OUR BABIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 651, 14 March 1914, Page 2

OUR BABIES.

Published under the auspices of the 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."

FAILURE IN NURSING

Iti this and the next article I purpose giving some idea of common causes of failures to nurse their babies in cases of mothers who are anxious to do so. The illustrations will be drawn from instances which came under our notice recently in the Old World.

Before going into detail it is desirable to make perfectly clear that the power to completely nurture a baby for nine months, or even longer, should be taken as a matter of course in the case of every normal human mother, just as it IB the case of every normal mammal. However, under the conditions o.f modern civili sation a considerable proportion of mothers do not succeed in supplying enough miik for their babies for the ful period. MAIN CAUSES OP FAILURE.

Tha main causes of failure are:—

1.. The fact that the mother herself reared artificially on preparation not well adapted for the perfect development of the whole organism.—ln vestigations have clearly shown that where a mother has failed to suckle her baby girl, the daughter tends to fail aleo when her time comes. This proves that, where artificial feeding has to be re orted to, the utmost care should be takfn to make the prepared food resemble human milk as nearly as possible. If proper care is taken there is no reason why artificially fed infants should tail as mothers 2. Defective or one-sided growth and development. A flat-chested, poorly-developed, pale-faced delicate office girl or sempstress is not likely to make the best of mothers from any point of view, though it'is wonderful how much such women sometimes do in spite of everything, if they taKe proper care of themselves after marriage.

On the other hand, there is abundant evidence that powerful, muscular women, who have been too exclusively trained at college? to high mental pro cfiiency and great skill in gymnsstics, golf, tennis, etc., are apt to fail in all aspects of motherhood simply because the various, part 9 of the body particularly concerned in motherhood, including special brain and nerve tracts, have been more or less left out of account, and have failed to develop properly. If the nutrition and energising of the organism are concentrated throughout girlhood on mere intellectuality, and the development of bone and muscle to the exclueion of the domestic and more strictly womanly, home loving, and child-loving side of life, there is found to be some lack of the "eternal womarly" in the adult. In no direction is this more cleßrly seen than in the failure to properly nourish offspring, however anxious the mothi-r may be to do bo. 3. Neglect of any of the essentials mentioned in pages 3 to 15 of the Society'b book, "Feeding and Care of Baby," mny militate against the power to completely nurse the baby. Chief among these causes are:— Corset-wearing, lack of foresight and lack of healthy habits during pregnancy and nursing, especially insufficiency of open-air exercise; neglect of the breasts, etc.; careless as to diet and feeding habits; the presence of constipation, etc. All such mistakes tend in the same direction. But in spite of everything there are very few modern mothers who cannot manage to nurse their babies completely or partially for nine months if £bey will give reasonable attention to what is needed even so late in the day as after the birth of the baby, though, of course, their chances would be in finitely better in esery way if they looked ahead in due time. It cannot; be too fctrong'y impresseri on women that in the natural the mother should have ample milk for twins. This is clearly shown by the fact tbat, in hospitals on the Continent, it is quite a common thing for a city mother to be able to supply ample milk for two or three babies for long periods. At the Kaiserin-Augusta-Victoria Hans, in Berlin, we were shown a mother who was giving daily no less than six pints of milk, and was going up in weight herself. 4. Oveifeeding the Baby. Strange as it may ssem, this is a frequent cause of failure in the milk supply. Instead of cutiously training the baby in the first week by starting with nursing for only a few minutes every three or four hours, and gradually working up to nursing of 30 to 15 ujinutes, the nurse often tries to get baby to take as much as it can by frequent feeding and prolonged suckling. The same mistake is made in the succeeding weeks, the baby being commonly fed every two hours. A frequent result is that for a week or mors the baby gains in weight more quickly than the average, then indigestion sets in, the baby becomes restless and irritable, the mother loses her sleep also, and the milk supply begin* to dwindle. First the baby's weight becomes stationary, then it begins to gc downhill. When loss rather than gain has been noticed at aeveral weighings mother is ordered t' give a bo'itlefeeding in place of one of the breast feedings, then two complete bottle feedings, and soon, and in a short time it is decided thp.i the baby must be weaned. The mother is told that there is somethng radically wrong with the quality of her milk, because the baby yells i.fter the breast feedings, but is contented after the bottle feedings. In reality it is a very rare thing indeed for mother's milk to disagree unless her habits are very far wrong. In the great majority of these cases the supply of mother's milk has been caused to fall short of the quantity required, and the baby cries simply because he is not getting enough—-

perhaps only a half or a third of the quantity allowed at each feeding by bottle.

I shall give a very interesting illustrative case next week where a baby, who was failing before it was a month old in exactly the way I have described, was quickly restored to a nourishing condition by first ascertaining what was the shortage in the mother's supply by means of weighine the baby before and after nursing, and proceeding to systematically make up the deßciency by giving only just what wss needed after each nursing. To keep up full stimulation of the breasts the baby was sucked at each feeding time, only the amount needed to make up the full quantity being given by bottle Further, both breasts were used at each nursing. The feedings were reduced in number from 10 to six in the 24 hours, and no night feeding was allowed. The baby qtnckly went up more than an ounce a day, and soon became the picture of health and chubbiness. At the same time the mother's health and spirits rose, and the milk supply steadily increased.

Yet another this mother had been told that her milk was poisonous, and that it was absolutely necessary to wean the b«by She was well to do. and had what would be called every advantsgp, yet thin a3 the third baby that for no other reasons than such as have been given, had been condemned to artificial feeding. The mother was most anxious to nurse her children, and had every natural quality, jihysical, mental, and moral, tending to perfect womanhood? —a good mother defeated through wrong counsel