A MOTHER'S LETTER.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 165, 6 April 1908, Page 3

A MOTHER'S LETTER.

' "Young Mother" writes from the country: "My. baby is' fed .with humanised milk, w'hich '.r- always make myself. She has doubled her , weight, in four, months instead of- six, in spite of the fact that she. did no good ; .at all. for • one of thoso months on —'s well-known patent food, .and had'a bad attack of diarrhoea for a week. Slie is going to cut her teeth very early. She. is the picture of health, and so very, bright and happy. She sleeps all night, and is a model m every way.- If you have a picture 'gallery for your babies I nVust send little 'Annie's photograph for it, "My only trouble is that the milk I set is so rich that I think the cream is too strong if I follow the 12,' per cent, .recipe. I have boen iusin°; seven ounces instead of nine, and skimming as thinly as I can. Tho cow is a-young Ayrshire, heifer. How. would it do to.use the 40 per cent, recipe? -The seven ounces. suit her very well, but: of course I should bo glad to know if ' I' could do better. .1 make up the quantity with''one ounce.of whey. and'.boiled water. ' "I found the treatment-recommended'for diarrhoea —viz., boiled water, etc.—most excellent." Etc., etc.

Here everything seems to have gone well,' and one only wishes that such interest, care, and attention .to . detail were attainable everywhere.. In nineteen cases out of twenty where a child is apparently all right the mother will -continue any course of ' feeding she may have adopted, in spite of tho most convincing _ arguments that in the long run trouble is likely to arise if a change > is not made. The stereotyped answer ono receives is: "Oil, I'm not-going to mako any change so long. as baby is doing well. Besides, Mrs. fed her babies the same way, and there, is nothing wrong:. with them." The average mother does not uso her higher reasoning faculties in these matters, and can scarcely be brought- to realise the folly of pursuing a. course of feeding proved, by - world-wide, careful -observation and experience to be likely to 'cause a breakdown'in the long run.. If the baby is' doing well on 'a! .wrong or 'indifferent method of feeding, the mother might rest' assured that it would do better still if. fed in a better way. However, the average woman has no anxiety until r.ctual disease arises, and even then she usually turns in flurried, despair from one patent food to another, instead of looking the situation fairly and squarely in the face, arid then calmly and .patiently following • out', some simple, rational .course of treatment based upon first principles. and : experience. If mothers would only look ahead , and- treat their progeny rationally from the start there would 'be 'few sickly babies, and infantile death would be a very rare event. The grandmother, of course, tends to bo opposed to all this, - and says that what was good, enough in her day should' be good enough -now. If. she: referred, to normal suckling by healthy mothers slio would, of course' be right; .but the present generation of' young mothers has not for the .most part had that advantage for themselves, nndithoir education,, habits, and. subsequent- life-training have not been such as to inako them as. mothers tho equals of the mothers of earlier generations. .Unfortunately, top, from one cause or another, they have lost tho guidance of any reliable maternal instinct, and have not yet. learned, to.replaco.it (to tho degree to which it can be replaced) by reason and intelligence.. The following excellent remarks made by Dr. Saleeby in an nrticlo which appeared recently in the "Daily Mail" will sorvo to convoy clearly not only the. point' Which I am at the moment trying to ostablisli, but also to confirm the importance' of ' somo other matters which tho Society for tho Pro-, motion of the Health of Women and Children has specially taken in hand.