OUR BABIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 634, 14 January 1914, Page 2

OUR BABIES.

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."

DR KING'S LECTURE.

KARITANE HARRIS HOSPITAL. We were fortunate in securing seve ral acres of beautifully-planted old gcounds for our institution, but the buildings from first to last have been the simplest and most homelike imaginable—indeed, for some years our nurses had to be accommodated in a wooden stable modified on very primitive lines, and the hospital itself was an ordinary colonial wooden cottage, good enough for anyone so far as sunshine, fresh air, etc., were concerned, but containing nothing practically outside the range of the humblest cottager. Costly, elaborate buildings would have betn the reverse of an advantage and we were more than gratified when Mr Wolf Harris, ol Queen's Gats, Kensington, coming forward some three years ago to munificently help and endow the Society with the whole estate, and to supply us with the means of extending the buildings, wrote his wishes as follows: — "THE DEED OF GIFT." I specially desire that, as far as possible consistent with doing full justice to the babies admitted, the hospital will continue to be so directed and managed that any mother in ordinary circumstances visiting it may feel that almost everything done in the institution could be effectively carried out by herself in her own home after receiving the necessary instruction. As conducing to this end, it is hoped that strict economy and simplicity in regard to buildings, furniimings, ap pliances, clothing, etc., will be maintained as heretofore, and that the treatment will continue to be conducted, as far as possible, on broad, simple, practical, scientific lines, easily comprehensible by the ordinary mother. I have no copy of the annual statistics at hand, but I think I am safe in saying that th* average mortality has been under 10 per cent, of the admissions. The infants who have died have generally been moribund when sent in, and have succumbed within the first day or two, or at longest within the first week. The admissions have embraced all classes, from the children of doctors and professional nursea, to motherless foundlings; but we do nt take in defectives or babies suffering from specially dangerous infective diseases, such as tuberculosis or syphlis. TREATMENT AT BABY HOSPITAL. The treatment is very simple, and mainly hygienic. So far as purs air is concerned, the conditions summer and winter are almost those of an open-air pthi«is sanatorium. To prevent chilling great attention is paid to systematic bed making, on lines equivalent to providing sleeping bags, this being also beneficial to the babies in that they can be kept warm and comfortable, with much lighter and less hamper in bed clothes than would otherwise he needed. Feeding is conducted on so-called "percentage" lines, all milk modifications being prepared simply, but accurately, by the nurses and baby nurses undergoing training in the institution, who are further required to attain proficiency and facility in percentage calculations, and to master the meaning values and caloric estimates Florence Nightingale aptly said tee properly trained and educated nurse should be a help and not a hindrance to the doctors—indeed, in New Zealand, while the position we took up.in thin' connection was questioned at first, I am glad to say that now we hear on all sides of the admirable work the Pluunket Nurses are doing, how they can be relied on, and the saving of infant life, and the advancement of health they are effecting among all classes. NUTRITIVE AND FOOD VALUE OF BABY FOOD. 1 submit that caloric estimation is the only safe, simple, and effective way of keeping ourselves and the nurses from making grave mistakes from time to time. In the absence of any readily workable check, it is amazing to see what erroneous and divergent tables for infant feeding have been published, edition atfer edition, and year after year in some of the leaJing text books of the world, and copied from book to book. It is still more amazing to check some of the prescriptions for the artificial feeding of babies met with in practice. Our experience in this matter is in entire accord With that of Professor O'Meara, of Cornell University. Reckoning of caloric is, a 9 Dr O'Meara says, the one available means of saving ourselves from making "ridiculous deviations" from proper standards. Clear headedness and facility in such fundamental matters are just as necessary for nurses, who have to carry out the preparation and grading of baby foods in practice, and who are daily helping mothers in homes, as it is for ourselves. Babies rarely need drugs, but they do need proper qualitative food adjustments, and a serious error

in such adjustments may not be as bad aa an overdoae of poison, but may actually involve poisoning of the baby's system, not merely unsatisfactory growth. CAREFUL WEIGHING. Routine weighing and charting is done at the hospital twice a week; and case taking, including percentage, composition, and caloric value of food consumed, is carried out on simple scientific lines by the nurses. The precise amount of food taken daily by each baby is ascertained by providing a "residue bottle" for each cradle, and deducting whst it contains at the end of the day from the spegified allowance. I need not say that records made on these lines are very illuminating, and have a high practical scientific value. In the case of ailing nurslings, the babies are regularly weighed before and atfer each suckling to ascertain precisely what supplementary amount to give. Patent foods are not used. Medicine is rarely found to be necessary. Washing out of stomach and bowels, irrigation, massage for constipation, etc., are systematically taught and used as needed. Babies who enter the institution using dummieß or habituated to night feeding, or feeding more often than every three hours, are quickly broken of these habit?.