Our Babies

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 28 September 1917, Page 4

Our Babies

(By Hygeia)

Published under the auspices cf tfce Society for the Health of Women and Children. "It is wiser to put up a fence at tn« top of a precipice thBD to maintain n Ambulance at the bottom." Saving the Babies. Some letters from "St. Helen's Trainees," with reference to the recent deputation from, the Central Council of the Plunket Society to the Minister of Public Health, have appeared in one of the southern newspapers. We think our readers will be interested in the following letter from the Central Council which, while referring to the newspaper correspondence, deals broadly with the whole question. Latter From Central Council. To the Editor.

Sir,—The Central Council of the Plunket Society has decided, in view of the correspondence which has taken 'place in your columns, under the above head, to ask you to publish the following:—

The main facts bearing on the society's recent deputation to the Minister of Public Health, at which Mrs Truby King and Mrs Theomin acted as representatives of the Central Council, were as follow: (1) Nearly 30,000 babies are born every year in New Zealand—or say a prospective 300,000 child-immigrants to arrive in the coarse of the next 10 years.

(2) The build, health, and fitness of these children will dspend mainly on the correctness of the mother's knowledge and habits, on her health during pregnancy, and on the way in which the infants are reared throughout the first two years of life.

(3) The monthly nurse ia, to a very great extent, the arbiter of the fate of both mother and child; the destiny of the race is in the hands of the parents and nur?es. Therefore, the Plunket Society is bound to leave no stone unturned to eusure the soundest and most reliable advice and teaching possible. In New Zealand the women authorised by the Government to practise as muetbly nurses include, besides the St. Helens Nurses:—

(a) Nurses trained at other State Maternity Hospitals in the Dominion; (b) maternity nurses bringing satisfactory certificates from training institutions in other countries; women who were practising as midwives before th* passing of "The Midwives Act. 1904," and who became registered on tne ground >-i previous practical experience.

(4) The m nt-;iy nurses, drawn in this way from various tources, naturally represent very divorse views and methdds. This diversity is' speciatl> marked as regards the essentials of pre-natal care, the establishment and maintenance of breast-feeding, and the means of artificial feeding—•ll of wh c i transcendtntly important matters nave betn the subject of profound investigation and radical changes and the coarse of recent years. Instead of confusion, we now have available simple, clear, definite knowledge. Leading authorities have arrived at consistent conclusions as to what are the most fundamental requirements for the welfare of motht-r and child and incidentally,, of coarse whatmuitbe theg ounnwork of national Lealtb and efficiency in this direction.

(5) To give practical effect to this accumulating knowledge regarding motnercraft, and not to leave it confined between the covers of books and periodicals on the shelves of medical specialists, simple, precise tables and figures showing normal average requirements have been drawn up and issued by the Plunfcet Society. These have been adopted, published, and sent oat by the Government for the guidance of mother and nurse throughout the Dominion, instead of leaving them dependent on mere slip-shod goesiwork, or giving them recipes and figures more misleading than guesswork.

While, however, the Plunket Society has been fighting year after year for unity ami consistency of teaching on the lines of what patient research and investigation have shown that Nature allows the baby in the form of its mother's' milk, when both are doing well other apparently authoritative but utterly inconsistent printed instructions have been disseminated throughout the country, both from iniiisie iiiu 'f'- I '-"-.- - csifrio-' out, -A-uuki hopec•; ve t;.e aoy on the one hand, or rui ; its dige a ti..» on trie other.

We may give a single iUusrration. v.l others and' nurses ia tha Dominion nave i:ot:.!A;I(y had to cno-ase. between advic--.- r«..-7>n:aencling for m ehi;d jf oi n.i.tn-2r 3 a;j!k. ana on cfae otnt-r • : -; ; " : lS -.iv\-~ (upj.ar EU tl y *q.;al.y ast-.-.::-."iitxvc) ftiavving cos a\.er. ; gt b«t>y at a ra : .:nth old as n?«ring a mixture of wr.rch tht-, food fqu valet* t wwuld be m> less than 350z of mother's milk!

Inconsistent f,o i allowance f or babies at one m-nth and two months of ajje—taking mother's -.llk as the standard:

O <s Two month, montr-. Authority A 7j oz lhz Authority B 3 50z 360z Natura . 23pz 270z The qualitative inconsistencies have been just as absard, damaging, and indefensible. Thus the percentage of fat for a baby during the first week of life was set down as 1 per cent by Botfcority A, anc' as 8 per cent by authority B—the tatter bein, actually butter-fat, of which the average baby cannot cope with mure than*2 per cent, during the first few weeks In mother's milk th« fat is a deJicate easily-absorbed, almost oily substance' yet Nature's average allowance throughout the nine months' nursing peru>- is only 4 f t-- cent. ■■ von P.rquet, of Vienna, the leading authority i D the world on "Over-feeding Babies/' has shown that this is one of the gravest causes of death, disease, and debility in early infancy. Further, „i all the elements

in the food of bottle-fed babies, the fat of cow's milk is the constituent most liable to disagree. The experience of the. Plunket nurses shows that a large proportion of the ailing babies brought to them are suffering from malnutrition or indigestion induced by overfeeding in the first few weeks of life.

