OUR BABIES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 10, 8 January 1913, Page 3

OUR BABIES.

(By Hygeia.) Published under the auspices of the Society for the Health of Womei and Children. “It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom.” THE CURSE OF SUMMER. While summer time is delightful to all of us and its warm days and bright sunshine tempt people into the open air, and thus tend 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 is also found that summer kills far more babies than any other season of the

year. Why is this? Why should summer not be the safest instead of the most dangerous time of year for infants? The reason is not far to seek. Most babies are fed on liquid food which is specially liable to ferment in warm weather. Milk becomes infested with microbes ; in other words, goes bad and becomes poisonous, more readily than any other food, and if we are not careful in the selection of a milkman it may have gone bad in warm weather before reaching the home. So long as an infant is suckled, and the mother is not only regular, cleanly, , and careful in her habits, but also gives the baby ail his simple primary rights (outing, fresh air, sunlight, exercise, etc.), there is no safer season than summer. But, however careful the mother may be as to general hygiene, summer is dangerous, and often fatal, if there is any 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 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 are almost uni-

formly healthy, while calves in all directions are victims to “scouring,” and few babies escape the same scourge under the name of “summer diarrhoea.” Why Does Nature Single Out Calves and Babies? Calves are sacrificed because man takes the cow’s milk for himself, and feeds the calf out of a bucket. The baby is sacrificed because the mother’s breast is denied to it also, and improper food, contaminated with germs, is substituted for the pure, perfect, blood-warm, 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 secure suitable food and to prevent fermentation. For babies, humanised milk supplies by far the nearest approach to the mother’s mill:, 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 who have been judiciously fed by artificial means, soon brings about recovery in

j the {Treat majority of cases. 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 Kudin shewed that the number of artificially-fed babies who died in Paris par week was about 20 in winter, hut that in mid-summer

the deaths rose to almost 2GO 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 amon infants similar to the above occur in New Zealand during warm weather varying with tno locality and the hea '.x the particular summer. Ivnovvinj the cause, the disease is one of tin tpost easily preventable, and the mo ther who allows her baby to succurnt during the next few months shoulc feel, in nine cases out of ten, thal she has herself to blame. It is not Nature or Providence that inflicts the curse of summer diarrhoea, but the mother herself. That this is literally and absolutely true will bo realised by anyone consulting the Paris diagram, which shows that over 1000 babies died in six weeks when the weather was warmest. Among breasted babies the death rate for the same period averaged only 20 per week. The deaths that did tak'e place in either class were mainly the result of ignorance and carelessness (especially careless feeding of mother and child, the use of

the long-tube feeder, lack of fresh air and exercise, regular habits, failing to keep the breast and the dothing 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 babi >s whose mothers were availing themselves of rational advice tendered at the four creches then established in Paris on modern lines. About half of these more fortunate babies were suckled, and the rest were bottle fed with milk supplied at the special “Baines’ Milk Depot.”

In the provinces a similar result has been achieved. Thus Dr. Dufour, the pioneer in Normandy of the rational care of babies, including the use of humanised milk, shows that while the death rate among infants averaged 55 for the four principal towns, the death rate among babies whose mothers attended the depots and got proper advice and food was less than 3 per cent.—in other words, only one-twen-tieth of the mortality which took place ■ among the babies whose mothers per- , sis ted in going their own way in spite ? of warnings and advice.

SUMMER IS ON US. It is hoped, now we are reaching the critical summer period for babies, that mothers in our midst will avail themselves of the printed advice issued by the Society; and also make use of the practical instructions which are given every Wednesday afternoon, from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., at the Karitane Baby Hospital, Anderson’s Bay, Dunedin, or that they will communicate with the Plunket Nurse. The services of the Plunket Nurse are always available for any mother who desires advice or help. It should be realised that if a baby connot be breast-fed, it should receive properly-graded and prepared humanised milk from the start. In Dunedin, in cases- where the mother’s milk fails, humanised milk properly graded for the baby is delivered at uiy home Nothing can be more senseless and absurd than the way in which women subject their babies to wrong feeding until they become ill, and then frantically turn to some other method. If they treated their offspring properly during the most risky period of life—namely, the first few months—-the rest would usually bo plain sailing, and they would save the baby from an infinity of harm and escape unending trouble and regrets for themselves.