PLUNKET METHODS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 June 1938, Page 4

PLUNKET METHODS

REPLY TO DR. SPENCER JOINT MEDICAL ADVISER’S STATEMENT REPORT BEING PREPARED FOR SOCIETY (By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, June 22. “If the assertions of Dr Montgomery Spencer, Wellington child specialist, were intended to disrupt the Plunket Society by discrediting it in the eyes of the public which has looked up to it during the last 30 years, then a convincing procedure has been adopted,” said Dr E. N. Williams, jointmedical adviser of the society, in replying this morning to the Wellington specialist’s attack on the Plunket system.

Dr Williams, strongly criticising Dr Spencer’s article in a medical journal, said it represented the experience and opinions of one man, presented to a medical audience for its judgment and criticism. Although it might draw attention to a weakness in the system, it surely might have been expected that the views of the society and its intentions might have been ascertained before publication of what Dr Williams held was condemnation of a voluntary organisation, whose work had been for the benefit of mother and child. “Within the last week the society has called together its medical advisory committee. As a result of this meeting a report is being prepared that will be presented to the council as soon as possible. That the society had been aware there may be short comings is evidenced by its desire to inquire into the position, and also from the fact that from time to time it has endeavoured to bring about improvements in feeding methods.” Dr Williams pointed out that the impressions gained by the public from articles in the Press attacking the system might be that those administering feeding methods were deliberately and adversely under-feeding infants. Not only was such a suggestion contrary to fact, but an examination of many thousands of normal infants supervised by Plunket nurses would at once nullify such criticism. ANOTHER CRITIC DR SPENCER SUPPORTED WELLINGTON, This Day. Dr Marie Buehler, New Plymouth, children’s specialist, stated that she was in full agreement with Dr F. Montgomery Spencer’s findings on the subject of child nutrition and the Plunket methods of feeding children. “I consider that the Plunket Society’s methods of feeding children should be brought into line with modern scientific knowledge,” she said. “It must be realised that no one method of artificial feeding is suitable for every infant. Each child is an individual and must be treated as such.” “BEHIND THE TIMES” OAMARU MEDICAL MAN’S OPINION WELLINGTON, This Day. The view that the Plunket system was some 15 years behind the times was expressed by a South Island children’s doctor yesterday, when supporting the contentions of Dr F. Montgomery Spencer, Wellington, that radical changes in the system of infant feeding were necessary. “I am in very hearty agreement with what Dr Spencer had said,” said Dr Elspeth Fitzgerald, Oamaru. .child specialist, with a large clinic handling some hundreds of cases of juvenile complaints. “It seems very significant that the majority of New Zealand graduates who have gone overseas to study have returned to New Zealand profoundly dissatisfied with the Plunket system. I think it looks bad that, in spite of the great advances in recent years in our knowledge of nutrition, the Plunket system of feeding has stood still for 15 years. We are hopelessly behind the times in this respect. “For one thing, the Plunket system does not study the need of the individual baby sufficiently. One must adapt the feeding system to the child, not the child to the system, as the Plunket Society would have one do. I think, too, that closer co-operation between the Plunket nurses and doctors and specialists well qualified to deal with children's requirements would be an excellent thing.”