OUR BABIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 1 September 1909, Page 66

OUR BABIES.

H Bi Htgiia. It Published under the auspices of m- the Society for the Promotion oi the EL Health of Women and Children. I THE HUMANISED MILK FAD. t Under the heading, "Humanised Mill \Wmd," A very offensive anonymous lettej cWgned E. V. J. appeared about a fort InighA ago in the Taranaki Herald, and wal reprinted in the Taranaki Budget tfaecauee I have just received iihe follow jtnjj telegram Vom a lady in Westport: — :■ Telegbam. r * "Read absurd letter, * page 44, Taranak I Budget— A. B." i JTbe great interest which .thig lady, A, B. tadtes in the work of the Society ie due t< pkhe fact -that not only has her own babj flourished exceedingly on the regimen ad ; voc*ted by the Society in its pampijet Feeding and Care of the Baby," bui ildte has herself been the means of aiding P- other mothers on the West Coast i children have also done well on tht of treatment denounced by the Taracorrespondent. > FOOLISH HOAX. " But for the telegram from Westport nc fnotioe would have been taken of the Tarabuki- letter, because it bore on the face oi flt:±he evidence of not being- bona fide, and 3 had assumed that it belonged to the class [<ot popular practical jokes represented by l£be frequent washing ashore of bofetlesr conEteining harrowing personal narratives ol Shipwrecks which have never occurred. Xodc-ed, I have- no reason now to suppose iotherwiee; but it is evident that a hoax o( this kind may cause young mothers mucfl groundless anxiety, and give rise to a con-«id*rabl-3 amount of harm and misgiving, 'io I shall treat the letter as if it were peally genuine. Pkovidexce ok the Mother — Whose I Fault? jjAccuse not Xature — she hath done her part; ik> thou but thine. j£ „ —Milton. L' The writer says her baby was delicate from birth, and that her first mistake was jthat she tried for six months to feed- it as £be Almighty intended. "1 did the first unirise act by trying to breast-feed- it. After tattling for nearly six months with a fretfad and ailing baby, weak and ill myself, I wae advised to giv^ the child ' humanised ' milk. . . I followed *he instructions in |}ie pamphlr>t on the 'Feeding and Care of Elbe Baby' to the letter. After four months' Kial I noticed my baby was losing weight, Ejupd then one day I woke up to -the fact ■pat baby was more helpless at 10 months Epti th*ui he was at five." ■pHere, indeed, was a Rip Van Winkle- of ■i mother. Alter a prolonged sleep (in which KSj&nth after month she had let her baby Bfitfft unobserved), this silly woman suddenly Hntkes up and commences rubbing her ■UMpy eyes, wondering what the "pitiful ■mtuns'" of her truly unfortunate progeny «<6re all about. She says she had "folKtfred the instructions in the pamphlet to Mi* letter,'' but she must have been sound Mdeep at every weighing time, and dream■K for the rest of the four montihe, or Hie could not haie failed to notice that her Ibffey was going downhill. The Society's Bppmphlet says (page 14) : — I WEIGHING THE BABY. »'", By whatever means an infant is fed- it r ought to be weighed regularly every week t* for the first 'cw months, and at least 'I every month afterward©, to ascertain \. whetiher proper growth is taking place. No f absolutely fixed feeding standard can be laid down which will be cult- " «ble for all infants and under all circumL. stances. We can only give the average : requirements, leaving it to the mother to ■■ make eu«h slight alterations in quantity as ? imay appear necessary or desirable from .' tte appetite, condition, and weight of the p child. If it is not thriving properly ob|Tiously a doctor should be consulted. f DOCTOR OR CLAIRVOYANT? feNo medical man was seen un+.il the end W the four months' sleep, when the mother ■onsulted what she describes as a doctor, Kit he must surely have come from iho ■Wintry of her dreams and- hysterical |naginings, because, without a moments Hesitation, and evidently without inquiring BSbut the ordinary causes of failure, such BE .patent foods, condensed -milk, "taking Hut's going," or irregular habits, defecIjr» general hygiene, etc., lie said, after Sanely glancing at the baby, "You've been, Biding that child on humanised milk." incident was as dramatic as that of leorge AVashington with ibis axe — the mother humbly told her doctor the piky truth 'I acknowledged I had. Then it «aid : 'Have you ever paused for a loment to consider that you have been fccEHiusiXG all the goodness out of the ntikl's food? Then, the scales fell from Before my eyes," etc., etc. Of course she K«d NOT been sterilising the food, bebrase humanised milk is purposely heated Wo only 155deg Fahr. Heating to 212deg feji!hr. (boiling point) is needed for sterilisaPH9D- However, when one begins drawing njn the imagination a matter of 6Cdeg more Er less is a mere bagatelle ! iIWHO ABE THE FADDISTS AXD EXPEHIE_ JIKXTAUBTS? ■egumanised milk is simply cow. milk ■mpted .to the needs and digestive power Hpfe young human being. This is effected Bj^ removing the excess of curd, which is nM for a calf, but very bad for a baby, mmf by adding the necessary quantity of ■V*r of milk, besides killing all hatched Buorobea by mild heating. E. V. J. warns Bothers against "experimenting or allowEig themselves to be persuaded to experiKenrf. in fads." She does not realise that , Eeople using the unmodified milk of the j low for human babies are really the faddists H*dj wild experimentalists two ruin the Restive power and propey nutrition and j Envelopment of the unfortunate infanta who EJDQe under their oar«. On the other hand, ■pr mothers who adhere a/s cloeejy as pos■Bte to Nature and prepare humanised ■iilc for babies who cannot be fed naturHbf are simply following the dictates of Kmaxuty, common sense, and scientific* VU*th~. That they and *he babies have K«ir ireward is shown by £h© constant I Breiirn. of grateful letters which pour in ln[ fis from mothers in every direction, i pa the Society has besides the assurance* ' X tte Plunket Nurses throughout the Do- .

