OUR BABIES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 42, 18 February 1913, Page 7

OUR BABIES.

(By Hygeia.) Published under the auspices ol the Society for the Health of Womei! and Children. C “It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom.” A MOTHER'S LETTER'. (Continued.) Last week f had to deal with the Thermos Flask, interrupting the further consideration of a Mother’s Letter, which I had been dealing with in the previous week’s column. 1 now return to the letter:— In connection with regular feeding, using dummies, etc., etc., I think it is the maternity nurses, and not the mothers, who require most teaching. For the first fortnight in all cases (in some even longer) the maternity nurse is “boss” and lays the foundations of the baby’s habits, and the mother has to follow on, very often whether she wants to or not.

If not wearing and worrying you, I will explain what I mean. I live in the back-blocks, and had to drive 2d miles to my nurse—the only one to be had. When I left her the river was in flood and the roads were impassable, and for a month 1 stayed at a hoarding-house partly with friends. Baby had been

trained to night feeding by thenurse, and, for the peace of others, I had to continue. My first hoy was born in a nursing home in a city. I lived 9G miles out. At the nursing home the nurse would use a “dummy” whenever the baby cried. I was at this homo three ‘weeks, and then trended in the city for another month, owing to heavy rains flooding the river. For the sake of others at the boardinghouse I had to continue the “dummy,” and after I got baby home it was a most difficult thing to do without, and meant endless crying.

My second jioy was also born in the city, and that nurse also would nee a dummy. The same tiling happened, for, owing to heavy rain, I was again stuck, and had to stay at a hotel for over a fortnight, where I had intended to be only one night. Here, also, for the sake of other boarders, I had to continue using tiro dummy. However, I did not take it home with me, and the baby started sucking his thumb, and now, though two and half years old, 1 can’t break him of the bad habit. I have put on gloves for weeks at a time; used mustard, peppermint oil, etc.; pinned his sleeve to his side.; but the first night I leave off the preventative there he is with his thumb in his mouth tit once. When the maternty nurses are properly trained regarding such matters it will be much easier for the mothers, for, as I have shown, some of those purses not only train the babies wrongly, but teach young mothers, who do not know very much, everything wrong to start with.

The las* nurcc t went to wag a firm believer in rising castor oil frequently for mother a ad baby. There was a young mothe' with lier first boy there at the same time as myself and the nurse dosed them both every other day with castor oil, and told the mother it was the right thing to do. I saw her a week or so ago. The baby was always constipated, and so she always had to be giving him oil, or he would not have a motion for three days. I made her a soap pencil and showiier how to use it, and begged her to stop the oil and diet herself, for the baby’s sake, with fruit, etc.,’ and she is now doing so, and the baby is improving. She was nearly crying about it. She was a shopassistant before her marriage—knows hardly anything about babies, and had asked our nurse to tell her all she could, and the use of castor oil, night feeding, and dummy had all been well taught her. Many another young mother will be started wrong by the same nurse, I suppose. No, I am not a member of your Society, though J. have given subscriptions as a slight “thank-offer-ing” for all that Karitane Hospital doctors and Plunket Nurses did for my eldest hoy for the time he was under their care—to say nothing of the lectures out at Karitane which I Lave attended. I have just given small sums at odd times; hut presume becoming a member means an annual subscription. . If that is so, 1 should like to join in a few months’ time. I have had so many expenses lately that I cannot do so just now. Apologising for tin’s long letter, though I wanted to try and convey to you my idea where the teaching is required, and thanking the Society for all it is now doing and has done for our babies. COMMENT BY HYGEIA. I regret to say that I have had other recent letters making similar complaints as to the misleading advice given to mothers by maternity nurses, and I have hoard many adverse comments in my travels. No doubt, we women—all of ustend to bo very conservative, and we find it very difficult to get out of ml a which have been well worn for ns in the past. So long as the s'i-kirg to old ways which have boon pro.. :! to be wrong affects only oui selves, I no matter may not be very serious; but when women who are trusted and li.rused to guide and direct leathers and to mould the rising generation stubbornly refuse to learn what is best, and won’t mend the error of their ways the matter is one of very grave public concern. Further, it is not fair to those maternity nurses who keep up witlAthe trend of advancing knew-

lodo-e and carry enlightenment into the home, instead of plunging it into greater darkness. All right-thinking people must heartily sympathise with the mother whose letter i have quoted, and I feel sure that most of our readers will agree that something ought to be done in the direction of safeguarding women—especially young mothers—from the misleading domination of such maternity nhrscs as obstinately refuse to conform to those principles and conditions which are known to be in the highest interests of mother and child. ■Further comment on the damage done by the dummy need not be made at the present moment; but it is only fair to the class of nurse of whom i have been speaking to say that there arc hospitals in the dominion where the use of the dummy is still allowed, merely to save the nurse or the institution the trouble at the moment, of giving baby proper attention or treatment in other direr As long as such vicious habits arc countenanced in public institutions, the struggle, for reform must continue to he a very difficult one, and wrongdoers will excuse and shelter themselves behind the wrong doing of those who certainly ought to set the highest example to the community. I shall specially deal next week with the harm done to mother and child by the abuse of castor oil as described by our correspondent.