OUR BABIES.

Shannon News, 23 September 1924, Page 4

OUR BABIES.

•* i (By "Hygeia."). Infant Feeding. * The. followirig is* the report of aiu address" given during the postgraduate week of the Public Health Section of the College of Nursing by Miss M. Liddiard, Matron of the Mothercraft Training Society, Earl's Court, London. This is the institution which was founded by Dr: Truby King in 1918, and has ever since then been run on New Zealand lines. Miss Pattrick, our Director of'Pluhket'Nursing, was the first matron, and Miss M. Liddiard, trained under her and Dr. Truby King. The report is taken from the magazine "Maternity and Child Welfare," May, 1924:

v Breast-Jteeding. The more one works on lines of breast-feeding the more one feels how important a subject it is for public 'neaitri' workers. When a baby is started wrongiy you get trouble all along the line—with the toddler, the school-child, and right on, making a vicious circle. The great work of the ' Mothercraft Training Society is education, and we want to begin before the ' baby is born, to get the mother in,the ante-natal period, to ensure proper building up of the cells. The importance of breast-feeding is emphasis ed by the rapid rate;of "growth in the first year. A baby weighing 71b. a* birth ought to weigh 2Q-211b. at the eud of the first yetuy whereas in the second year it should gain only about 6!->,,and less proportionately to size fin the subsequent years. There was a ■ time when artificial feeding was considered the only possible substitute for natural feeding. Then tihe swung; artificial feeding was studied and brought to a more.or less fine point and for a time it was considered somewhat* infra dig. to nurse one's own baby. Now, happily, the pendulum is swinging back again, and people are coming to realise the importance of natural feeding. Making the Mothers Understand. The main work of the society is to educate the mothers and nurses, not , to get' the baby right while they are with us and let them go out! to becomeill again from wrong treatment We take great care neevr to let a baby go before we are sure the mother' understands the routine. If any mother seems not! to grasp it, we , have her in for a whole day, and let her see every detail. The mother has to do the most for the baby, and the true success is to educate the mothers. It has only once happened that) we have had to admit' the same baby a . second time.

Importance, of jtlhe First Few Days. It is almost impossible to ( overrate the importance of natural feeding during the first few weeks of life. Very nearly all the babies we have lost have been among those who have had no breast-milk; it is harder to save them than those who have been on the breast even for a 1 week. The colostrum preesnt in those early days is extremely important for baby's digestion; it contains 6 per cent, of protein of exactly the same kind that is present in the blood; and therefore the baby digests and absorbs it very readily. The new-born baby has very little power of digestion, and Nature has created this way of gradually accustoming it to absorb food. The colostrum changes by degrees, and by the eighth day* it has become human milk. Whatever we do to artificial food, we cannot follow Nature exactly. Another point? about colostrum is that it gives the baby a large measure of immunity from disease. Of course, breast-feeding should be continued for nine months, but even where it can only be maintainedo for a very -short time it is still worth' doing, because ,the early days are so extremely important.

Complete failure to nurse is a very abnormal condition, though, we probably know plenty of cases in which we ha\e been told, that itt has been impossible for a mother to feed tto her children. We had a motJher h.ere who nursed her eighth, and another her fifth, who had always before believed themselves incapable and had never nursed their babies. Ordinarily a woman who can produce £ baby can # also feed it; , ' . There are now in the house a number of babies from 21 to 3£ months old who are under their birth-weight and in nearly every case their condition is due to the' fact that they were wearitd early through' wrong advice. Anyone who lived with them, as I do,, and heard them crying night and day and saw them saved after months and months of care, would • understand why I am almost frantic about breastfeeding. : Dr. Truby King claims that 95 per cent, of women can- nurse their babies, with! proper advice and education from the beginning, and from my experience I should almost) be inclined to put it higher «till.