WHAT KILLS OUR BABIES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5290, 9 March 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHAT KILLS OUR BABIES.

The following article upon the management of infants has been contributed by a Melbourne doctor to the Melbourne Age : Ten times more babies die in this colony than grown-up people, out of an equal number living at the same time. At Horae more babies die, the cold and wet weather there killing them faster. How is this ? It may be safely said that half these babies should not have died ; that half of them have been killed, not intentionally, but by ignorance, carelessness, and too often mistaken kindness. Very few are starved ; far more die of over-feeding with wrong food; some of cold, from short-sleeved and low-bodied dresses ; whilst others are killed by bad. houses, bad air, and bad drains. For instance, in Collingwood, the year before last, sixty-six babies died for every thirty-five that died in Collins-street east. Mr. Hayter’s returns show that 211 children under five years died in Collingwood, and only thirtyeight in Latrobe ward, and, taking the population into account, and the census proportion of children in each district, we find that almost twice as many die in Collingwood. This shows what good houses, better drainage (Collingwood being too level), and better air will do. But at the best babies die far too numerously, and there is a reason for it. A young baby will double its weight in a few months ; now that of itself means an. enormous amount of hard work done by its stomach, bowels, heart, and lungs. Babies breathe faster than grown-up people, their hearts' beat twice as quick, their livers are twice as heavy, and altogether the inside machinery of a baby has, in proportion to its weight, to do twice as much work as ours have. No wonder then its bowels so easily get out of order. They have to work at high .pressure, and a little thing will cause an explpsion. But God has made babies wonderfully strong ; and with all these difficulties, some babies live iu spite of an astonishing amount of wrong-feeding. Were grown-up .people to be stuffed with as much rubbish and bad food in' proportion to their- age as most babies are, I fear quite as many of them would die.

With ; a delicate /baby, the' first point is to keep it warm. . Inside every living thing there is a kind of burning going on to keep the body warm. This warmth is carried to every part of the body bj the blood vessels, very : much as in come churches, halls, and greenhouses iron pipes full of warm water are used to heat the building; Only our heating pipes are so well distributed that you cannot piit the finest needle into the body without piercing several of them, and letting the warm blood escape. Now, if a baby lias its arms, shoulders, and legs, bare, it loses a great deal of heat. In warm weather, and if it is healthy, this may not matter much. But if a child is ill or weak, it may need all the food it can take just to keep it alive, and if any food is burned to keep its bare arms and legs warm, it may just waste away and die of a kind ot slow starvation. For it is part of our food that is burned in us to make the heat, and by keeping a weak baby warm wo may bring it up though it may take very little food. Always, then, cover a delicate child’s arms, shoulders and legs as carefully as its body. Put sleeves into its dresses, or cut the feet off woollen stockings and put the leg pieces on their arms. Allow them to wear no lowbodied dresses; keep long'woollen stockings on their legs, and either long petticoats or flannel drawers as well. Many a baby with a lowbodied dress takes a sudden croup, and is dead in a few hours. Very often, if half the flannels on a baby’s body were taken off and put on its legs and arms, it would grow up healthy and strong, instead of giving its parents restless nights, and growing up a Tittle misery. I have seen the body far ofteuer oyerclotbed than uuderclothed, whilst the arms and-legs went naked. . 1 , , 1 .- : '

Everybody knows how dangerous it is to bo long in a draught of wind in the house, while out of doors the wind never seems , to have the same deadly chilling;. effect. How is this 1 One cause of the difference is that in the house that port of the body in the draught is getting rapidly cooled, whereas the rest of the body is still and warm. Now there is in our bodies a sort of central telegraph office for distributing the supply of heat in the body, and it , has nerves, not unlike telegraph wires, coming from all parts to it,-warning it of cold or heat. But when we are out ;of, doors we are, breathing fresh air, our blood is thus warmed more rapidly, and as it is sent to the colder parts it easily warms them; but indoors and sitting quietly we breathe very slowly, and the air is never'as good as ; outside. The iblood consequently is not so active nor so warm (forte make heat in the body, as in a fireplftce or engine furnace, plenty of air, is necessary), and those parts of our body in the draught do

