OUR BABIES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 6, 7 December 1931, Page 12

OUR BABIES

(By Hygeia.) Published under tne auspices of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children (Plunket Society). “It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom.” MASTICATORY EXERCISE. Perfect, capacious jaws and sound, beautiful teeth cannot be built ana preserved without fulfilling all tn e simple and universal requisites tor health throughout babyhood ana childhood —especially ample daily exercise of the mouth organs. . The mouth is indeed a great primal “driving station” whence the nerve fibres carry, impulses to the nervecentres, which quicken the life and activity of every tissue of the body. When the jaws are doing natural : honest, hard work, the whole of the rest of the organism is impelled to activity —the heart pumps quicker and more forcibly, the pressure of blood in the arteries rises and. its stream flows more rapidly, even in the fingertips; at the same time the digestive juices are poured out freely, not only into the mouth, but also into the stomach and bowels, as the result of messages transmitted from the mouth when busily engaged in mastication. Apart altogether from the consideration of the building of the teeth and jaws, active “mouth exercise” is thus necessary for the nutrition, growth and health of every organ of the body. “Feeding exercise” is the most primitive, fundamental and essential of all forms of exercise. A horse fed mainly on hard, dry food (and reasonably treated in other respects) becomes the ideal of strength and “fitness.” Feed the same horse with soft mashes, made from similar food materials, and he will become soft and “out of condition,” simply because his whole organism will then lack the primary stimulation of daily., normal, active exercise which formerly he had to devote to crunching the oats, etc.— activities which are not called forth when dealing with food provided ready ground and softened —food on which the work has been already done by millstones and mashing outside the animal body. The same applies to ourselves —particularly to the young who are always nearest to Nature. We need the exercise of active mastication, and the only effective means of ensuring this is to start training at the dawn of life. Never let a healthy infant take a meal on which he is not compelled ; to do active work in the form of sucking or chewing. We must begin with the baby and foster his natural tendency to masticate, instead of doing everything in our power to make the function die out by disuse. PAP-FEEDING. The mother should banish from her mind the idea of “pap-feeding” or “mince-feeding” being the natural course to pursue with a child who has teeth. Even milk should be used sparingly after 18 months —a pint a day being certainly ample. Diluted with water, milk should then be used as a drink at the close of meals, not as a fluid in which to soak and so spoil food which would otherwise need chewing and insalivating. No doubt the children of the poor are often unduly stinted with regard to milk, but children in general tend to be given too much muk and cream—too much ready-made fluid food which merely drains into the stomach—to the exclusion of cruder materials on which work would have to be done, suited to the natural tendencies and activities of infancy. Parents who once grasp the fact that the more exercise a child can be given for mouth, jaws and teeth the more lie will tend to thrive, will not be at a loss to find means by which the carrying out of what is needed can be ensured. Further, they will not let the tyranny of hide-bound custom or conventional propriety stand in the way of the health and development of their offspring. Thus, the small allowance of meat that a child may have is best given in the form of a bone, from which he can gnaw and tear off with his teeth what is eatable. The more extensive the bone surface to which the meat is attached the better, but even a small mutton chop eaten in this way—especially if it happens to be somewhat lean and “wholesomely tough”—will afford a considerable amount of very, healthy, stimulating, and enjoyable recreation. Fortunately, the hands and lips are not unwashable! Some of the modern cry cereal foods, made especially with a view to ensure thorough chewing and insalivation, are excellent as an occasional change from bread crusts, toast, oatcake, or hard biscuit. The above list of foodstuffs capable of affording proper exercise for jaws, teeth and digestive ’ glands, can be added to indefinitely, especially in the direction of raw," ripe fruits, nuts, almonds, etc.