OUR BABIES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 250, 13 July 1915, Page 3

OUR BABIES.

(BY HYGEIA.) (Published by request of the Taihape Pluuket Society.) WATER. Without air we live three minutes. Without water we may live three days. Without food wo may live three weeks—or, indeed, we may survive for a month or more.

One of the most important things for the mother to grasp is the supreme imporance of water for the health and life of the baby. The general ignorance on this point is extraordinary. There is no matter in which the Plunket Nurses find more difficulty than in getting the mother to grasp the fact that, so long as the child can take and absorb water, its life is usually in no danger, provided the absence of food is not unduly prolonged. A healthy child will live for some weeks if kept supplied with a sufficiency of pure water, and for the first few days it would lose very little indeed in weight and condition, though kept without a particle of food —fluid or solid. The value of this knowledge can scarcely be over-estimated, especially when dealing with sick children. What Takes Place in Diarrhoea. A baby suffering from diarrhoea, for instance, loses weight and strength with extreme rapidity. Not onty is the food it takes hurried too quickly through the intestines to allow of any appreciable quantity being absorbed into the blood, but there is poured out into the intestine from the blood vessels a steady drain of the very substance of the baby. This cannot go on for long without producing exhaustion; but the rapid collapse liable to be induced by acute diarrhoea is due. more to the draining away of water from the blood than to the loss of the nutrient substance of the baby.

The explanation of this is very simple. The heart and blood vessels need to be kept properly tilled norder to sustain the circulation; and if there is a marked deficiency of fluid for the heart to pump, the circulation in the brain comes more or less to a standstill, and the result is fainting and collapse. That this is not. due to lack of food in the blood is clearly shown by the fact that if we in inject a sufficiency of water, with a trace of salt in it, into one of the veins, the Circulation goes on again all right, and animation is quickly restored. Water an Essential Requirement of All Living Matter,

Not only is water a necessity for the mechanical processes of pumping and circulation and for the proper distribution f the blood to all parts of the body, but -water .is an essential requirement of every living cell in the universe. This can be brought home to our minds by reflecting on what takes place when we put the cut stalk of a plant, the leaves of which are flagging from evaporation of moisture, into water. Each of the millions of tiny colls quickly takes up its quota of fluid if wilting lias not been allowed to go too far. The leaves and flowers soon put on the appearance of health and

fitness, though not a particle of building matter n the form of food has been given, but only pure water.

Every living particle of our body must have water, just as every plant cell must have it. Water is their first requirement, and without, water they rapidly wilt and die.

The first need of anyone suffering from diarrhoea is to keep up the supply of fluid, and to desist from giving i any food whatever for a shorter or ' longer time, according to the severity !of the case. While the alimentary canal is infested by millions of microbes, which flourish and multiply so long as fresh supplies of food are given to them, it is worse than useless to allow any food to be taken. Fermentation and poisoning will tend to be kept up as long as we continue to pour in food materials, all of which are fermentable, and form poisons under the action of microbes. Illustrative Case. Over iO years ago I was very much impressed with the following case, and the memory of it remains quite clear, though in the meantime the matter has been one of almost daily consideration in the cases of other children: — A baby about two months old was brought by a nurse to see the hospitn' doctors. The child had been suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting for about a fortnight, and was reduced beyond the stage at. which one would have supposed that life could continue. It was emaciated even more than the child shown In the picture on page 41 of the Society ’s book. The skin hung plated in folds, and felt like soft, glove kid. No food was being retained or absorbed. Practically everything given was being vomited or rapidly carried off by the bowel, and in addition, of course, there was a steady drain from the blood. The doctor said frankly that they did not think anything could be done to save the child ’s life at this stage—matters had gone too far; the child was apparently moribund. However, the nurse offered to sit up night and day and devote herself entirely to the case. Starving a Starved Baby. The question which the doctors deliberated was this; Seeing that the nutrient supplies of the body had become so extremely depleted, was it reasonable in such a ease to withhold food even for a few hours. On the other hand, was there any use giving food, seeing that it was not only rejected at once or drained away, but that some of the body substance was carried away along with it.

The nurse was told to wash out the bowel, and then to give only boiled water for the night (12 hours). Thrnext morning she reported v ith grendelight- that the child had hod eight j hours of steady, contented sleeps—-the } first sound, restful sleep for a fort- ; night.

This was the start of the recovery. The baby was out of danger in a few days, and within a few weeks it was quite well. The child grew up a strong, healthy girl. The Basis of Treatment of Diarrhoea, Indigestion, Etc. If mothers could only grasp the full significance of a ease of this kind, half

the dangers of infantile diarrhoea would be removed. The basis of all treatment in these cases is to give no food whatever for at least 12 hours, and generally for longer.

The difficulty is to induce the average mother to keep her child, without food long enough. She can scarcely be made to understand that any food whatever at this stage foods the microbes, not the baby—that even a race of food foods the germs, and will cause further poisoning of the baby, ami the draining away of its body substance along with the fluid needed for the crcillation of the blood.

Gum orally a baby suffering from diarrhoea can be induced to swallow enough water, as there tends to be marked thirst; but if necessary additional fluid ought to be given by the bowel in the form of saline injections. In more urgent cases the doctor may make up the fluid iu the system rapidly by injecting water direct into the body through the skin. This last is an extremely valuable safeguard where the drain has bgen excessive and imminent collapse is threatened.

; I need scarcely say that these hitler questions are matters for the doctor to decide and deal with. I mention them merely in order to impress further on mothers the paramount importance of water for the child, and the uselessness

and actual danger of giving food wher it cannot be properly digested and al> sorbed, and will only do harm.