OUR BABIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 587, 23 July 1913, Page 7

OUR BABIES.

(By Hygeia).

MASTICATION. The following letters show the keen interest which parents take in the fundamental problems we have been discussing, and also the difficulties which confront them:— Letter I. —'As apparent I, Jike hundreds of others, are am much indebted and grateful to "Hygeia" for the useful information contained in ' Our Babies" Column. The articles on mastication are particularly instructive. Might 1 ask "Hygeia" to supplement the instructions by giving next Thursday a lißt of articles of diet which will provide a mastication'. 7 With adults who concentrate their minds and are determined to masticate it is less difficult to find materials for mastication, but what is there that can be given to children that will force them to maßticate whether they wish or not? I have been puzzling over the problem, with little success so far. Letter ll.—l should be extremely obliged if you will post to the above address any of your literature on the feeding of children. My child is three years old, v and has so far been fed on "slops,'/ as the doctors call soft foodß and milk. We want to know your opinion upon the feeding of children of this age, and I will gladly pay for literature, etc., upon recepit of same. Letter 111.' —I have read with much interest the article on mastication in Saturday's Post. For some time 1 have had the same ideas about so much soft food being given to chil dren, but 1 find it hard to think of a diet for my boy of 20 months — that is, a diet that demands a fair amount of mastication. REPLY. The problem how to provide the modern human being with food that will ensure full mastication is a very difficult one. The crux of the difficulty lies, as one of our correspondents says, in bringing a child to masticate properly who has not been trained to do so from the beginning, and who has not reached the age when the will can be involved to bring about a chewing of food when it is not of a character which necessitates mastication prior to swallowing. DON'T MISS THE GOLDEN OP- - PORTUNITY. If we fail to satisfy a baby's natural desire for something hard to masticate at the time when this instinst first asserts itself—say, at about six or seven months of age, when a bone may be given to munch at, followed by hard food a few months later—the instinct tends to die out, and there is great difficulty in re-establishing it but it must be re-established if we wish our children to have strong serviceable jaws and teeth, and if we wish them to escape the modern tendency to adenoids, swollen tonsils, and the chain of other evils which follow on "pap" feeding. If the habit of merely swallowing food has been formed, not only is the instinct to chew lost, but if an effort is made to masticate properly the jaws soon become weary, and refuse to do their work completely. In adults the habit of proper mastication can be developed by gradually and persistently using the jaws and teeth. If this is done the task becomes less irksome day by day, and soon passes into a natural, unconscious, routine habit, no longer needing to be actuated by the will. However, for a long time vigilance must not ba relaxed, because of the tendency to fall back again, into laziness and the swallowing of halfchewed food. TAKE FOOD THAT NEEDS WORK The great aid in this matter is to take at each meal a fair proportion of food that can scarcely be swallowed without a considerable amount of chewing and insalivation. It is true that by the exercise of a strong will one can force one's self to chew a meal of soft, mushy food, but the ta3k is much easier and the results are much better in regard to the proper pouring out of digestive juices if a fair proportion of the food is more or less dry, and of such a texture as to offer sufficient resistance to the jaws and teeth. This is specially the case in early childhood. If all the food given is more or Jess soft and moist a baby cannot be trained to chew thoroughly, and the glands cannot be induced to fully insalivate such food. On the other hand, if the jaws are properly exercised from the start by giving bones to gnaw at or munch prior to the eruption of the teeth, and if the first solid food allowed is such aB requires munching—crusts, dry toast, rusks, etc —The masticating reflex or instinct will be developed. Then even when some soft food is given in addition this ialso will be more or less chewed instead of being merely gulped downa s a bolus.