OUR BABIES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 13 October 1922, Page 2

OUR BABIES.

THE WORK OF THE PLUNKET SOCIETiT.

(By Hygeia.) In brief, what is the chief work of ( the Plunket Society?—lt is to per-' suade and assist every mother to suckle ' her baby. In view ( of such an emphatic statement, which, appeared over arid over again in publications of the Society, it is almost incredible that there are still people who imagine that the chief aim of the Society is to improve the artificial feeding of infants, and to advocate the use of humanised milk. That such a misconception exists in some [ quarters is shown in a letter recently received from a medical man. I am frequently confronted with, misconceptions—or what I take to be misconceptions—as to the work of the \ Plunket Society. For instance, I was .. recently talking to a member of the , medical profession, and on my ventury ing the remark that the Society was r doing good-by the encouragement of \ ; the breast-feeding of infants, I was j | met with the assertion that the aim . j of the Society was the improvement of ; ' the artificial feeding of infants. My 1 friends admitted that it was made per--5 fectly dear in the publication of the > society that breast-feeding was tne > ( ideal, but stoutly maintained that the ' j.idea was to help those who-had got into j- difficulties.with hand-rearing, and that i to do\ so was the raison d'etre of the > Society. ' :._■■■ s The following extract from the intro- ; duetion to the New Zealand edition of , the Society's brochure, "Natural Feed- - mg of Infants," by Dr. Truby King i (issued 1917), is clear with regard to > the point: , "It has been suggested that I should ; embody in this introduction -a short ac- - count of the earlier propaganda of the - plunket Society on '■■ the subject of i breast-feeding. There is nothing to ;..-j,change or amend—the most essential , purpose of the. Society having always i been to advocate arid promote suckling - before anything else, and to point out 3 the wrong and dangers of early weari- > ing and resorting to any form whatever J of bottle-feeding. : ~ . ' It is curious how the fact that the I Society always did everything in its > power to ensure that bottle-feeding, - where inevitable, sTiouia be carriec! out ■ on the b«St and satest lines sliouid I have led in certain quarters to tfte ab- - surd idea that we give countenance to > bottle-feeding and "advocated the use ' of humanised milk." ■■"' > ; ; ' The full absurdity of this will fee 1 realised on reading the1 following pas--1 sage from a letter written by myself ' to Sir Robert Stout 17 years ago (over 18 months before the founding of the Society) j in response to a request he had made for a popular exposition of Professor. Rotch's system of percentage feeding, which I was then advocating tor us© in cases where artificial feeding could not be avoided. After explaining , the essential scientific facts and prin- > ciples on^ which any rational system, of i artificial feeding in early infancy i must be based, my letter proceeded as ■ follows: "On every ground a child should, if possible, be nurtured by its l mother. Disability in this direction would be rare if women realised the i importance of fresh air, exercise, and" rational feeding arid habits in relationship to maternity.. The presumption is always against a clild reared artificially as regards health, stamina, capability, and resistiveness to disease. "However well individual children may thrive, or seem to thrive, in spite' of inferior feeding—and the best of artificial feeding^ is inferior feeding—the. results with children in general are disastrous. I Another argument against artificial | feeding, and one only second in importance to the effect on the child, is the effect on the mother herself. The in- j tangible mental, ' moral, and affective considerations involved are too obvious to need dwelling on; but there is an equally important physical fact which should be universally known. In the natural course of events a new being, nourished up to the time of birth by organs situated in the abdominal cavity, draws its food supply after birth from another set of organs distinct from the first. The effect of this is to divert the blood supply and functional activity to the breasts, and the temporarily enlarged abdominal organs \then quickly shrink to their normal weight and dimensions. Not so, however, when suckling is evaded. In such cases the internal organs remain enlarged, and when the mother resumes her ordinary life various distortions and displacements are liable to occur. To this one departure from Nature our r«ce owes a very large proportion ■*f the special diseases of women which are so characteristic a feature of modern life." The letter was published in two issue* of the Wellington Evening Post, in September, 1905. The 17 years which have elapsed since then have «nly gone to deepen in every sense the convictions' expressed at a time whan brast-feeding was at its lowest ebb. The popular shibboleth of the .day was "Good cow's milk is better than inferior mother's milk."- Bottle-feeding was almost universal, and was generally accepted not only as an inevitable accompaniment of modern eivilisatb l, "but was often regarded as actually desirable and beneficial for both mother and child. •