While The Kettle Boils

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 67, 4 October 1940, Page 36

While The Kettle Boils

Dear Friends, There is a subject that is always of unfailing interest to women. It is His Royal Highness, Baby! Let’s take a peep at some "incubator babies." That term would have horrified our grandmothers, but to-day it is a valuable and necessary contribution towards the preservation of infant life. —

The American, Dr. Hess, is a recognised authority on "incubator babies." He has his own special hospital, to which flock New York mothers for their babies to be born, If you looked inside one of their hospital wards, you would probably be startled. Instead of baby bassinets, you would see rows of small metal tubs that look like washing machines-some of them covered, with little panes of glass let in. Others are protected by flannel covers only. The ward also contains oxygen tanks, a thermometer to record the rise and fall of temperature during the day, an hydrometer for registering humidity, an ultraviolet lamp, a small portable incubator, a heated metal table to warm the piles of small woollens and diapers, and another table bearing sterilisers, glass eye-droppers, tiny nursing bottles and nipples. Everything in the ward must be warmed before using. The babies are rarely taken out of the incubators. It is necessary to conserve their strength by as little movement as possible. Incubator babies are not some rare species of beings, as some people erroneously believe. Their routine is very much the same as with normal babies; feeding every two hours, chang- ing positions at regular intervals, and gentle massage once a week-followed by violet-ray treatment. Dr. Hess’s invention, the incubator, is actually a small tub set in an insulated water packet and warmed by an electric plate. It can be operated by anyoneand requires only a pint of water a month to make it wear indefinitely. The youngest incubator baby to be born alive was six months old. A sixmonths baby weighs under two pounds, and only 15% of these, prematurely born, are likely to live. Now we'll take a step across to the East and see what they are doing for King Baby over there. In Singapore you will find Kandang Kerbau, one of the world’s most interesting maternity homes, where 6,000 babies are born every year. That almost amounts to mass production. This great hospital, controlled by the Government, fulfils a great charitable need, for it is free to the destitute and open to all races. To hundreds of poor Coolie mothers, it has proved a veritable haven. The resident doctor and his staff of native doctors, European and. Chinese nursing sisters and trainees, have a difficult task in overcoming the superstitious beliefs about birth among the Malay and Javanese. Chinese women are the most regular patients, yet even they, up to a few years ago, could not be persuaded to enter a hospital. Many of these poor women go directly there from their work in the fields, the quarries or the mines. Some of them are as young as 17, but they look years older. Chinese women are not demonstrative. They show no enthusiasm for the new arrival. If it is a boy, they might take a look at him occasionally, but if it is a girl, all they worry about is how they will break the news to their husbands. The mothers stay for seven days in the hospital, resting between cool, clean sheets — and enjoying the first holiday, probably, that they have ever had in their toil-filled lives. The Kandang Kerbau is doing a great humanitarian work. Yours cordially.

Cynthia