OUR BABIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 734, 6 January 1915, Page 6

OUR BABIES.

Published undfer the auspices of the Society for the Health'; of Women and Children. "It is wiser to put|lip a fence at the top of a precipice thau';lcf maintain an y ambur lance at the bottom." THE CURSE OF SUMMEU. While summer time is deliehtful to all of us and its warm days and bright sunshine tempt people into the open air, and thus tand to banish the "colds," sore throats, and "chest affections" of the damper, chillier seasons of the year-while this healthgiving effect of summer on young and old alike is .recognised in every, temperate region of the world, it ia also found that summer kills far more babies than any other season of the year.. x . Why is this? Why should summer not be the safest instead of the moßt dangerous time of the year for infants? r , The reason "is not far to esek. Most babies are fed on liquid ford which is specially liable to fermentinjwarm weather. Milk becomes infested with microbes; in other words, goes bad and becomes poisonoup, more readily than any other food, and if we Rr« not careful in the selection of a milktaan it may have gone bad in warm weather before reaching the home. So lolng as an infant is suckled, and the mother is not only regular, cleanly, , and careful in her habits,-but also gives the baby all his simple primary rightsoutings, fresh air, sunlight, exercise, etc. —there is tjo safer season than summer. But, however careful the mother may be as to general bygience, summer is dangeroup, and often fatal, if there is eny carelessness in artificial feeding—whether resorted/ to in the . early months or coming in the.- natural course later on at •weaning or afterwards —simply because the microbes grow apace in warm weather if milk is not properly attended to, SUMMER DIARRHOEA. Why should diarrhoea single out babies and calves and leave the rest of nurslings more or less exempt from this special curse of summer. In warm Weather the young of horses,- pigs, dogs, cats, and the rest ere almost uniformly healthy,' while calves in all directions are victims to '.'scouring," and few babies escape the same Bcourge "under the name of I'summßt diarrhoea." WHY DOES NATURE SINGLE OUT CALVES AND BABIES? Cslves are sacrificed because man takes. the cow's milk for himself, and feeds the calf out of a bucket. The baby is sacrifice 3 because the mother's breast is denied tfii if also, improper ■ ;-f ."cdYi taiiii h a ted'", with germs, is substituted for the pure, perfect, blood-wann; living stream direct from the proper source. ~ The important practical question; which we have to face at the present moment is this: — Are ill-health and diarrhoea inevitable during summer time for calves and babies who cannot be.suckled? Certainly not! In both cases the trouble arises, not from the mere fact, of artificial feeding, but because

proper care is-not exercised to Becure suitable food, ard to prevent fermentation. For babies, humanisGd milk supplies by far the neurest approach to the mother's milk, and if kept cool and given according-■ to -the directions contained in the instructions issued by the Society, there would be little risk of disease. Even with breast-feeding a baby may suffer from summer diarrhoea, but immediate suitable treatment of such infants, or of those wiio,have been judiciuualy fed by artificial mears soon bring 3 about recovery in the great majority of case's. ..v.'. Among babies who have been improperly fed, on the other hand, the risk of death from, an attack of diarrhoea is very great indeed, and lasting debility is often left where the baby does not actually succumb. _ ... DEATH TOLL OF DIARRHOEA. . Professor Budin showed that the number of artificially-fed babies who died in Paris per week;was about 20 in winter, bat that in mid-summer the deaths rose to almost 250 per week. This is very strikingly shown in a diagram given on page 40 of the Society's pamphlet, "What' Baby Needs." '

A rise in the death rate among infants during warm weather similar to thn above occurs in -New Zealand, varying with the locality and the heat Of the . particular Bummer. Knowing the cause, the disease is one of the most easily preventable, and the mother who" allows her to suucumb during the next few months should feel, in nine cases out of ten, that she has herself to blame. It ia not nature or Providence that inflicts the curse of summer diarroea, but the mother herself. That this is literally and absolutely true will be realised by anyone dinsuiting the Paris diagram, which shows that over 1000 babies died in I six weeks when the weather was warmeßt. Among brea3t-fed babies the death rat 9 for the aame period averaged only 20 per week. The deaths that did take place in either class were mainly the result of ignorance and carelessness—especially careless feeding of mother -and chili, the use of the long tube feeder, lack of fresh air and exercise, irregular habits, failure to keep the breasts and the clothing covering them clean, and use'of dummy or comforter for the baby. During the same three or four [fatal summer months scarcely a death from diarrhoea occurred among the babies whose mothers were availing themselves of rational advice tendered at the four creches then established in Paris on modern linvs. About half of these more fortunate babies were suckled, and the rest Were bottle fed with 'milk supplied at the special'"Babiss' Milk Depot.", In the provinces a similar result has been achieved.- Thus Dr Dufour, the pioneer in Normanby ok .„ the rational care of babies, including ?ihe use of humanised milk, Bhows that while the death irate among infants averaged 55 for the four principal towns, the death rate among bpbies whose mothers attended the depots and got proper advice and food -was less than 3 per cent.—in other words, only oiie-twentieth of. the - mortality which took place among the 'babies whose mothers persisted in going their own way in spite of warnings and advice. ' '