OUR BABIES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 23 June 1928, Page 19

OUR BABIES.

BY HYBEIA. Published under the auspices of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women, and Children (Plun. ket Society.)

COMMON COLDS. •‘Most or us have had plenty of personal experience of colds; but we do not usually take the trouble to marshal the symptoms and to notice the fact that they are just what we find in the rarer diseases which we all dread under the name of “fevers”? In the ease of colds, familiarity tends to breed contempt; but we should remember that far more children die of colds ana their evil consequences than die of scarlet fever, measles, and all the other diseases of inianey put together, with the exception of infantile diarrhoea, and even that is predisposed to by the baby being subject to colds. Further, the same measures which render a child hardy and resistive to colds, and capable of throwing them off readily, also tend to render him safe as regards all other fevers and illnessBABIES’ COLDS. '“A cold, which is a fever—an ‘ill-ness’—-is a serious thing in the li eof a baby. Yet children have often hall a dozen colds in the first year of life, each, one a check on progress which could have been avoided. “The leading authorities on the nose i and throat are now satisfied that, along with such causes as careless bottle-feeding, the use of the dummy and pap-feeding (all of which lead to defective growth of the tongue, mouth, jaws, teeth, and nose), repeated colds, are the main cause of adenoids.”

THE PREVENTION OF COLDS. The most important means of inducing immunity and warding ofi colds are these. (1) Proper diet—breast-feeding during infancy. i (2) A sufficiency of daily active exer(3) Sufficient outing and exposure of! the skin to the stimulating and' bracing effects of moving air and] alternating atmospheric heat and cold. j (4) The surest of aIL preventives— ! namely, the morning cold tub. “All these measures are valuable because they provide sensory exercise, 'l'his is most important, because it is j what “runs us.” It comes to us main-] ly through the skin, and is the main source of the stimulation of all our bodily machinery, including even the involuntary muscles. The essential vital organs -(nerve centres, heart, lungs, digestive and excretory organs, etc.) depend for their incitements to activity almost entirely on stimuli coming to them through the sensory nerves ; hence one cannot overstate the advantage of pure, fresh, free-flowing air day and night, of open-air outings, especially in the sunshine, and of the cold bath. “A large amount of exercise should be taken from a very early age, in the form or vigorous suckling, kicking, waving of the arms, and so on, and later on by crawling, walking, running and playing out-of-doors. Every sucb activity should be encouraged. 1 AVe are all of us so accustomed to the idea that a baby should be bathed •in warm water until towards the close of the first year at least, that it comes as a shock to many people that it is a good tiling,.for a normal, healthy baby to have a spongeful oi cold water squeezed over the head and body before erming out of tlie warm bath from, say, three or four months of age—yet such is the case, and if the procedure is gone about in the right way the baby thoroughly enjoys the stimulation. Needless to say, he should receive a vigorous rubbing down with a dry, warm towel, and care should be taken to ensure a thorough warming-up afterwards. Needless to say, also, the child should be gradually habituated to cold water, starting by using the water only a few degrees cooler than the bath water. The habit of the cold tub, established in babyhood, should unquestionably he carried on throughout childhood and adult li‘c.”

PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM INFECTION. Although children brought up on these lines are almost germ-proof, it is eery wrong for people suffering from colds to kiss or fondle a baby or young child. A cold should be regarded as an infectious disease, at least as far as babies are concerned.

PNEUMONIA. Even amongst babies under the supervision of the Plunket Nurses bronchitis and pneumonia are the most frequent causes of death, and the majority of the deaths from pneumonia take place during the winter months. Prom the remarks in this and the fore-going article it will be seen that the best way to prevent pneumonia and chest affections generally is to build the child up to be strong, hardy, and resistive to disease. In nothing is good common sense more necessary and desirable than in this matter or rendering children hardy without going to extremes or risky exposure. Nothing predisposes so strongly to colds, bronchitis, and perhaps fatal pneumonia as coddling in the warm, stuffy rooms. At the same time, fresh air, cold sponging, unhampered exercise, and so on, should aIL be regulated by the light of common sense, and no baby should ever be allowed to get chilly and miserable or be exposed carelessly to infection. ‘Good mothering' sums up the whole thing—sane, enlightened, and intelligent mothering.”