Our Babies

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 15 November 1918, Page 4

Our Babies

(By Hygeia)

Published under the auspices of ti,e Society for the Health of Women and - Children. "It is wiser to put up' a fenc* at ' the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom.'' The Natural Feeding of infants. The little booklet "The Natural Feeding of Infants," which was brought out last year during Baby Week, has just been issued in England by the Babies of the Empire Society. The English edition has an introduce tion;by I. S. Fairbairn, M.D., B.Cb., Uxon, F.K.C.S., F.R.C.P., London.

Dr Fairbairn is J)bstetric Physician and Lecturer on Midwifery and Diseases of Women, St. Thomas's Hospital, London, and as we feel sure ttoat interest in this all important matter will be stimulated.by what be says, we are publishing the introduction in full. When the Society started work a very large proportion of the babies in New Zealand were fed as a matter of courae—one working man's wife, saying that "it was not considered delicate to nurse a baby." The desire, to nourish offspring has now become aftnost universal, and we feel that this booklet on Natural Feeding will be very helpful, especially to the inexperienced, fj Tbe pamphlet, can be obtained from the Plunket Nurses throughout the Dominion, price 6d, and we advise those who have not already got it to order a copy and study it carefully. We also advise cur readers to keep Dr. Fairbairn's Introduction, and also Bome additional matter which has been added in the London Edition, and which we shall print in this column later. If these c'ippingß are pasted in the New Zealand p&mpnlet "Natural Feeding of Infants," it will bS quite complete and up-to-date. Dr Fairbairn's Introduction,

I am glad of the opportunity of bringing before the British Public this extended reprint of a brochure recently issued at the Antipodes by the Rojrai Now Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children, of which the nuthor isboth Founder and President. At the present moment nothing CO. dbe more opportune or important for the welfare of mothe; and child and the future of the race than Dr Truby King's moving appeal and clear unanswerable arguments in favour of natural as opposed to artificial rearing in early infancy. It is not enough for our women to recognise, as they do already, more or IeBB, that braast-fsediag is best for both mother a«d child. What needs to be deeply impressed on them ia that failure in nursing is almost always doe not to failure of Nature, hat to failure to live in accord with natural laws and requirements and failure in management. We must enlighten public opinion on the.subject and make the truth perfectly plain because for a generation or more the artificial feeding of bab : ,ea

has become so genera! and widespread as co be almost taken for granted in many cases. Women do nut truly realise that even the best substitute for the natural food is always second best, and that the process of feeding by bottle is as inferior to suckling as artificial food is to natural food. The medical profession is not without blama in this matter. True, it has given lip-aurvice to the genural principle, and there have always bsen voices crying in the wilderness; but. the profession as a whole hag not made

a strong enough "stand against failure

to nurse or early weaning. With faeble protsst doctors have tended to fall in with the" wishes or wdims of

their patients, and often, on the flimsiest grounds, thej.bava consented to bottle-feeding, and so in a sense have become particaps criminis. Certainly the medical profession has failed hitherto to arouse any strong feeling on tbe subject of Breast-jieeuing, especially in fact of tha tie»ire of patients to escape what so many have come to look on superficially a3 an irksome and needlsss burthen instead of regarding it in the trus light as a bouoden duty 3-fid sacred privilege. Further, mothers who wish tn do so could easily find many instances vf seeming saecess of bottle-feeding in Ujeir own sitcle, aed nit ad jaßiificaticn—act

realising that, even if true, s'ngle instances afford no solid ground for generalisations. Has bottle-feeding ever achieved for any child what breast-feeding could not excel—and if so why do we recognise wet-nursing as best, where feasible, if the mother fails?

The evilß of substitute feeding are ' not disproved in the very slightest by handreds or thousands of examples of children who have apparently thriven in spite of it. A true judgment can be formed only by allowing for the i higher standard obtainable, and by j considering the actual results over I tens and hundreds of thousands —the - results not in childhood only, but in adolescence and in after life. Then . the evidence is indisputable lhat ar- j tificial feeJjng is vastly inferior feed- j ing, and that as regards growth, [ health, stamina, and the power of re- I sisting disease, the bottle-fed baby is J handicapped, not only at the start of j life, but all j To the mother also nothing but good j results from completing the cycle of ! motherhood. The mental and moral S effects on her are difficult to express ; and impossible to define precisely, but j ; she is always a better woman for j having nursed her child. The bodily ; ■ benefits are much more easily explained. For nine months the child has drawn its sustenance from organs within the mother's abdomen, and a special blood supply has arisen to meet this extra demands Af»r birth, the : suckliDg of the child should divert this , blood-supply to the breasts, and the internal organs should shrink to their formei bsz9 and weight. This is why, in the absencs of suckling, there is a , tendency to congestion, permanent en- , largement, descent of these organs, | and other displacemante. j We shall give the remaiifde'r of Dr . Fairbairn'B "Introduction" next j week..