as possible. The following lx the order o’" the society’s backing of babies for the great long-distance race of life:—111 lhe breast-fed baby, m The partially breast, ■fed babv. Every drop of mothers milk is 'precious. G) The baby fed artificially with the nearest approach to mother s milk • i.e. the best, humanised milk made bv modifying and adapting rood, fresh cow’s milk (4> The baby fed. with second best humanised milk made by modifying and adapting condensed milk, dried milk, or doubtful- grades of dairy milk. Outside such rational care and precautions the Plunket Society backs no babies for the race of life. But .it dqes its best to help and save all babies—indeed, most of the time of the Plunket nurses is taken up trying to get children who have been wrongly treated on to some better track. Of course, to get the beat results all the other simple means of the baby (see pages 1 and 2, t “Feeding and Care of Baby”) must be attended to. We have been dealing with food only in this article.