OUR BABIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3294, 12 August 1911, Page 3

OUR BABIES.

(By “Hvgaa")

Published under the auspices of the Society tor 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.”

SUFFOCATION OF BABIES

One can scarcely bring oneself to write in any measured terms as to the wrong still done to babies in hundreds of homes throughout the Dominion by keeping them in bed with their parents. I believe that practically every woman has heard of the risk of suffocation through “over-lying.” Indeed, popular fear of this calamity and the opprobrium of a public inquiry certainly saves many a baby from being subjected to the enervating and debilitating influences inseparable from sleeping in. bed beside an adult. How is one to bring home, to every woman in the land the fact that in the aggregate the sum of harm done to the numerous babies who survive the ordeal of spending a third cf their time poisoned and sweltering in the warm, damp, stuffy animal vapours of the parental liar is much greater than the wrong of sudden. extinction —the squashing to death of the comparatively few victims whom we read about in the newspapers? The babies who are killed outright escape the g re. a ter penalty of being brought up as debilitated weaklings by parents whose perverse and senseless conduct proves them unfit to be trusted with the rearing of children. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE

And yet—and yet—are these foolish and .appalling ignorant or careless mothers as much to blame a.s ve are —as society is, for allowing women, to reach marriageable age without having been given any inkling as to the simple la.rvs and needs of life and motherhood ?

WHAT ABOUT THE FATHER?

■* Again, .are women to bear all the blame for this maiming and slaughter of little children?

I have myself argued and reasoned with both husband and wife, on tins very point, and failed on one occasion to get through the solid wall cf complacent prejudice and self-sufficiency which kept a baby—.a suckled baby that ought to’ have been the picture of health—beside its mother all night, though visibly failing and paling month after month for want of nothing but a separate cot and pure air. The husband in this case said that he had seen savages do likewise, and he ‘believed in women following the dictates of Nature and instinct. Nothing would convince him to the contrary until irreparable harm had been done. There is, of course, no more specious or fallacious argument that the so-cialled “sticking to Nature,” ■when the whole circumstances and environment have ceased to .be such as are met with in a state of Nature. What would the principal farmer say if you argued with him that it was irnnecessary to take special precautions in the structure of the breeding room for his sows to prevent overlying that such precautions -were unnecessary because nothing of the kind was needed by our wild pigs roaming free in forest, scrub or fern? AROUSING THE PUBLIC CONSCIENCE. Though, as I have indicated, stifling to death is to my mind the preferable fata from the point of view of the baby, killing by over-lying cannot be considered a venial offence, and I am sure that many of my readers will concur as heartily as I do with the forcible and outspoken utterances of Mr C. C. Graham, the coroner in Dunedin, who has held two inquests in the last month on cases of death by over-lying. The reports speak for themselves: — INOUEST ON DEATH OF AN INFANT. (Reported July 1, 1911).

The father said that the deceased was 4=5 months of age. The child—a little girl—was being nursed by her mother. On Wednesday night she was put to bed in her usual state of health, which had been good since birth. She lay with her mother in the same bed as witness. He heard no crying or disturbances during the night. He .awoke in the morning between half-past 6 and and a-quar-ter to 7. As he was getting up, the child’s mother started to scream, saying the child was dead. The child had been lying in its mother’s arms on- the ontside of the bed. He took the child in his arms, and found it was still warm, but showed no sign cf life.

The infant was an only child, and owing to the mother being in an overwhelmed and distracted state the coroner humanely desisted from speaking his mind until she had retired, but he did not spare the father. He solemnly emphasised the gravity of the offence, and concluded by saying that -he trusted that the tragedy would serve the parents as a lesson for life especially in view of the fact that being young people they might incur further responsibilities in the same direction. Mr Graham * continued: Coroners and doctors have for years been preaching on the folly and wickedness of mothers taking their infants to bed with them. At Home the infant'mortality from this cause is something appalling. One coroner there has even gone the length of saying that the practice is so common that it will not stopped until legislation declares (iff to be manslaughter that the death of a child should he brought about by the mother overlying it. It is interesting to note that in the above case the doctor, who arrived half an hour after the baby was found dead, said ‘ ‘the ■ body was cold, as if it had been dead for some hours.” Yet I have known a woman say, “Oh ! I coudn’t be so cruel as to allow my baby away from me at night, especially m this, cold weather—it might want something.” A baby in a. cot will let its parents know what it wants from a bedroom on the opposite side of a passage by crying out lustily if in pain or discomfort, and one does not hear of such an infant lying cold, dead, and neglected while its parents sleep on in peaceful and uninterrupted contentment SECOND INOUEST ON A SUFFOCATED BABY. (July 24, 1911.) A little more than three weeks later, in spite of the reports on the previous case, which had been published , in the Dunedin newspapers,, another inquest was held on a- similar, case in the same city. The report is as follows. I give it just as it appeared in the “Otago- Daily Times”: — DEATH OF AN INFANT. A WARNING TO PARENTS. Mr C. C. Graham'! (coroner) held an inquest at the Morgue yesterday mornin- to inquire into the circum-

stances surrounding the death of an infant 10 •weeks o;d who was found dead in bed at an early hour on Saturday morning. ■ . The mother stated that the child was taken besi-ue her into boa at 10 p.m. and fed.. ‘ When s.ie awoke at 0 o’clock next morning the infant was lying clear of her and dead. Dr. Howard, who was called ox, stated that he found the lungs congested or engorged, a similar state existing on the right side of the heart .and in the abdominal veins. The engorging had extended to the brain, bringing on convulsions. In at swer to a question by Station-ser-geant King whether there was any appearance of the child being overlain, the doctor said that the symptoms pointed that way. The Coroner returned a verdict that the child died in a. fit of convulsions evused bv being overlain in the night, and commented very strongly on the danger of parents taking’ their infants into bed with them. He mentioned that at Home there was talk of making this a criminal offence, because it led to’ so many deaths. A similar death had occurred on the 30th of last month.