BABY’S ENEMIES

Taranaki Daily News, 17 March 1921, Page 4

BABY’S ENEMIES

DUMMIES AND BISCUITS. CHILD WELFARE CAMPAIGN. The subject of child welfare was before the monthly meeting of the New Plymouth Plunket Society on Monday. The secretary read a letter from the central council, asking that the Plunket nurse be instructed to find out how many babies under her care sleep in the same bed as their mothers. The letter stated that the damage caused by such a practice “is a grave reproach to our country.” Tliis information was urgently required by Dr. Truby King, for the benefit of the child welfare campaign to be initiated in Wellington by the Hon. C. J. Parr (Minister of Health) The secretary then read the copy of the reply which Nurse Petersen had sent to Dr. Truby King, in which she stated that she believed the practice was not prevalent in New Plymouth, there being only two cases of which she knew, and in one she had been successful in getting the father to make a cot, and in the second case the mother did not conform to Plunket methods, although she had the assistance of the nurse. But seeing that the information was required for the child welfare campaign, the nurse said she felt it her duty to state that the greatest enemies to good health amongst the babies of New Plymouth were dummies and biscuits.