MOTHERS & CHILDREN.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 30 May 1914, Page 12

MOTHERS & CHILDREN.

(By Hygeia)

(Published under the auspices of the Society for the Health of Women and Children). PREVALENCE OF THE DUMMY. All over the world the dummy or comrorter has been unsparingly condemned for many years as cue of the greatest curses that the modern inrant is forced to put up with. Wellmeaning but misguided mothers (and one must regretiuiiy admit a good many nurses or the oid school also) still seem to think that a baby is not complete without its dummy—just as certain savages are looked on as lacking something essential if not set off by tattooing and nose rings. Entering a train last week I was interested to hear two women, who were sitting on the seat behind me, engaged in a very earnest discussion of the dummy problem. THE DUMMY PROBLEM DISCUSSED. Mother No. 1.: -juiut what I can't understand is why they teach them to ust> the dummy, even where the baby *s quite good witnout anything, and actually fights against the horrid thing at first. You remember Sarah , who used to be at school with us. Well she's right enough herself, but she vas telling me that Mrs (Mary J that was) got a dummy before the baby was born, and now you hardly ever see him without it, though he must be nearly a year and a-half old. She's in a fine old fix now, because if she takes away the dummy his finger gers straight into his mouth, and there he sucks and sucks. He's got so vsed to having something to suck all the time that it seems as if he couldn't do without it, and, as she says, it's hard to tell w rhich is the worse habit when things have gone that length." Mother No. II.: "Well, isn't that funny; why it's just what my cousin Mrs had to fight against. The dummy gave her baby the habit of always sucking, and when it was taken away nothing would stop her sucking her fingers. She was just like a calf that has taken to sucking another calf's ears. She simply couldn't be broken off the habit until she was over two years old, and her mother says now that she is sure it had a great deal to do with the child not thriving properly. She's going to have an operation for adenoids." Mother No. I. • "That's the worst of it. They «,ay that the dummy gives j them adenoids. What T can't tret over is that any mother would actually set to work to train her baby to use a thing tbat she knows is wrong. What do they think that the others did before dummies were invented 9 Besides, look at the babies at the Karitane Hospital. You never see a dummy there, though +^ey say most of them have th^m wh<va they go in. If I had my way I'd rake a law. . . " One nan only guess what the "law" was to be. I did no + hear, because the train came to a, station, nnd both wou'.en got out.-However, what T wondered at myself was that onr fellow women should need a law and a policeman nnd a maens+vafe to strm them from ill— treating: their children' It se^ms rather humiliatiTisr that any of us sh^ild have to ask Parliament to pass "law?" to keen us straight in matters of this kind! AVHAT THE PLUNKET NURSES SAY ' Only last week more than a third of the monthly report of one of Dunedin Plunket Nurses was devoted to pointing out bow extremely difficult she finds it in. practice to induce some mothers to give up the dummy. Mothers who will faithfully carry out instructions as to the preparing and keeping of the baby's milk, and who even go half-way towards the admission of a reasonable amount of fresh, cool aiar into their houses, sometimes continue using the dummy in spite of everything that can be brought against it. As the nurse said: "Some of these mothers will seem to agree with you, and will even tell you that they have given the dummy up and thrown ii away, just to please you, but it is rather upsetting to find the baby sucking away at the same old dummy if you happen to drop in accidentally." Turning to an article which apnenred in this column some years ago, I find, curiously enough, that I was impelled to write then also by a chance conversation overheard in a train. As the arguments used are still strictly relevant and aonlicable. I shall reproduce a portion the article unchanged: THE UNSPEAKABLE DUMMY. Travelling by train a few weeks ago in the same compartment as ourselves was a young mother and a beautiful little baby boy of about 15 months. He bad the inevitable dummy,' with ring attached, hanging by a cord down the front of his dress. We were sitting near by, and the little fellow, who was full of life and energy and who was playing about in the carriage, soon made friends with us. Naturally «c began to chat with his mother, and sho told us the baby was her only child, and an only grandson as well, so he was very much the apple of her eye and she'was evidently most devoted to The lady who was with me remarked that it was a pity he, had a dummy, saying that by vs;% it there was a great ..risk of deforming the child s mouth', and ruining his teeth. Tbe mother replied that she knew some people said dummies were not good, but that if my friend had a baby she would probably use one too when he became cross. "At any rate," she said, lookin"1 with pride at the beautifully-made plump little chap with rosy cheeks and shining eyes, "it has not done him any harm so far, has it?' LACK OF LOGIC. It is one of the amazing points of view of mothers that they always spea* in this way. They are quite prepared to persist in a wrong oourse until they can see actual definite harm, which by that time is more or less irreparable Women constantly say: "I know such and such a child who had a dummy, and his teeth are all right." They don t realise that the child's jaws, teeth, and digestion would have been still better had ho dummy been used, and that for one case where they can see no damage there would "be a dozen cases v.-here the evil effects would be clear to them if pointed out. .. ; r^is article will be continued next | week). " j