OUR BABIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 534, 18 January 1913, Page 3

OUR BABIES.

(By Hygeia).

Published under the auspices of the Society for 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.'-

THE CURSE OP SUMMER

As thia is the season during which summer diarrhoea tends to become rife among babies, it iB important to emphasise the/fact that the disease generally attacks infants who have been more or less out of sorts for some time previously. The immedi ate cause of the diarrhoea is fermen tation and poisoning due to rapid growth and multiplication of microbes in the stomach and bowels. The seed is sown by the million along the course of the alimentary canal in milk which has not be properly safeguarded from contamination and fermentation in the dairy, the milk cart, and the home—especially the latter. Imperfectly cleansed, unsclalded milk jug and feeder, th 9 use of long tube feeders, and the failure to rapidly cool the milk in water (if not quite cool at the time of delivery), together with failure to keep the milk jug loosely covered in a cool outdoor safe, instead of in the house—these are the means by which the "enemy sows tares" in the delicate interior of the little child. It is pitiable to think that in nine cases out of ten the "enemy" is not the "devil," but a loving mother —a mother ignorant of the simple laws and needs of child life, careless or incompetent as to their fulfilment—a lurid example, of the loving devilery of ignorance. GROWING THE TARES. '

However, even tares won't flourish on Boil unsuited to their growth, and fortunately a single sowing with tainteJ milk rarely causes grave ill ness unless the soil (the system of the baby) has been previously prepared for the microbes by some lack of attention to primary hygienic needs. Ido not mean that the baby has necessarily been what would be called "ill" or even "ailing" before an attack of severe diarrhoea, but in the majority of cases it would be found, on carefull inquiry, that at least he had not been doing quite so well as usual for some time. If the baby had been weighed he would probably have been found hot to be growing at the normal rate, due to some irregularity of feeding, excess or deficiency in the food allowance, or unsuitable food. The baby had probably been falling off in spirits and appetite, had been more fretful and restless than usual, and may have been troubled with constipation, colic, or some such sources of discomfort and disturbance of the eystem. Such conditions predispose to "catching diarrhoea" just as they predispose to "catching cold" or getting any other form of illness, and the risk is greatly increased if any of the factors essential for the perfect health and fitness of the baby (not only the food and the feeding) have been receiving insufficient attention. (See "What Baby Needs, Whether Well or 111," on the first and second pages of the society's books, "Feeding and Care of Baby" and "What Babv Needs.") The mother is often much surprised when the doctor says: "I think your baby has been upset by your keeping him too much in this stuffy room," or by too frequent or irregular feeding," or "by not giving him enough outing and exercise," or "by your exposing h'n poor little bare legs in the go-cart," or "by allowing him to lie sweltering under the canopy of his pram with the sun shining down on it," or "by the use of the long tube feeder or the dummy."

The mother rep'ies incredulously, "ob, it can't have been any of those things; he has had the long tube feeder, etc., all along;, I have never treated him any different from the beginning, and you know how splendidly he has been doing until the last day or two." Parents . have great difficulty in realising that hostile influences like the above, which may seem to do the baby no harm though continued for months, will have been quietly leading all the time to such a weakening of the system that the baby will be liable to catch any ailment that may be going the rounds, and. having become ill, will show little power of recovery. An attack of summer diarrnoea, which would be quickly thrown off by a healthy baby, may lead to the death of one whose body has been less soundly built.