OUR BABIES

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 12, 8 October 1927, Page 21

OUR BABIES

(By

"Hygeia.")

Published under the auspices of the jtoyal New 'Zealand Society for the rlealth of Women ami Children tl’luuket Society). “It is wiser to put, up a lenco at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." The following extracts are from uu article appearing in an issue of the “Illustrated Tasmanian Mail” last March. Evidently the writer is a mother whose baby had been a little patient in the Mothercraft Home, and one gathers that she had gone into residence there for a day or so in order tq learn how to handle and manage him before taking him home. She iiad been wonderfully quick to observe, and her impressions are charmingly expressed. We may mention that the Hobart Child Welfare Association’s Mothercraft Home, to which the article refers, is doing' excellent work for the mothers and babies on the lines of our New Zealand Karitaue Hospitals and Mothercraft Homes. “LIFE AT THE MOTHERCRAFT HOME.”

“It is 5 p.m. at the Home, and I, a very nervous mother, am undressing my son for the first time for many, many months. Of course, he doesn’t know me, and wonders why an uncapped person should presume to take such a liberty. He has just been taken from the kicking pen, where he and wee James, another old resident, have been making overtures to pretty little Doreen, holding her hand while disdaining each other as mere men. Oh, fie!

“I look round me with vast bewilderment at the paraphernalia, and watch with envious eyes the matter-of-fact way everyone else is going about their business. . . I am told that the night clothes are in the bassinet, on which its owner’s name is written, and on removing the cover a neat pile arranged in the order needed greets my eye. I gingerly remove the day clothes, and am then questioned as to whether I have the bath ready and the towels laid by, only to realise that I have not taken' instructions properly. “I am told to bathe one eye and rinse, then bathe the other, and then the face, and lastly the body. Have I the cuddling blanket? Oh, no; I’ve forgotten to bring that over. I feel a perfect fool. . . . “Babies bathed and messed, thev are laid down to wail for their teas, but I jealously nurse mine, thinking that’s one cry I have saveo mm—and laying up trouble for myself when I get home with him!

“Tea trays arrive at 5.30. There are little ‘mannite’ jars with emulsion, and the owner’s name tagged on, ditto the bottles (heated to lOOdeg.); a can of hot water for reheating, a thermometer, teats with coloured cottons—tall in the owner’s jars. My important son roars while I blunder through the performance ; my hands fumble with the teat. I can’t read the thermometer; I forgot to cover the tray as I dive for one thing and another. .1 envy the calmness of the others, and I ooze despair. Halftime comes, the bottles are taken away from disgruntled babies, who protest’ against the indignity—my son beats them all with his bellow—wind gets up. Fast teats are exchanged for

slow ones; the infants settle down to finish bottles and fill ‘tummies,’ and I heave a sigh of relief when it is all over. Oh! but it isn’t. Naps are removed, babies held out—some do, some don’t. . “Reclothed and wrapped in cuddlers, they are taken out to their cots on the verandah, gloves put on, tucked in (safetv-pinned to make sure), and it is bye-bve time for the wee folk. My small' son shows his skittishness, also his convalescence, by putting his teet high into the air every time the clothes are put over, till at last a white cap comes to my assistance, and says, ‘Now, Rex boy, quickly, sleepie-byes,’ and the scamp subsides at the voice of authority. “I re-enter the nursery and find out all the things I’ve left undone. . . - We all put day clothes on hangers to air, and naps, washers, etc., are collected for the washtubs. “Ye gods! And they have done all this for my son for months, not once a dav, but several times. I take off my hat a bit lower to the Mothercraft Nurses, and wish—oh, how I wish—that I iiad had some such training before. I tackled matrimony, and I vow that nothing is too good for the nurses or the home who have brought my baby back to health.” The Finnish Parliament has recently passed a Bill on the Ross of Finnish Citizenship, based on the same principles as the new law on nationality which came into force in Sweden >n 1926. The name of the Finnish Law of Nationality is somewhat puzzling m connection with the question of the nationality of married women, since its first section includes this right (an exchange states). In future a Finnish woman national marrying a foreigner retains her Finnish citizenship as long as she resides in her own country, automatically as it were, without haying to make aiiv agreement on the subject before marrying, and she also retains, her nationality rights if she takes up her abode with her husband outside Finland unless by so doing she acquires his nationality. Another paragraph provides for the case of a Finnish woman national having become “stateless,” having lost citizenship in her own country without acquiring that of het husband, by allowing her to‘ regain Finnish nationality. The Bill was passed without much comment and did not create anv special interest either in Parliament or in the Press. Only the women’s papers took notice of this law and hailed it as a progressive reform. For the first time a director of studies has been appointed by the University of London Joint Committee for the promotion of the higher education of working people. The appointment has gone to Mrs. Barbara Wootton, one of the seven members of the committee nominated by the Workers’ Educational Association. She is a Justice of the Peace and an M.A. of Cambridge, and since December, 1925, has been principal of Morley College. Mrs. Wootton, who is 30, lost her husband in the war a few months after their marriage. Dr. Pedro Albuquerque, Chief of the Maritime Department of the Brazilian Federal Public Health Service, has appointed two women doctors on ships of the Brazilian Merchant Service going to Europe and the Argentine. He intends to make further appointments.