OUR BABIES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14039, 23 April 1920, Page 6

OUR BABIES.

By Hygeia

l».uWished under the apspices of the Royal New Zealand 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 amlralance at the bottom." /•/ •

SUFFOCATION OF BABIES,

You will remember that last week we gave ail account of an inquest which' was hc!d in Dunedin on M'nrch 27.111, 1920. on the. death of nil infant. T.ie verdict was. "death was accidentally, due to . asphyxia.'" and tne Corona, wnrntd parents against taking infants to bed with them.

One can scarcely bring oneself" t'o write in any measured terms a£ to tin wrong still done to babies in hundred? of homes throughout the Dominion l>>; keeping them in bed with their parents. I believe that practically every woman has heard ol the risk ot sujfrfeation through • "over-lying." Indeed, popular fear of this calamity and the opprobrium of a public inquiry cerlainly saves many a baby from being subjected to , the enervating and debilitating influences inseparable from sleeping in bed beside an adult. How is one to bring home to every woman in the land the fact that in the aggregate the sum of harm done to the-nu-merous babies who survive the ordeal of spending a third of their time poisoned and sweltering in the warm, damp, stuffy 'animal vapors of the parental lair is much greater than the wrong of sudden' extinction—fn--squashing to death of the comparatively lew victims whom we read about in the newspapers'' The babies who arc killed outrisht escape the greattj; pen altv .of being brought up as debilitated" weaklings by parents whose perverse and senseless conduct proves tnc-m unfit to be trusted with tin' rearing o: children. •WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

And yet—and vet —are these foolish and appallingly ignorant or careless mothers as much to Mame as- \yr arc - as society is. for allowing women tr. rtvu-h marriageable age without having been given anv inkling as to th. simple laws and needs ol life and motherhood?

WHAT ABOUT THE FATHER? Again, arc women to bear uli tne blame tor this maiming and. slaughter ot little children- 1 . I have myself argued and reasoned with both husband and wife, 011 this very point and failed oil one occasion ro gel through the solid wall of complacent prejudice and self-sufficiency wnich kept ;; baby —a siic-klrd baby that ought to have been the picture of health —beside its mother ail night, though visibly failing and paling month after month for want of nothing hut a separate cot and mire air. '} ne husband in this case said that he had seen savages do likewise, and he believed in women following the dictates Nature and instinct. Nothing wonliT convince him to the contrary until irreparable harm had been done. There is. of course, no more specious or iall.icious argument than the sn-callcii "sticking xo Nature," when the whoie 'circumstances and environment have ceased to lie such as are ffiet with in ;• state of Nature. What woukl the practical farmer say if vou argued with liini that- it was unnecessary to taU.special precautions in the structure of the breeding pens for his sows to prevent over-lying—that such precaution - were unnecessary because nothing o! the kind was needed by our wild pigs roaming tree in forest, scrub, or fern

AROI'SING THE Pl'iU.IC C'ONSUfB.\CE. Though.,as I havelndicatcd, stifling to den in is to m,v mind the preterar/u----tate, from the point of view of tile i» ; iby, killing by over-lying cannot he considered a venial offence, and 1 am sure that many ol my rtaaers will concur as heartily as 1 do with the lorcible and outspoken utterance of inflate .Mr C. C. (irahani. when as Coroner in Duncdin he held two inquest? on cases ol death by over-lying, ine tollowing extracts are taKen liom tluliewspapcr reports: — —lnquest on Death of an Infant. — ( Reported July 1. 191 i.) •

The father miii<l that the. deceased was -41 months of aye. 'lhe child—a little gill —wa.s hung nursed by her met her. On Wednesday night- she was put to bed in her usual state of iii.aliii. which had been good ismce bit th. She lay with her mother j» the same bed as witness. He heard iig i-iynig 01 any ursTurbance during rhc night. He a'.voke in the morning In twi en half-past 6 and a-quarter to 7. As he was getting up. the child's nit.liar started to scream, saying the child was dead. The child had been lying in its mother's arms on Ihe.outoide of the bed. He took the child in hi< arms, and iound it was still •■vaisii. but showed no sign of life.

The mlniit was an only child, and i/Wing to the- mother being in an overwhelmed and distracted sfate the colonel humanely desisted from i;peaking< his mind until slit* had retired,, but lie did nert spare the father. He solmenly emphasised tilt gravity of the "offence, ami concluded by saying that he trusted thai tlie tragedy would serve, the parent; as a lesson for life-, especially m view of the tact that, being young people, they might incur further responsibilities in the same direction, ilr (•laham continued: ( orouers and doctors have for years bun preaching on the folly and wickedness of mothers taking their infants to bed with then). At Home'the inlant mortality from , this cause is snuething appalling. One coroner there has even gone the length of saying that the practice is so common that it will not- be stopped until legislation declares it to be manslaughter that the death of a childshould be brought about by the mother overlying it.

It is interesting to note that in the above case the doctor, ivho arrived half an hour after the baby was found dead, said "the body was cold, as if it had been dead for some hours." Yet I have known a woman say, "Oh! I couldn't, be so cruel as to allow my baby away from me at night, especially iu this cold "weather—it- mightwant .something."' A baby in a cot will let- its parents know what •• it wants from a bedroom on the opposite side of a passage by crying out lustily if in pain or discomfort, and one does not hear of such an infntat lying cold, dead, and neglected while its parents sleep on in peaceful and uninterrupted contentment. —Second Inquest cn a Suffocated Babv.— (July 24, 1911.) A little.more than three weeks later, in .spite of the reports on the previous case, which had been published in the Dunedin newspapers, another inquest was held on a similar case in the same city. The reportIs as follows. I rjve it just ap jt appeared in the Otago Daily Times: — DEATH OF AN INFANT. —A Warning to Parents.— Mr C. C. Graham (coroner) held an inquest yesterday morning to inquire into the circumstances surrounding i • the death of an infant 10 weeks old who was found dead in bed at au early hour on Saturday morning. The mother stated that the child was taken beside her into bed at 10 p.m. and fed. ■ When she awoke at 6"o'clock next morning the infant was lying clear oF her and dead. Dr Howard, "who was cajled in, stated that he found the lungs congested or engorged, a- similar state existing on the right- side_ of the heart and in the abdominal veins. The engorging had' extended to the brain, .bringing on convulsions. _ In answer to a question by Station-Sergeant King whether there was any appearance of .the child being over-lain, the doctor said that the symptoms pointed _______ The Coroner returned a verdict that the child died in a fit of convulsions caused by being overlain in the night, and commented very strongly on the daiTger of parents taking their infants into bed with them. He mentioned that at Home there was talk of making this a criminal offence, because it: led to so many deaths. A similar death had occurred on the 30fh of last month.