WE SPENT A MONTH AT KARITANE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 213, 23 July 1943, Page 8

WE SPENT A MONTH AT KARITANE

(Written for "The Listener" by

N.

M.

HE notice said TO KARITANE, but it didn’t say just how far, so my mother carried the baby for two lamp posts while I carried the case. Both were heavy, and the baby complicated things by wobbling from side to side watching the tram-car disappear. We had been forced to tram: "Sorry, madam, no taxis available. No madam, I cannot say when any will be available." And so there we were, trudging rather wearily up the hill and changing over at the second lamp post. Then, when it was almost time to change again, we were there. At a window I could see a nurse in blue hoiding a baby with a _ tiny shrivelled face. Then it really was Karitane. In the hall we sat on an oak settle to wait for the Matron, I knew there must be babies behind those doors, yet it was so very quiet. Those doors were very intriguing — in each was a tiny pane of glass at about eye-level. What were they for? So that those ‘inside could see outside, or vice versa? Further down the hall was a much larger sheet of glass, and through it I could see covered cribs and masked nurses silently moving about.

Oh, I was tired! My head was spinning, and there was a Neon sign flashing at the back of my eyes, It said "sleep, sleep, sleep." Yet I couldn’t sleep. Too much worry over a sick baby, sometimes a sick three-year-old, too. Too much responsibility. % * * OW a calm voice was saying "Will you come in here, please? Nurse will take the baby." And now I was answering questions: "Baby’s name, age. . Father’s name, occupation-oh, yes, soldier. . . . Have you your Social Security book, Plunket book, note from the doctor? Now when did this trouble begin? Has the baby ever had a dummy?" And I, shaken out of my lethargy: "A dummy! NEVER!" "Now Mrs. M." said Matron. "you and your baby will be in our Mothercraft Cottage, over there. This is the general hospital." In the cottage I had a pretty bedroom with French windows opening on a wide veranda. I was taken to the mothers’ sitting room: introductions: Mrs. A., Mrs. B., Mrs. C., Mrs. D., Mrs. E. and Mrs. F. It was rather awful. As usual I realised too late that I should have waited to say "How do youdo?" collectively at the end instead of saying it to each one. But once begun I didn’t like to stop. "Now I'll leave you here and nurse will bring you a cup of tea," said Matron.

In the silence I looked at this very comfortable room. Cream walls, chintz covered chairs and window seats, a gateleg writing table, and a carpet that made me envious indeed. Then, in the dining part, a long refectory table with Windsor chairs and a long oak buffet. It was so charming and comfortable that I began to feel rather better. Then I heard wails. Oh dear!’ My son! My baby! What were they doing to him? Why did I come? "That’s not your baby," said a mother who had just come in. "It’s my Felicity making all the’ noise. All ‘the new mothers are the same. They are quite sure it’s their baby crying all the time, and they worry and worry for about two days. By that time they’ve found out that it’s nearly always someone else’s baby, and they relax. As a matter of fact, your chap is having*the time of his life in the nursery, sitting ‘on Sister’s knee and making friends." ~ "Is he really?" "Yes, really. Don’t worry. They’re marvellous here. Lots of people think they don’t believe in ‘mothering,’ but they do. What’s been the matter with your baby?" So I told them, and they listened attentively. Then it began: "My baby was the same. . . ." "Oh dear, I hope my baby won't... . ." "Well, what happened to my baby was this... ..." "Yes, it was a nightmare until I came here. I don’t know how I managed... ." A dark girl in the window laughingly said: "You mothers with one baby make me laugh" "Why" I said, "have you got twins?" "Twins!" they all cried at once. "She’s got triplets!" Triplets! And so placid about it. "Any more children?" I asked. "Oh, yes," she said happily. "Another one, nearly three... ." * * * "\V HAT do we do all day?" I asked one of the mothers. "Do we see our babies apart from their meal times?" "Of course. Here’s our day. At 6 a.m. a cup of hot water and an apple-or an orange if they’re obtainable. Then we feed the babies. Then, unutterable bliss, we go to sleep again. Up about 7.30 (earlier if you bath in the morning), breakfast at 8. By 9 our beds must be made and our rooms tidied. Then we start to bath the babies and feed them about 10. We tuck them down and then have morning tea. Then we go for a walk. Lunch is at 12.30. And then we go to bed. And we must go to bed and rest. No knitting or letter-writing. If we like, we can ask permission and go out (Continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) for lunch as long as we are back in time to rest a litthe before the 2 o'clock feed." She laughed. "One day, nearly everybody was out to lunch, and I was rather new and thought I could just stay quietly in hére in the sun. Nobody came near except Matron! Since then, I’ve been’ hounded to bed every day. I feel like a criminal. You'll hear the nurses: ‘Now, Mrs. B., you will go to bed, won’t hg ‘Are you going to bed now, Mrs. "After the babies are fed, those who are well enough and over six weeks, go over to the ‘kicker’ for exercise in long woolly suits." "The ‘kicker’?" "A large play-pen, rather nice, with sides covered in pink linen and animals all over it, It’s in the porch with windows all round. The. infants love it.. While

