OUR BABIES

Marlborough Express, Volume LIV, Issue 188, 10 August 1920, Page 6

OUR BABIES

By Hygeia. . . Published under the auspices of the Royal New Zealand Society for uiie Health of Women and Children. "I± is wiser to put a fence at thP cop of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the oottom.

DIRT, MUD, SAND, PAPER, AND RAG EATING.

Recently a mother asked one of </ur l-'lunket nurses about the habit oi dirt-eating in children. A baby girl, 18 months old, said to be healthylooking was breast-fed for three months. She is said to have a strong objection to solid food, and practically'lives on milk. She drinks plenty of water. • "Since able to walk and find her way about she has bad a mania for eating dirt, which she eats freely at every opportunity. Her bowels are regular." , ' . . ... A few months ago I received the following letter from a mother in the country: — I am wondering if you can give us any solution in your baby column as to why children eat mud, clay, and sand. Is there some need in their system? My little boy is 16 months old, and is fed according to "the book", as we mothers call it; At that age he should sleep all . through the night, should he not? that is from 6 p.m. to about

6 .a.m. Baby often wakes between 10 and 11 p.m., and, in spite of a good tea, will not sleep again till I feed him with milk. Sometimes he sleeps till 1 or 2 a.m.. and then till 7.30. ■".■■■ . Thanking you in anticipation.—l am. etc., p.S.—I meant to tell you that baby will even lick the wheels of his 'go-onrt for mud, and lick the gravel stuff dropped on the floor, it is not s-afe to leave him in a sand-box; he eats so much of it. This subject was fully dealt with in our column in 1918 on account of several letters of inquiry. I cannot do better than quote one of these former articles, as the comments made at that time will be equally helpful to mothers struggling with this difficulty to-day.

LETTER ON EARTH-EATING

"Reader" writes:— . I have a wee baby aged 15 months. She has been very delicate, and suffered from bronchitis and then cholera, when five months old. She went to a skeleton, weighing only 111b when seven months old. Now she is strong and well, quito plump, and walks everywhere; but since she started to walk she has been eating earth. First she started on the earth in my flower pots, which had a dressing of soot, but now I often get her with a lump half ais large. as an egg, eating and enjoying it. Do what I will I cannot stop "her. Will it injure her, or docs her system require lime or salt? What should I do? I am afraid it may bring on Summer Cholera again. Is there any .- danger, and what e,an I do? P.S.—She is also fond of dock leaves and seeds, always eating them. Another mother wrote as follows concerning a similar case.—

I am writing to ask your advice about my baby girl, aged one year and four months, $ who will eat dirt and stones if we let her outside. It is distressing to have to 'keep her in, because she loves to be out.

COMMENT AND REPLY

Many mothers .would be inclined to say that there was nothing out of the way in a baby early in its second year putting into its mouth, or even swallowing, anything it could lay hands on. This is true to a large extent; the normal baby does, of course, tend to cany everything to the mouth and tost it there (coal; dirt, blacking brushes, etc.), until it lias learned to combine the information received through the senses of sight, touch, and taste, etc., and so discriminate between what is and what is not fit to eat. In these interesting researches' the older child is aided by the more or less painful or pleasurable feelings following on the eating of one kind of material as compared with, another; but the baby has less power of discrimination, and once ho lias acquired a bad habit the habit is liable to prove very hard to eradicate unles dealt with promptly and thoroughly.

In older children a morbid habit allowed to persist and develop for a time may defy all subsequent efforts to overcome it. Thus "biting the naib to the quick" may grow into a life habit. 1 remember a case of the kind in a singularly clever and atti active little girl in London who was quits a musical genius and had the most brilliant prospects as a violinist v. hen approaching her teens. She then became a "nail-biter." Little was thought of the matter at first, and when it was taken in hand by a physician later on all efforts at mastery failed, and the child's musical career was brought to a close.

Dr Still, Professor of Diseases of Children at King's College, London, says: There is no period of life at which habits are so readily established as in childhood, but, fortunately—for, like rank weeds, bad habits grow faster than good— childhood is a plastic age when the ruts of habit may be smoothed away and custom moulded to new tracks.

There is some divergence of opinion in regard to the average ago and the nature and prospects of children who become "dirt-eaters." ' Thus Dr Holt, the leading authority in New York, speaking from his American experience, says in his little book on the'"Car© of Children," addressed to mothers and nurses • — QUESTION: "When are nailbiting a;id dirt-bating seen, and how are they to be controlled?" ANSWER: "These habits belong especially to children over' three years old." (.This is true a.% regards "nail-biting," but "dirteating" generally commences when a baby is betwen one arid two years of age.—Hygeia). "They are particularly seen in those who are excessively nervous or whose general health is below par, sometimes in thos-3 who develop serious, nervous diseases later in life. Children with such tendencies should be closely watched, and' every moans ussd to broa.k up these habits early. 'Dirt-eating' is a morbid craving which is rarely seen in a normal child." Dr Still says: "There was nothing in any of my 14 cases to suggest, rmy Higjital deficiency." Ho summarises treatment as follows: — (1) Prevent the child obtaining dirt, coal, mortnr, etc. (2) Improve its general hfiilt-. especially 'its digestion. There is no part of tri :;~ >i,mor>* more valuable th:m a few «><>lr.: if" a. bracing peaf-ide place or. l> t:.::. is not obtainable, nt lorvr- ':.'.' standing, brcczv it'l""rl Porn 4"'p'nee. 'At '».<■ 5;'...... <-->-• ; .--•" \

necessary to aid digestion by the most careful dieting." My readers will realise that there is no condition calling for more careful attention to "What Every Baby Needs Whether Well or 111" (see page 1 of Society's Book) than the presence of morbid habits. Make the child a "healthy animal!" I shall deal further with the subject of morbid habits in another column.