not get warmed so quickly as they are cooled. We all know the bad effects of wet and cold feet ; how in men it may cause inflammation of the lungs or rheumatic fever. A draught is just the same cause in a less measure. There is a disturbance in the system which cannot be met, and some of the great internal organs suffer. The lungs, the bowels, the liver, may each or all be congested. Now it is quite plain that a child with bare arms and legs will be upset by a much feebler draught and in a much shorter time than a well-clothed baby. Draughts we must have—small houses cannot be ventilated without them—but no one should sit in a draught ; that is the height of folly. But we will come back to this subject ; meantime the warning is, clothe every part of a child except its head; the head is wonderfully arranged to stand the bold. In proportion to its size the head receives twice or three times as much blood as any other part of the body. The internal congestion caused by cold is well seen in the purging of young children which so often follows a change of weather from hot to cold, such as we had the beginning of February. For such an illness the common-sense remedy is of course a good sweat, to call back to the skin the blood and heat which has been driven inwards. Give the child a hot bath—as hot as your elbow or cheek can stand—keep it in a quarter-of-an hour, then dry it well, and wrap it in a blanket warmed before the fire. Put it now in bed tor some hours to sweat; a few warm bottles or bricks around it will help. In the morning wash the sweat well off with soap and lukewarm water, and rub it over with warm olive oil. Babies, when id, as every mother knows, generally get too hot, or feverish as it is called. Often a chill is the beginning of such a state, and in the effort to restore warmth the heating nervous centre before spoken of cannot in its weakened, state control its distribution, and excess of heat follows. Mischief we know creates mischief, and such great heat stimulates to greater heat. If the child is weak, its feet may even be icy cold when its body and head are burning hot. In all such cases a doctor should be seen as soon as possible; but meanwhile the ; heat must be kept down. It is much easier checked the first day than if allowed to continue two days. And remember also that this feverishness may often go off in the morning only to return again worse than aver in the afternoon or evening. The latter part of the day, therefore, should be, the time of most care and effort to keep down the heat. Nothing is so simple, safe, and certain to meet and check these heats as bathing the child with lukewarm water. In . summer cold water is quite warm enough. Bathe the child often if he is very hot. Every half-hour is not too often. If the baby is weak, and the feet are cold, you must first get his feet warm. Put them into hot water (not too hot) for a quarter of an hour, keeping his head wet all the while if it is hot or if the baby is convulsed. Then dry the legs, wrap them ; up in flannel warmed before the fire, and lay the baby imbed. If his body is still hot, sponge the front all over with lukewarm water, then dry it, and turn him on his face, so as to sponge his back also. Repeat this often if the heat continues; no cooling medicine can cool like cold water to the skin; and besides cooling the child it soothes him, and is so pleasant that children often ask for it to be repeated. If only the head is hot keep warm the rest of the body, and especially the feet. Then wet the head well, and lay over it a piece of thin, wet calico, or tie on a thin cotton cap well wet with water. Do not; use a thick cap, or more than one fold of wet calico, for thick cloths warm quicker, and often heat the head. Try this on your own hand; a single piece of wet cloth cools the skin below by the evaporation of the water, while from a thick piece, the water next the skin cannot evaporate, and so it gets warm. Keep the thin cloth' constantly wet as long as it heats. When it ceases to heat, and the heat gets cold, dry it, and bind it up in a handkerchief. At night, if a child is hot and restless, besides bathing it, fasten all around its body a handkerchief wrung out of water and folded like a binder; and to make it safe, in case the baby should kick off the bedclothes and expose the damp parts to a chill, fasten over the wet handkerchief a flannel binder. This simple application will often greatly calm a restless baby, and give it sound sleep. The handkerchief may be wetted again every two hours if the child is hot or restless.