OUR BABIES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 21, 19 October 1918, Page 5

OUR BABIES

\ fBT HYOMA.I , d . ' Published under tho auspices of llio lioyal Havt Uealaud Society ior tbo Health of'Wojfics and Children. "It is wiser to put up a fencu at tno top of a. precipice than to maintain an ambulanco at the bottom." THE BABY'S FATHER. Tho following article, which appeared in the July issue of the Farmer'e Magazine, Toronto, Canadu, was eeut to us by the writer. Dr. Helen Macmurchy,. Dr. Manuurchy has taken ti very keen interest, in the work of our society for many years, and has always kept in touch with us. Aftor making two official reports on infant mortnljjy-at the instance of-the Canadian Government in 1911, Dr. ■Mμmurchy was appointed to investigate and report on tho conditions of mental defectives. Now that the war has reawakened interest in the importance of savins child lifo and ensuring sood health, Dr. Macmurchy is again taking part in this particular branch, and tho following article Bhows that the Canadian Public Health Department in alivo to the necessity of safeEuarding the children. In New Zealand we hare always found that if the. interest of the father be really gained, the battle for tho proper rearing of the baby is practically won. We hope that Dr. Macmurchy'e article may stir tip tho fathers who so far have not done their duty by their. offspring in this respect, and may cause them to do their part- in tryins to make up for some of the tcrriblo wastage of human life which is taking; place at the present time. Dfi. MAOMUKCnrS ABTICIiE. V/o are aji to Uu coiigratur.ii.iju on the inauguration oi tliu cmiil wellaro section oi' tnu Uniiacliaii i'uulic Health Absocmuon. I'orluuHieiy, tne aim at iiie btcliou Iβ oloarly liicucatcu by us name. Wimt, io tliu cluei memis by which we are to attain that aim? Pernaps it lias never been belter expressed than uy the liight Hon. Joliu Kuriis, then president, of the iiocal uovurnment iioard, n'Jieu lie cuid at tho lirst conforeuca on infant mortality in Xjonuon:—

"Concentrate on the mother. Y/e must glonly, uignify, and uurily mpthemoou uy overy means iu our power." Most true. But who is the' person to glorify, dignify, and purify motherhood.' is it not the baby'B father? Perhaps those of us who have occn working for child welfare owe tho baby's liUhm-an apolosy. iiavc we rccot'iileed him us we should have? Have we ueeu reckoning without our host? When one looks over the whole field, not only iu our own country, but in other countries, it is impossible to be satisfied with the slow progress and the scanty gains that we nave made. In infant mortality—for example: It is true that modern work for the prevention of infant mortality began iu the Edwardian era at the beginning of the twentieth oontiiry, and that some progress has been made. But still, ooinpared with what ought to bo, wo cannot feel that results are satisfactory, except, perI haps, in New Zealand. If this ie the situation it is wise to try a new point of view, to be willing to mako a radical change in our motherhood if necessary, to acknowledge that we have been wroufc, if we see it that way, and to call to our aid any new ally, and to avail ourselves of the leadership of those whom, we may have up to thei present time ignored or neglected. Would it not ha as well to put our case before the baby's father? To associate him more closely with our work, and to romiiW him that, after all, he is tho leader aed wo are ouly his agents, his advisers and helpers? We arc in tho position of Diogenea, who was looking for a "Hear Man." We ore falling back upon the father because wo have to, and we shall not ask for his help in vain. His answer may bo as prompt and aa faithfully kept as the words with which a groat king of Israel comforted his weepincr people:—"To-morrow by the time tho nun be hot, yo shall havo help." One of the greatest new powers that- 'ho present awful war has liberated in the world is the power of action. Pcoplo are not onito as dilatory as they were beforo the war. IOIE FIVE AEJIIES. When the doctor loolte at the question of infant mortality and child, -welfare, ho sees flvo armies, all under the banner of death. Tho loador of tho First Army is tho shadowy form of tho Baby who Never Has Been, whoso only existence was in tho Itinpdom of hopo. It is long ago eince "Tho Silenco of Dean Maitland" w-an the most popular novel of the year, but there may be somo who rood theso words and will romember a , young surgeon, Dr. Bverard, who wae oondomnod to life-long imprisonment as a. result of tho silence of Dean Maitland about tho orimo of manslaughter of which he. and not tho surgeon, hud been guilty. Twenty years after the surgeon was released, from ,tho penitentiary, married. Lilian, who had beon faithful.to him all. those years, and Uioy sat down. together at last at their own fireside. "Ho thought and wondered—did Lilian think, too, as she sat by his side?—of another little croup of chlld-faocß who might havo clustered aroond their hearth." Around that fireside -wore tho ghosts of their children who novor had been and now nover would bo This is the First Army that tho nation loses-tho Army of the Baby that Never Has Bcon. But tho namo of oiir penitentiary is not Portsmouth or Stony Mountain, but Sclflennoss, and tho reason that this baby has never boon rests not so ofton with hard fato as wjth our own unhappy lack of thought and failure to realiso where the real success of lifo is to bo found. The Second Army is led by another shadowy form-the Baby that Never in Born. Better care of tho mother, mpro common sense, and ■ liindly consideration by tho fathor, careful instruction and eduoatlon by the right people and in the right -way as to tho preparation for parenthood would save a great many of those -who now perish unborn. Sometimes wo-all do our best, and yet fail-to do better still later on. And surely there are not many Canadians who do not livo clean lives. ' But when all,this has been stated and agreed and insisted upon it still remains true that a spade must bo called a spade, and tho namo of the Spade iu mortality beforo birth ie somotimos venereal disease. Public opinion has movod with such marvellous ewiftuesa upon this subject that it is possible now to do more good than harm by efforts to combat venereal disease. Indeed, it is now possible to do a great deal of good, and a great deal of good has been done and will bo done. This second baby ie tho type of an enormous loss to tho nation in man-power aim woman-power. Dr. Amand Kouth and othor emipont authorities ostimate that infant mortality before birth from all causes doprivee us of a.numbor of potential lives equal to tho number that wo lose in the Ural year after birth-that is. it doubles our infant mortality. The Third Army, is led by tho Baby Who Airivcs Only to Depart. When David Ooppcrfield found that the task oi making his wife Dora a wiser woman was beyond his power, ho hoped that, ."smaller fingers" would havo been able to accoaplieh it. "But it was not to be. The tmv EBlrit fluttered for an instant on the threshold of its little prison, and then, unconscious of captivity, took wing. Another very important part of our natiSnalloES occurs within a few days or evou hours after birth. , The Fourth Army -is led by the Baby That is Carried Oat of Idfo. M°J° j> B has knowledge to cry "my father or my mother" the land fs boroavod of the oU Id. In 1011 at the Boyal Academy Exhibition In London tho great picture of the year was Mr. B. Blair Leighton's "To the Unknown Land." In the foreground a beautiful fomalo figure kneels at the margin of a face buried in her lianas, her long black robo falling in lines of wonderf'il graco and beauty, about her flguro majestic in the dignity of grief on tho, flood of tile rivei- a jerry boat with the grim ferryman ]uet dipping ins oars, and in the stern of the boat a dew and groat Angel!" tenderly bearing a little 'Wore is'iio national loss more poignant or more unnecessary than the lobs ol a baby under a year old. The Fifth Army » led by the Ex-Baby -the child under school age, tho child who walks out of life on his own foot ns it were. Some desolating disease, some untoward accident, carries him away, and tho nation loses another oltizen. (To bo Continued.)