minion, who are -unanimous as to the enormous advantage the babies derive from modem systematic care, compared witJi the 6!ipahod guess-work which was all they had to go on in regard to tbe Tearing of infants prior to receiving special training for this Epecial work. To return to the Taranaki mother— the remarks given above were the prelude to a tirade about "starving my child," denunciation of the use of sugar oi milk by implicac tion, etc. She says: "Cane-sugar ia about l " as pure an article of food as is on the " market at the present time, and contains B nothing deleterious." Oblivious of the faofc » that thousands of mothers all over the - world, and the leading physicians of the day, have found in practice that babies thrive far better when given the natural ; form of sugar present i» mother's milk, instead of the highly fermentable vegetable product known as oane-sugar — oblivious of > such facts, this Taranaki woman, who .has y failed so egregiouslv with the mothering of f her own baby, does not hesitate to parade ' her ignorance under the name of "practical » experience and common sense." She speaks fc with a ripe confidence and authority akin- > to that of the mother who has "buried > seven." However, as I said earlier, the * letter is apparently mere fiction, but the " . treatment oi babies is not a. fit subject for | thisr class of -fooling. J The following sentence makes one doubt , whether the writer is even a woman— she . is certainly not an experienced mother, bef cause she knows nothing about the posei- [ biliti-es'or limitations of the growth, oi . babies. She writes: "I am glad' to say ', that after two months of sensible feeding . on pure unsterilised milk and other raw r foods, euch as eggs, oysters, and fruit; my baby lias gained 151b in weight" — that is , a gain in two months by an infant ailing : from birth of as much weight as a strong, j healthy breast-fed baby, averages in a year ! What does a foolish, lying letter such as this. represent? What does a foolish, lying message .east into the sea represent? In . either ease wo have to deal with tlie heedless, irresponsible folly of fools, and the law makes no provision for such vagaries, though it punishes many less harmful offenders. j THE SOCIETY'S MISSION. I Fortunately, the time for killing or seriously injuring- tn© work uncJerta'ken by the Society for tne Promotion of the Health of Women and Children, either by ridicule or misrepresentation has gone by. There has been much of both ridicule and misrepresentation in the past, but the simple- truths we have been setting forth in the interests of mother and child have prevailed, and "we are satisfied, are going to prevail still more in -the future. Breast-feeding is increasing, and many tons of Sugar of Milk are given - to- -babies every year >'n the- Dominion, whsre only a few -hundredweights were used previously. We know that there are over 'a thousand women successfully feeding babies with humanised milk in New Zealand at the present moment, a«d several thousand mothers who are using the Society's pamphlet, as their guide. Some 10,000 copies have -been disposed of during the last three years, anjf &' a iiew' edition 0f. 5000 copies, enlarged to. .double the original 6ize, is about to be issued. Add to this 100,000 copies of "Our . Babies,*.' issued every week; the Karitane Baby Hospital, and the -work of a dozen specially-trained Nurses now practically demonstrating the truth to mothers throughout the Dominion, and we have no reason to fear tha* ignorance and prejudice I can hold their own much longer. They have had their day, .and the thinking and feeling part ■of the world is now fully aroused against the further countenance of a regime" of cruelty which is none (the less heinous because it is the outcome of blind ignorance and prejudice. Moreover,. we can no longer' afford to have the health of the race sapped before it has got beyond the cradle. .The muscles, teeth, digestion, nerves, "grit," .and. staying power of the * rising generation of New Zoaland-e-rs will not be 6atisfaotor.y until our mothers and nurses know and pwt into practice all the simple conditions needed to mate our babies flourish. Our infant death-rate has to be reduced to less than half its present, proj portions ;.i hen the health of the babies who ' survive will be correspondingly better. These advances are mere matters of a few years more of steady *nd persistent work ' on the part of sensible people backed up Iby the Health Department and such agencies as the Society for the Promotion * of the Health of Women and Children.