OUR BABIES.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 391, 24 March 1937, Page 2

OUR BABIES.

(By “Hyigeia.”) Published under the auspices of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children (Plunket Society). “It is v.'iser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom.” THE DANGERS OF TRADITION IN THE NURSERY. . In the following paragraphs we conclude our extracts from Sir Bruce Porter’s lecture on this subject: — Our Next Essential: Fresh Water. Children require drink just as much as do adults, and to give a child milk when it is thirsty is as bad as giving it a pi ce of bread. Milk is a food, not a drink. There should be no set Hours for drinking, except thiat, of course, the child should not be allowed to wash food down with nater to save chewing. Thirst is a ■emand of the body cells for water, and the time at which it is made- may vary, In the nursery the child should b: encouraged to -drink water, and certainly should never be refused it. Food must be in very fine particles and in solution for the body to take I’ up from the digestive tract.

Other uses of fluid are to help the body throw out waste products and io regulate the temperature. Th. body gives off fluid by the skin, the iungg, and the kidneys. It the skin did not act on a very hot day the body temperature would go up on exertion, and death would probably result. You have heard of the child who was covered with gold Iclaf to represent an angel in a papal procession. The child died in convulsions because the sweat glands' were blocked.

Control of the Bladder. Lack of control of the bladder is common in childhood. Control is usually gained by the properly trained child between the first and second years. But it may fake as much as four years before the child can gain complete night control. Tjhere it 1 no date laid down for this achievement, for the age varies in different children, just as it does for walking and talking. Control is the result of conscious effort, r,nd as it is a me-ntlal process' we find bed-wetting prevalent among the mentally weak.

Do Not Punish a Child for Bedwetting. On no account should a child be punished or scolded for this, and the nursery tradition which labels bedwetting as “naughtiness" .has' caused untold misery and injustice. Get the child to realise that, you know its difliculty land want to help. Praise it when a chart can be shown of successful endeavour. Do not cut down the fluid taken during the day, though by all means reduce that given in the evenings.

Next We Must Consider Freslh Food. To begin with, every child should be fed as Nature intended. To provide h althy milk the mother must live a he.lthy life of sunshine and fresh air. If the expectant mother lives a h>(.ilthy lit. she should be able to nurse her baby, when it arrives, to their mutual benefit. We hav, learnt a good deal about diet in the last 30 years, and we realise more than ever that the most carefully selected dairy will not replace the mother in the scheme of Nature. When one of her laws' is. broken Nature exacts the penalty. The child should find its food supply for months

from the mother, and when -that supply it cut off suddenly, and the glands prevented from secreting, someone has to pay the bill, and it will not necessarily 'be only the child who does so. If, however, it is decided that the child must be artificially fed, the tradition that the milk must be from one cow is a dangerous' one. The cow selected may not be a healthy one. . . . There are so many sources of contamination on the average dairy farm that all milk should be pasteurised and bottled at the dairy. The child should be given fruit juice quite early in life—a few weeks, after birth is not too soon. With the weaning period we come to another nursery .tradition that may be scrapped—that is, meat juice and gravy. The belief that “red meat means red blood’’ is utter rubbish. There is more iron in spinach than meat, and, anyhow, the actual amount of iron by weight in the body is minute. . . .

It is' a mistake to suggest to a child that it will not take any particular article of diet it ought to have. It is not difficult to get children to eat fruit and vegetables if they have been well trained, white flour is a comparatively modern product, and all children ate wholemeal bread before its introduction. Habits of health are, like those of morality, the result of early training. Nothing can take the place of fresh food, and even with the present domestic difflculties no preserved foods should enter ths nursery.

The Drainage System. Our last point is the good drainlage system necessary to the city. The young child empties' the main street of its body regardless of those about it, and one of the first lessons is that of giving a warning when attention is needed. My friend Sir Arbuthnot Lane has said more than once that he has never met cancer slave in Patients who have suffered from constipation. in speaking with over 30 years of experience as a physician, I support his- statement. If, as we know, the body is made up of myriads of living cells, can one imagine a more sure and quick method of doing it permanent damage than by chronic poisoning from constipation

Summing Up. Having touched on the four main requirements of the healthy cityfresh air, fresh water, fresh food, and a good drainage system—let me summarise by pointing that man was intended to live in the open without clothes. His first shelter was a lean-to," and when he lelarnt the use Of fire he had a cave with a hole in the i oof through which smoke could Escape. His clothing consisted of a skin to shelter one side or the other from the wind. He lived on raw food and drank Water from a brook. Today the, house is ’ a very different thing. Many rooms have no chimneys, e heating being by means of steam Pines' or electricity. Men’s clothinconsists of hot, close-fitting garments’ though women have adopted a more sensible Itit for the moment. Food is preserved or devitalised, and its cooking further deprives' it of its surviving vitamins. Tea and coffee have found their way into the schoolroom. Lack of knowledge as regards the care and feeding of children is responsible for many- delicla.te adults to-day.

W e have incurred a heavy load of , , which our children will have to s oulder, a nd it is our duty to give „, e “ a decent Etart, without ie the mental make-up cannot be °° ’ an<i "Without which all our knowledge O f psychology will be Powerless to help them.