OUR BABIES

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 154, 17 March 1923, Page 14

OUR BABIES

(By

"Hygein.")

Published under the auspices of the Royal New Zealand 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.'* The following questions were submitted by a correspondent a few months ago TOBACCO-SMOKE. Question I.—Do you think it is suitable for babies and young children to inhale tobacco-smoke, as so many have to do in their homes? Answer.—Our correspondent scarcely means to ask whether it is suitable for babies and young children “to inhale tobaqoo-smoke,” because this must occur,very rarely. Still, one has heard of grown-up men actually puffing the smoke from their pipes into the faces of young children “for fun,” and even putting their pipes or cigarettes between children’s lips, causing them to inhale the smoke and almost choke over it. Such proceeding's, besides being unhygienic, are very foolish, senseless, and harmful; but they must be infrequent. The question no doubt refers to the presence of the babies and young children in the room while their father, and maybe his friends, are sitting chatting and smoking. The purer, fresher, and cleaner the air is the better it is for all babies and young children, as well as for adults. There can be no doubt that it must be very damaging for a baby to breathe habitually air impregnated with tobacco-smoke and heated up and contaminated by the exhalations of the smokers. When one goes into a heated compartment in a train where the air is cloudy with tobacco-smoke one fairly gasps, and the whole atmosphere seems to be polluted. If such an effect is produced on a hardened adult, how much more must the delicate, sensitive, breathing organs of a young child be affected? If once the matter were fairly presented to them, I am sure that are few fathers who would not gladly refrain from smoking in the living room until the children were safely in bed in a fresh, airy bedroom. As for the baby, ho can always be made comfortable in his cradle in another room, unless it happens to be his time for sitting up and noticing things, and then the father should be co interested in his child’s development that he would not think of smoking. , Again, let me repeat that cool, fresh, pure outside air is best for babies, children, and grown-ups alike. GOING BAREFOOT. Question II. —Is it the safest thing to go barefooted ? Answer. —This is a question often asked by anxious parents. Under all ordinary circumstances a normal child would be decidedly safer and harder if he went barefooted. The soles of the feet soon become quite hard and lea-ther-like, and it is only if a child knocks his toes or treads on something sharp which, causes a wound

that there is a risk of poisonous germs netting up trouble. Without shoes in ordinary weather there is little danger of a child becoming devitalised through cold, damp feet. The little one dances along with a freer gait, and not only gets the stimulus of contact with th© earth, but also the stimulus of cold, He can walk through all the puddles and have a happy time, thus storing up power to resist the onslaught of germs. StiH, one has to consider the “pros ’ and “cons,” and in a city, where garbage of all kinds may be met with, or in the country near stables, there may be cases where it would be spfer to have shoes. On a clean sea-beach there should be no danger, and a child would gain enormously by going barefoot. _ We must always bear .in mind that for one case where a child gets harm from going barefooted there are hundreds who get colds, c( ughs, consumption, etc., from lack of .the kind of vigour and hardiness derived from free exposure of the skin to wet and raid —especially of the feetTherefore one would say that children are much safer and hardier if they go barefooted than if they have their feet covered.

TRAVELLING BACKWARDS IN PRAMS.

Question lII.—Is it conducive to th® well-being of sight and nervous system generally for babies to travel backwards in their prams? Answer. —On practically all grounds ib is better for infants to travel backwards in thpir prams. The mother or nurse always has the child within view, and can see if hg gets into an uncomfortable or awkward position and remed the defect without delay. At the sejne time the child can always look at a familiar face, and is not terrified by the constant passing of strange faces and thingsMany a time one saes a little child with eyes upturned to the bright sky without any shade to temper the glare. This is, of course, very harmful. In sunny weather the child should always be protected by a canopy or pram-hood which, while providing free ventilation, is light coloured outside, and lined with green.

The address of the Plunket Society’s Booms in Wellington is 18 Kent Terrace. Hours of attendance, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. week days; 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays. Nurses’ services free th all. Communications to the secretary (Miss ■Ward); telephone 21—931.

A baptismal service will be conducted in the Baptist Church, Vivian Street, to-morrow evening; and the Rev. F. E. Harry’s ‘Tlot-point Talk” will be on St. Patrick. An accident occurred a little before 11 o’clock on Thursday night, in front of the Kelburn car stop, as a result of which Miss Hannah. Rush, was admitted. to the Hospital suffering from injuries to the head. It appears that Miss Rush had dismounted from a tramcar, and was endea-vouring to cross the road when she collided with a mo-tor-car. It was reported that her condition yesterday was quite satisfactory.