OUR BABIES.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2162, 30 May 1914, Page 11

OUR BABIES.

fBT HYGEU.I

Published under tho auspices of tho Sothe Health of Women and Children. "It It wiser to put up a rence at tio top 01 fl. prcclplco than to maintain an ambu* imioq at toe bottom." PREVALENCE OF THE DUMMY. All over the world the dummy or comforter has been unsparingly condemned tor many yea-re as-one'of the greatest curses that the modern infant is forced to put up with. Well-nieaning but misguided movers (and one must regretfully admit 4 a good many nurses of the old. school also) still seeni to think that a baby is not complete without its dummy—just as certain savages aro looked on as laoking something essential if not set off by tattooing and nose rings. THE DUMMY PROBLEM DISCUSSED. Mother No. .1: "But what I can't understand is why thoy teach them to use the dummy, even where tho baby is quite-good without anything, and actually lights against the horrid thing at first. You remember Sarah —-, who used to bo at school with us. Well, she's light enough herself, but she was tolling me that Mrs. (Mary J that was) got a dummy beforo t-lie baby was born, and now you hardly ever see him without it, though he must be nearly a year and a half old. She's in a fine old lix now, because if she takes away the dummy his finger goes straight' into his mouth, and there he sucks and sucks. He s got so used to having something to suck all the time that it seems as if he couldn't do without it, and, as she says, it's hard to tell which is the' worse habit When things 'have gone that length."

Mother No. 11. : "Well, isn't that funny; why it's just what my cousin, Mrs- had to fight against. Tho dummy gave her baby the habit of always sucking, and when -it was taken' away nothing would stop her slicking her fingers. Sho was just like a calf that has taken, to sucking another calf's oars. She simply couldn't be broken off the habit until sho was over two years old, and her -mother says now that sho I? SUI ' a Rreat deal to do with the child not thriving properly. She's going- to have an operation for adenoids."

•i. ni ci V' "That's the worst of it. Ihey say that the dummy gives them adenoids. AYhut I can't got ove« is that any mother woul dactually set to -work to train her, baby to usu a thing that she knows is wrong. What do they think that the mothers did before dummies Were invented? Besides, look at the babies at tho Karitano Hospital.. You never see a dummy though they say most of them have them when they go in. " If I had my way I'd make a law.- . . ." One can only guess what the "law" was to be. 1 did not hear, because the train caino to a station, and .both women got out. However, what I wondered at myself was that our fellow women should need a law and a policeman and a magistrate to stop .them from ill-treating their children! ' It seems rather humiliating that any of us should have to ask Parliament to pass "laws" to keep us straight in matters'of this kind! ■ • WHAT THE PLL'NKET NURSES SAY. Only last week more than a third of the monthly report of one of the Dunedin Plunket Nurses was devoted to pointing out how extremely difficult she finds, it in practice to induce some mothers to give up tho dummy. Mothers who will faithfully carry out instructions as to the preparing and keeping of the . baby's/, milk, ana,,who even go half-waj towards" fhe admission of a reasonable amount of fresh, cool' air . into their houses, sometimes continue using tho dummy in spite of everything that can be brought against it. As the nurse said: "Somo of theso mothers will seem to agree with you, aud will even tell you that they havo given the dummy up and thrown it away, just to please you, but it is rather upsetting to find tho baby sucking away at 'the same old dummy if you happen to drop in accidentally." • Turning to an article which appeared in this column somo years ago, I find, curiously enough, that I was impelled to write then also by a chance' conversation overheard in a train. As the arguments used are still strictly relevant and apulicable ; I shall reproduce a portion of tho article unchanged: ;

THE UNSPEAKABLE DUMMY. Travelling by train a few weeks ago in the same compartment'as ourselves was a young mother and a beautiful little baby boy of aßout 15 months. Ee had the inevitable dummy, with ring attached, hanging by a cord down,,the front of his dress. We were sitting near by, and the little fellow, who was full of life and energy and who was playing about in tho carriage, soon made friends with us. Naturally wo began to chat with his mother, and she told us the baby was her only child, and an only'grandson as well, so ho was very much the apple of her eye and she was evidently most devoted to him. The lady who Was with mo remarked that it was a pity he had a dummy, saying that by using it there was a great risk of deforming the child's mouth and I niining'liis teeth. The mother replied that she knew some people said dummies were not good, but that if my friend had a baby sho would probably use one too, when he became cross. "At any rate," she said, looking with pride at tho beautifully-made plump little chap with rosy cheeks and shining oyes, "it has not done him any harm so far, has it?" . ' LACK OF LOGIC. It is one of the amazing points of view of mothers that they always speak-in this way. They are quite prepared to persist in a wrong course until they can see actual definite harm, which by that time is more or less irreparable. Women constantly say: "I know Such and such a chilli who had a dummy, and his teeth are all right." They don't realise that tho N child's jaws, teeth, and digestion would have been still better had no dummy been used, and that for one case where they can see no damage there would be a dozen cases where the evil effects would be clear to them if pointed out. (This article -will be continued next week)