OUR BABIES

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIX, Issue 181, 3 August 1915, Page 3

OUR BABIES

By Hygoia. PublLsiu-id under the auspices of the Moiety tor tii;> Health of Women and Obikiren. ''It Ls wiser to put up a fence at the tof/ of a precipice than to maintain \n ambul-'tuco at the bottcGj/'

EXCESS OF WATER. iN THE Ali?

Should Fog or Mist be Excluded from : Osir Sleeping Rooms? ■ A mother, writing about her baby, says : — We give lit ms much fresh air as possible, but we have such dreadful fog here at night that it would be too severe to allow too much to enter the bedroom, so wo thought it wiser to shut it out. The notion tJiat iog or mist is harmful if admitted to the bedroom is still eomipa.l ativoly coir.mon. This

erroneous idea dates bac:-: to the. timo ' when ague was prevalent even in ; England, to say nothing of the evil ' effects of "night, miac-un;.," which 1 have been associated right down to our times with Roman m.;r.-ln\s and ( other swampy regions. The fear or night air was founded 'on the fact tliat exclusion oi' the fugs i and mists of evening tended to lessen . ; greatly the ri'-ks oi: ague, and other ; '■ malanal manifestations. in realiiy ■ the mist itself had nothing to do witii i the poisoning of the system : but it ! is only quite recently that science has I :ho\vn ihe real source of danger ; namely, the. mosquitoes. 'These ' insects are liable to juvnvm in at the ; open windoAv-; in damp localities, and, ! of course, they are* ir.or'e or Irss \ excluded when the windows are '• closed before, sundown. THE MOSQUITO THE R(C\L ENEMY.

Wo know now t!r:t i-o-cailed poisoning by night air disappears jts soon a.s we banish the m-.v-ouito. The mists of .Panama, Manila/and otVr ! formerly deadly places i v 'the Tro:;i:-s I may now be ireely admitttd 10 bedrooms, provided Lli-.- J:a;int.s of ti:o mosquito have been rendered uninhabitable to the.se pests by covering their abiding places wiiii" a thin film of petroleum. Tbere v.as no country in the vrorld whore night .air was more dreaded than the Southern States, tho Gulf cf Mexico, ;:nd j"anania ; yet it is fi'om the Americans themselves t.hab we have the --lever raying: ''The only dangerous night air is the air you keep bottled up in your bedroom." 'Saturation with wfter vapor is a perfectly natural state cf t'lie iit-nio-sphere over most of the world, being the prevailing condition near the coast and at sea, and anywhere else when it is raining. Many people are foolish enough to -stay at home themselves, and to keep children indoors ;vl.-:o, simpjy because it happens to be a cold, damp, foggy, or rainy day. In reality, there is no more, lame or lazy excuse than this, tor failing to go out and take exercise. Who does not know the! exhilarating feeling of coming back ! after an hour or so of vigorous I tramping; through rain and' sleet? Moone ever catches cold fi-om Mi"h exposure, or from breathing such siir, but people aro always "catching their

death of cold*' or becoming consumptives through, fear of fresh air. jaid of the dampness inse.parable from wet weather and coastal regions. At one time it was thought that Sanatoria' for Consumptives would have to be restricted to high, dry, inland legions; but now ilns is known not to be the case. Ma.ny Phthisis Sanatoria, are situated in comparatively damp places, amj some are even 'located in legions where mist is a prevailing feature. Yet the patients lecover, so lo.no1; as a few! simple, rules aro observed—na.n'.oiy : (1) Living day and r.ight in pure outside air, including mist and fog if it happens t>o i.c there. j (2) Avoidance or fires i'lui roddliug indoors, but pi'ovi.sion of suiiablo ' sensible clothing, bedding and j good footwear. Boots should not ] only be comfortable and , conducive to the taking of active exercise, but they should be made of sound leather and not of Lid or p.vpsr. (3) The taking of n sufficiency of daily outdoor exercise. (4) Good simple diet, regularity of all habits, Jind ' avoidance of j excess in any direction. |

People living in specially misty places have sometimes said to me: — *'I iinr sure you caii have >io idea of what it is like here sometimes at 'night. There ia-often cold, driving mist, that makes : everything damp. Surely you would not imve us keep the windows open at sucli times." My answer is unhesitatingly, "Yes." In point, .of fact, in my own neighborhood. I have known a dense mist to persist, day and night for a week; but this has never' been made' an excuse for keeping the windows otherwise than wide open at night, and no such excuse would be listened to at the Karitane Baby Hospital in misty weather. To close the: windows at such times would be to increase, not to Ifsscn, th« nsks of ' catching ■ cold I can imagine the mother ; •=dying imptitieiitly — |

"-V*l there no nrtues in clear, di v on ''* .

Oertamly there aie Kothing %] more brMxng and exhil imting thaiij a change iion the da-np *c ist ro_thei c'eai, husk an blue <skies. <uul bright Vunshine oi some high, inland j locality: and no change is more hkely j to dispel chronic colds or coughs; but: the same is often true of a change ; from inland to the seaside. j

In any case, mast of us have to habituate ourselves to living on tine coast, and our children could be jbrought up hardy and vigorous by being accustomed to open, air day and night and never being coddled. Indeed, they should all abhor closed windows and stuffy bedrooms, as any normal child does if he bus been brought up to slee-ping uith op«.»n windows, or, better still, sleeping on an open balcony. i 1 know litr'le oJiildren in Dimodin at the present time (midvinUn1) who i never sleep anywheixj else but on an : open balcony. They arc hardy, rosy- ; faced little eheruls, and nothing; i would upset them more .han any j proposal to put their cots indoors In nil parts oi New Zealand 1 :have found that where there is a choice between bedrooms ai.d balconies or verandahs, the children are uhvays eiiger to sleep outside COMMON-SENSE PROVISIONS. Oi course, if there is ->xcesivw j driving tnist—either on f>. balcory or ] a verandah or in n bedrr.oui, tlvere is no need to be in tJie cmreufc. The use of screens, or the pliteiug of beos out of the line of draught, can be left to people's- common-son m? —-it least they could easily devise .'nes\.is of fending the bed if they would study" the illustrations on pi^ges (h> and 69 of the Society's book, "heeding and Care of Baby," and read the vimple. practical directions m the text.