NURSING SICK BABIES

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25547, 15 July 1948, Page 2

NURSING SICK BABIES

MOTHER’S PART IN TREATMENT In an address to the Canterbury Women’s Club recently, Dr. Stewart Hunter, who returned recently from England, said he had been much impressed by an experiment introduced by Professor Spence in a hospital which he administered in Newcastle. Dr. Spence had considered that pre-sent-day children’s wards in hospitals were psychologically wrong, and had adopted a plan of bringing the mother to the hospital to nurse her own child. At “The Eassam,” Lower Hutt, Wellington, a hospital which treats certain deformities and defects of babies is run on similar lines, according to the “Dominion.” Mothers take their babies to “The Bassam” from all parts of New Zealand, and the majority do not pay anything for the maintenance or treatment of their babies. Dr. H. P. Pickerill and Dr. Cecily Pickerill, who founded and run the hospital, said they were delighted to know that Dr. Hunter was a convert to “keeping mother and baby together,’’ because they believed that mother and baby were a biological unit, and to separate them had sometimes unhappy effects for one or the other. They disagreed with the suggestion that New Zealand lagged behind in this scheme of nursing. Possibly the priority of the method went to New Zealand, since for the last 14 years they had

insisted on every one of their baby patients being nursed by its own "ln the Sarly stages this had been carried' out either in flats or in the mothers’ own homes. There had ■been disadvantages in this, so seven years ago, “The Bassam,” with the approval and assistance of the Health Department. had been established at Lower Hutt. . “We regard the hospital not as a private hospital, but as an ‘auxiliary’ which any public hospital in New Zea-< land mav make use of should it wish to.” said Dr. Pickerill. “Any doctor or ./nurse is welcome to czjll at any time to see how simply it all works.” An American doctor who visiter “The Bassam” last year said he thought it was the best thing of iis kind he had seen. The “Lancet,” in an editorial a few months ago, expressed its unstinted approval of “The Eassam” and the mother’s part in treatment. ENGAGEMENTS Mr and Mrs A. F. Hurndell (Waimate) announce the engagement of their youngest daughter, Carolyn June, to John Ronald (Ron), second son of Mr and Mrs W. J. Hutt, Waimate. The engagement is announced of Patricia Rock, eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs Arthur Robertson, Highgate, Dunedin, to Peter Clement Molony, only son of Mrs M. S. Alcock (Merivale, Christchurch) and the late Dr. J. A. M. Alcock (Kensington, London).