OUR BABIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 December 1928, Page 11

OUR BABIES

MASTICATORY EXERCISE

By

Hygeia.

The mouth is indeed a great primal ‘driving station,’ whence the nerve fibres carry impulses to the nerve centres, which quicken the life and activity of every tissue of the body. When the jaws are doing natural, honest, hard work the whole of the rest of the organism is impelled to activity. The heart pumps quicker and. more forcibly, the pressure of blood in the arteries rises and its stream flows more rapidly, even in the very fingertips; at the same time the digestive juices are poured out freely, not only into the mouth, but also into the stomach and bowels, as the result of messages transmitted from the mouth to the nerve centres and out again when we are busily engaged in mastication. Apart altogether from the consideration of the building of the teeth and jaws, active ‘mouth exercise’ is thus necessary for the nutrition, growth, and health of every organ of the body. ‘Feeding exercise’ is the most primitive, fundamental, and essential of all forms of exercise. A horse fed mainly on hard, dry food (and reasonably treated in other respects) becomes the ideal of strength and ‘fitness.’ Feed the same horse with soft mashes made from other similar food materials and he will become soft and ‘out of condition,’ simply because his whole organism will then lack the primary stimulation of daily, normal, active exercise which formerly he had to devote to crunching the oats, etc. —activities which are not called forth when dealing with food provided ready ground and softened—food on which the work has been already done by millstones and mashing outside the animal body. The same applies to ourselves —particularly to the young, who are always nearest to Nature. We need the exercise of active mastication, and the only effective means of ensuring this is to start training at the dawn of life. Never let a healthy infant take a meal on which he is not compelled to do active work in the form of sucking or chewing. We must begin with the baby and foster his natural tendency to masticate, instead of doing everything to make the function die out by disuse. The mother should banish from her mind the idea that ‘pap feeding’ or ‘mince feeding’ is natural for a child who has teeth. Even milk should be used sparingly after 18 months —a pint a day being ample perhaps more than is desirable. Diluted with water, milk should then 'be used as a nutrient drink at the close of meals, not as a fluid in which to soak food which would otherwise need chewing and insalivating. No doubt the children of the poor are often unduly stinted with regard to milk, but children in general tend to be given too much milk and cream—too much ready-made fluid food which merely drains into the stomach —to the exclusion of cruder materials on which work would have to be done, suited to the natural tendencies and activities of infancy.

AVOID “PAP FEEDING”

Drs. Pedley and Harrison would exclude all “pap food” from the baby’s diet when he has reached two years of age. They say: — “At two years of age only solid food should be given at meals in order that the teeth may thoroughly chew. The stomach should be allowed time to digest one meal before another is given (no ‘pieces’ between meals). Suppose, however, that the parents continue to provide a child with food in a fluid or semi-fluid condition, the child having nothing to chew, simply swallows its food. The habit of “bolting” is formed—a habit not easily overcome —and the parents, who have never given the matter a thought, wonder why! The custom of giving children porridge with milk, bread soaked or boiled in milk, milk with patent cereal foods, is unnatural, in so far as these foods afford no use for the teeth, nutritious as they are in other respects. Oatcake or wholemeal bread to masticate, followed by milk and water to drink, are equally nutritious, and will satisfy the requirements of a child far better. Some of the modern dry cereal foods made specially with a view to ensure thorough chewing and insalivation, are excellent as a change from bread crusts, toast, oatcake, or hard biscuit. One objection to patent prepared cereals is that, though not more nutritious than ordinary whole meal, they are decidedly expensive. Parents who once grasp the fact that

the more exercise a child can be given for mouth, jaws, and teeth the more he will tend to thrive will not be at a loss to find means by which the carrying out of what is needed is ensured. . . . Thus the small allowance of meat that a. child may have is best given in the form of a bone from which he can gnaw and tear off with his teeth what is eatable. . . . Fortunately the hands and lips are not unwashable!” —“Feeding and Care of Baby,” by Sir F. Truby King, C.M.G.