OUR BABIES.

Clutha Leader, Volume XL, Issue 70, 10 March 1914, Page 3

OUR BABIES.

By Hygeia

Published under the auspices of the Society for the Health of Women and Children.

"It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." FAILURE IN NURSING.

In this and the next article I purpose giving some idea of common causes of failure to nurse their babies in case's of mothers who are auxious to do so. The illustrations will be drawn from instances which came under our notice recently in the Old World.

Before going into detail it is desirable to make perfectly clear that the power to completely nurture a baby for nine months, or even longer, should be taken as a matter of course in the case of every normal human mother, just as it is in the case ol' every normal mammal. However, under the conditions of modern civilisation a considerable proportion of mothers do not succeed" in supplying enough milk for their babies for the full period. MAIN CAUSES OF FAILURE. The main causes of failure are:— (I) The fact that the mother herself was reared artificially oil preparations not well adapted for the perfect development of the whole organism. Investigations have clearly shown that where a mother has failed to suckle her baby girl, the daughter tends to fail also when her time comes. This proves that, where artificial feeding has to be resorted to, the utmost care should be taken to make the prepared food resemble human milk as nearly as possible. It' proper care is taken there is no reason why artificially-fed infants should fail as mothers.

(2) Defective or one-sided growth and development. A flat-chested, poorly developed, pale-faced, delicate office girl or sempstress is not likely to make the best of mothers from any point of view 7, though it is wonderful how much such women sometimes do in spite of everything, if they take proper care of themselves after marriage. 011 the other hand, there is abundant evidence that powerful, muscular women who have been too exclusively trained at colleges to high mental proficiency and great skill in gymnastics, golf, tennis, etc., are apt to fail in all aspects of motherhood simply because the various parts of the body particularly concerned in motherhood, including special brain and nerve tracts, have been more or less left out of account, and have failed to develop properly. If the nutrition and energising of the organism are concentrated throughout girlhood 011 mere intellectuality, and the development of bone and muscle to the exclusion of the domestic and more strictly womanly, home-loving and child-loving side of life, there is found to be some lack of the "eternal womanly" in the adult. 111 no direction is this more clearly seen than in the failure to properly nourish offspring, however anxious the mother mav be to do so.

(I!) Neglect of any of the essentials mentioned in pages :> to lo of the Society's book, "Feeding and Care of Baby" may militate against the power to completely nurse the baby. Chief among these causes are: —Corset-wear-ing, lack of loresight and lack of healthy habits during pregnancy and nursing, especially insuflieieiioy of openair exercise; neglect of the breasts, etc.; carelessness as to diet and feeding habits; the presence of constipation, etc. All such mistakes tend in the same direction. But, in spite of everything, there are very tew modern mothers who cannot manage to nurse their babies completely or partially for nine months if they will give reasonable attention' to what is needed even so late in the day as after the birth of the baby, though, of course, their chances would be infinitely better in every way if they looked ahead in due time.

]t cannot be too strongly impressed on women that in the natural course the mother should have ample milk for twins. This is clearly .shown by the fact that, in hospitals on the Continent, it is quite a common thing for a city mother to be able to supply ample milk for two or three babies for long periods. At the Kaiserin-Augusta-Victoria Hans, in Berlin, we were shown a mother who was giving daily no less than 3} litres (six pints) of milk, and was going up in weight herself. (4) Overfeeding the baby. Strange as it may seem, this is a frequent cause of failure in the milk supply. Instead of cautiously training the baby in the first week by starting with nursing for only a few minutes every three or four hours, and gradually working up to nursings of" 10 to 15 minutes, the nurse often tries to get the baby to take as much as it can by frequent feeding and prolonged suckling. The same mistake is made in the succeeding weeks, the baby being commonly fed every two hours. A frequent result is that for a week or more the baby gains in weight more quickly than the average, then indigestion sets in, the baby becomes restless and irritable, the mother loses her sleep also, and the milk supply begins to dwindle. First the baby's weight becomes stationary, then it begins to go downhill. When loss rather than gain has been noticed at several weighings the mother is ordered to give a bottle-feeding in place of one of the breast-feedings, then two complete bottle-feedings, and so on, and in a short time it is decided that the baby must be weaned. The mother is told that there is something radically wrong with tho quality of her milk, because the baby yells after the breastfeedings, but is contented after the bottle-feedings. In reality it is a very rare thing indeed for mother's milk to disagree unless her habits are very far wrong. In the vast majority of these cases the supply'of mother's milk has .jeen caused to fall short of the quantity required, and the baby cries simply be.oause he is not getting enough—perhaps only a half or a third of the .quantity allowed at each feeding by bottle." •

I shall give a very interesting illustrative ease next week where a baby, who was failing before it was a,month old in exactly the way I have described, was quickly restored to a flourishing condition by first ascertaining what was the shortage in the mother's supply by means of weighing the baby before and after nursing, and proceeding to systematically make up the deficiency by giving only just what was needed after each nursing. To keep up full stimulation of the breasts the baby was suckled at each feeding time, only the amount needed to make up the full quantity being given by bottle. Further, both breasts were used at each nursing. The feedings were reduced in number from 10 to six in the 2+ hours, and no nightfeeding was allowed. The baby quickly went up more than an ounce a day, and soon became the picture of health and chubbiness. At the same time the mother's health and spirits rose, and the milk supply steadily increased.

Yet this mother hail been told that her milk was poisonous, and that it was absolutely necessary; to wean the baby. She wjis well-to-do, and had what would be called every advantage, yet this was the third baby that, for no other reasons than such as have been given, had been condemned to artificial feeding. The mother was most anxious to nurse her children, and'had every natural quality, physical, mental and moral, tending to perfect womanhood —a good mother defeated through wrong counsel.