they're: there we have our afternoon tea, As your baby. is older, you'll probably be able to take him out in the pram. Later, topping and tailing of the babies, feeds ‘and bed. Then our own dinner, After that, we sit and talk babies till

about eight, when we have coffee." "Coffee?" I said, in much the same tone as I had: used about. a dummy. "Coffee for. nursing mothers?" "Cereal. coffee-bran and treacle, I think, but I’m not sure, Anyway, it’s quite nice. More baths-our own-and to bed at 8.30. About 9.30 the nurses bring the babies to us in bed for their feeds, and take them away again and tuck them down. And there are: night nurses to look after the babies at night, of course-the babies all sleep over at general, I sat entranced. "To bed at 8.30. the nurses bring the babies. . and tuck them down." All this and too! For eight months I had risen at five and gone to bed later*than I cared to admit. Would it all really happen? "Some of the babies have to be fed every three hours. And some of the mothers have to have special treatments to increase their supply of milk... ." * * * "THEN it was time to "top and tail" in the nursery Why, oh, why don’t they build houses with nurseries or even with decently-sized kitchens or bathrooms? I thought of my efforts on the dining-room table covered with a rug. And visitors will come around when the place is strewn with baby clothes, napkins, jars of ointment. .. . Here everything was cream and blue, small blue chairs with cream tie-on cushions, small tables for the trays, cupboards, screens, curtains. large sinks for the baths-with benches-and, of course, nurses helping and answering questions * * * E were in another world. We didn’t once hear the news from London. We didn’t even read. the newspaper. The meals were good, very wholesome -though, strange to some palates, For instance, white sauce with grated cooked carrots for breakfast. We all drank lots of milk and lots of water. We laughed a lot-over very simple things. "Good for Nursing Mothers" was our slogan. And how we talked-it was babies, babies, babies! We would listen while one was holding the floor, all of us making the right kind of noises, but each anxious to have her turn and tell her day’s experiences in detail... .

~ Most of the mothers were very young. I was an "old" mother because I had two children. I felt an old mother, too, when I heard one young thing remark of someone "Of course she’s getting on. She must be at léast 25." We were rather shabby, too. The mothers of the older babies who had been sick were tired and careworn, and the younger mothers were still mostly post-natally amorphous, still forced to wear, to their intense disgust, their old clothes. We "old" mothers reassured them: they would soon get back their figures, especialiy if they persevered with breastfeeding, and we tried to explain, learnedly, though probably very inaccurately, the physiological reasons for this. * * %* SOME of us were shown over the hospital. I peered through the glass window into a "premature" ward, a beautiful room done in eggshell blue and a

delicate pink. It was explained that all babies under five and a-half pounds, whether fulltime or not, are better for the special treatment given to premature babies. "Do they come here as soon as they are born?"

I asked. "No, it would be too great a shock to them to be moved at once, so they wait 24 hours. Once in Karitane, they have almost complete rest. They don’t leave their cribs, even to be fed. Every three hours they are turned from one side to the other." "And the window in the door?" "That is so that mothers can see their babies, The nurses wear masks all the time in that ward; if the babies are gaining in weight and strong enough, they can be wheeled over to the window and raised so that their mothers can see them... ." The dispensary, or Milk Kitchen, was a most interesting place. In the huge refrigerator were crates of labelled feeding _bottles and frozen cubes. of breast milk. Nearby were bottles of breast milk sent from all over the province, and just collected from railway station and bus depot, waiting to be boiled and put away for the respective babies. In this dispensary all the artificial foods for the babies were prepared. There were-oh, awesome sight! -dozens of bottles of rose-hip syrup. Before I went back to the cottage, I watched some of the babies begin their evening meal. It was a heart-warming sight. The young nurses sat in a circle with the babies round a large steel waggon with all the food on it. Behind screens, in the corners, the "bad" babies who refused to eat in company, were being fed. It was obvious that the nurses loved their jobs and loved the babies. I decided that even if I had to go home and leave my baby for a week or two, I would be perfectly happy about him, knowing that he would have every care, and knowing, too, that he would be mothered. * * * T was nearly a month since we had trudged wearily up the road. Now we were going home. The mother who was to have my room had arrived. She sat on the edge of_a chair in the mothers’ sitting room. Her face wore a stricken look. There were loud wails from the nursery. "That is not your baby crying," I said. "It’s: my son who is making all the noise. All the new mothers,are the . wey