(6) The Central Council sent Mrs Truby King and Mrs Theomin to Wellington with clear instructions to see whether some means could be devised to bring about the consistency of teaching and advice necessary in the best interests of mother and child—consistency, that is to say, with Nature aDd tb'e ascertained requirements of infancy, as explained in a simple, practical way in the Stealth Department's pamphlet! prepared by the society.

It was hoped that the necessary reform would tie arrived at by merely bringing the matter before the Minister and the Chief Health Officer without publicity. Not achieving what i was needed in this way (as regards bringing the teaching of midwives op to date and making it consistent and harmonious in the directions indicated), the matter became the subject of a Parliamentary deputation, which led to the reports which have appeared in the newspapers. No attack was made or intended on the St. Helens Hospitals. In asking the Government for the privilege of Dr' King's services for all the mid-wives throughout the Dominion, we* considered we were for something which ought to be -as much appreciated by the maternity hospitals (State and private) as by the nurses themselves; and it is disappointing that some of those connected with the local St. Heleis institution should have proved themselves so sadly narrow, self-sufficient, unreceptive, and utterly incapable of seeing beyond themselves in a matter in which the society's sole desire is to bring about the further saving of some hundreds of lives a year, and the general safe guarding and well-being of all infants throughout the Dominion. 7. As every Plunket nurse must be in the first instance either—(l) A registered general hospital and maternity nurse, or (2) a registered general hospital nurse, or (3) a registered maternity nurse; she must have had general hospital training or maternity hospital training before she took the additional three or six months' special course at the Karitane-Harris Hospital. Therefore it is utterly absurd to say that any Plunket nurse has a narrower training and oatlook than'a midwife. 8. Dr Siedebtrgr mid your other corrpsp»n-:ents, "Tne St. Helens Fr-tinees," not having ha-i the Plunket training, ar* not in a position to estimate its scope, value, or influence. For the most part the K&riUne Bospital has bean in charge ,of matrons with the double qualification of a gen eral hospital and a maternity hospital, anti after further qualifying as Plunket nirs<-s they have entered on their teaching functions at the baby hospital. 'lEe statements of these nurses, selected in the first instance as exceptionally qualified and specially adapted for their work, have been singularly unif.rm, and their statements accord with thr- testimony of the St. Helens nurses who have qualified under them at Karitar.e. It will suffice to quote t' e following Smirks ma !e last week bef re'.-e Min *ur of Public Health by one of the ablest of our recent matrons —a nurse who, be'ore going in for the Plunket training, had special charge for eight months of an average of a dozen babies under 12 months of age in the children's ward at one of the best general hospitals in the Dominion.

Asked as to the knowledga of the reauirements of infancy displayed by nurses who came for training to the Karitane-Harris Hospital, the reply was:—

No nurse had any practical working knowledge of the simple principles or practices incnlated by the society. They bad no acquaintance with the contents of the Government pamphlet or-the Society's book, or tion of food on the formulae recommended. Bnl, looking back, I was equally ignorant myself when I «*ams to Karitane, and I can only say that what I acquired in my three months' training tnere and since has been<«an amazing revelation to me of s my lack <>f qualifications for advising and helping mothers at the time when I started with the societv.

Asked the further question; "Have yrru a.iv feeling that the Karitane trains g has r.arrorced or confined the cuilo.ik -as specialising mav do—to om> system to t» e exclusion of'others?" the vrphj was as follows: No, sbsoltit-ly t!i- rever««». N'othina r.as-»:.(;:•-_• broadened my mini or oft- ••'>!••- i have never h- en *'ii" :■.!!>■ ifiin,-.'- ;:: wh.ci: -.> itiji.-:: UL--r- ---■ ' :■ . uiir.K-.-.g a.i! :-icq-r.r:ru' kiioiv■Bil.L'h" :>.i>m every ,t,urce, -aid '.' n iatio al lines, was so much en" e:ur«ged, as in connection with the s ci ty. v

As safficient comment on the mfleets made by your corresponded as to the si.ciett's work and Dr Tiuhy Kirg, we may say that he h«s just re*a cablegram from Hume, ask injf Mm to go to London, placing the Martb rough Sdiool of Mothercraft at ins disposal, telling him to name a salary, and briag a nurse from New Ze? !an :.—I am, etc.,

Amy Carr, President Council R oya l N.Z. Society for the Health of Women and Children.