OUR BABIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16225, 7 November 1914, Page 15

OUR BABIES.

BT HISKIJU

PobHrfbad utd«r the * aspire* of the Boolety for th« Health oi Women una Children. " It Is wiser to pot up * too# at to® , top o! a precipice than to maintain an ambolaaoe at the bottom." ADDRESSES OF PLUNKET NURSES AND SECRETARIES. Danedin.—Plunket Norse Laing. TeL 1136. Plunket Nurse M'Laren and Plunket Nnrse Connor. TeL £814. Office of the Society, Post Oflio& Building, Liverpool street, Dunedin. Office hours, daily {aacsapt Saturday and Sunday), from 3 to 4 p.m. Hon. Secretary, Mrs Joseph M'George, 54 London street. Tel. 1737. Chratchurch.—Plunket Nurses Ellis, HanMrdi Kilgour. Offico of the Society, Chancery Lane. Office hours, 2 to 5 p.m. daily (except Sunday). Hon. Secretary, Mrs H. Pyne, Beaiey avenue. TeL 285. Wellington.—Plunket Nurses Purcell, Pmcoe, and Seater. Society's Room, to Vit'imi street. TeL 2425. Hon. Secretary Mrs M'Vicar, 27 Brougham street, City. Tel. 2642. , Auckland. —Plunket Nurses Morgan and M'Carthy. TeL 851. Office of the Soaety, 2 Ohaoeery street. TeL 829. O®® o hours, Tuesdays and Fridays, _200 to ♦ p.m. Hon. Secretary, Mrs "W. Coleman, Princes street. ~ .. 10 Napier.—Plunket Nurae Howell, No. Marine parade. TeL 485. Office hours, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, from <2 to* 4 p.m. Hon. Secretary and Treasurer, Mrs Ashcroft . • , Timaru.—Plunket Nurse Bowie. Office ot the Society, Sophia street. TeL 514. Office Lours. 3.3 Cto 4.30 p-m.; Saturday, 2.30 to 4 p.m. Hon. Secretary, Mr Ernest Howden. » , Inveroargill.—Plunket Nuree 0 Shea, Aliens Hall, Kelvin street. Hon. Secretary, Mrs Ritchie Crawford, Don street, Inveroargill. Hastings (Hawke'a Bay).—Plunket Nurse Walton. Residence and office, Heretaunga street Tel. 609. Office hours, 2 to 3.30 p.m. Hon. Secretary, Mrs T W. Lewis. TeL 285. „ „ ' Hawera. —Plunket Nuree Cully. Hon. Secretary, Mrs J. S. Yoang, Cameron street. Wanganui District.—Plunket Nurse Hudson. TeL 949. Office of the Society, T.Y.M.L Buildings, The Avenue. Office hours, 2 to 4 p in. dafty, except Tuesday; Saturday, 11 to 12 a.m. Secretary, Miss R. N. Cummins, P.O. Box 84. Marten. —Plunket Nurse Hudson. Every Tuesday. Office of the Society, Ingle Bros., Broadway. TeL 37. Hours, 1.30 to 5 p.m. Hon. Secretary, Miss Cook, Bond street | Dannevirke.—Plunket Nurse Wright. Hon. Secretary, Mrs Bickford, Bank of New Zealand. Ash burton District. —Plunket Nurse Grace. Hon. Secretary, Mr Chas. Jennings, Burnett street Balclutha —Plunket Norse Lee. Hon. Secretary, Mrs D. T. Fleming, Bakiutha. Gore. —Plunket Nurse Every. Hon. Secretary, Mrs Bla&ie, Devon street, Gore. Nelson.—Plunket Nurse Morgan. Hon. Secretary, Mrs Nalder, -Nile street, Nelson. Rotorua. —Phmket Norse Chappell. Hon. Secretary, Mrs Skene Dixon. Taihape.—Plunket Nurse Jones. Hon. Secretary, Mrs Arrowsmiih. Weetport—Plunket Nurse Urwin. Hon. Secretary. Mrs J. C. Curtis, Westport. Oamaru. —Phmket Nurse Baker. Hon. Secretary. Mrs Haines, Bank of New Zealand, Oamaru. Gisborna —Phmket Nnrse Craig. Hon. Secretaries, Mrs Reeve and Mrs Anderson. Society's Baby Hospital, Karitane-Harris Hospital, Anderson's Bay, Dunedin. TeL 1985. Matron, Miss CampbelL Demonstrations on points of interest to mothers are given by the Matron every Wednesday afternoon from 2.30 to 3.30. A NURSLING ON BOTTLE-FEDS. Truth in jest v3l be found in the following extract from a newspaper cutting sent me some years ago by an unknown correspondent:— A healthy breast-fed baby is supposed to give vent to his feelings about the wrongs and disabilities of the bottle-feds" that he comes across with their nurses in Hyde Park—never tended by their mothers. He says: — I was talking to Beveral babies in mailcarts about the terrible things that have been appearing in the papers about the adulteration of and the large percentage of consumptive cows. And one of the wretched little bottle-fed babies that my nurse lets me talk to in the paxk repeated this ryhme about sterilising cows:— We can sterilise hia bottles, we cam boil his little mug; We can bake hia flannel bandages and disinfect the rag That wraps him round when lie partakes of medicated air. But there's one impassibility that leaves us in despair— And a not tmjustifiable alarm, yon will aDcrw— To wit: we fear 'twould never do -to sterilise the cowl When I saw one of these babies come out in the morning, with its horrid. mixture of blue milk and water, I asked if he hadn't any mother. He got very red in the face and said: "Perhaps your mummy doesn't go to parties and week-ends, because nobody asks her." My mother stops at heme to nurse me, and often takes me oat herself into tbe park; but his mo&er goes to balls instead, and has long descriptions of her clothes in the Morning Post. I wonder why the newspaper man didn't print that my mummy stopped at home because she had a dear little baby who had the first claim? For if she went to balls and ate heavy suppers and kept late- hours she couldn't possibly nurse me properly. AN IDEAL BABY. Now, I'm -what my mummy and all the doctors call an, "ideal baby." I only weighed 81b when I was' born, which was quite normal and hea*thy; 1 was 20£ in high, my chest was nearly 14in in circumference, and so was my heacE At the age of one year, being entirely, breast-fed for nine months, I tipped the scales at 211b, my height was 29in, the circumference of my chest and head m just over 18in. I shouldn't take a prize at a baby show. But my mummy says—and what she doesn't Know isn't worth knowing—£hai those soft, fat, white, heavy babies have no stamina and strength, ami they often die off in 24 Itouis if they get bronchitis or measles, or have much trouble with teething. SECOND-HAND MOTHERS. I've heard a lot lately about what they call "women suffragists, -who go to.prison because they say one-wotnan-one-voto. So I asked the other fellows in the park why women didn't hokt big meetings and get excited about "one-baby-one mother," because it seems to me nowadays that most babies don't own mothers. Nearly all lie babies I know have nurses, who are only second-hand mothers after all. My daddy says tbe reason there are no really clever rising young men nowadays is because, about 30 years ago, the women of the better classes began to bottle-feed their babies. He says a mother who does this makes a bankrupt of a baby in body and mind. ARE YOU A " BOTTLE-FED." And I quite agree with him that/we shall never have a really clever Parliament until the electors refuse to vote for the candidate who was bottle-fed. In all the families we know all the cleverest and best-looking were fed on tbe breast Wretched little weaklings, some of these artifioially-brought-up babies are. When I'm three years old I shall weigh 321b, and be nearly a yard high. A CHALLENGE. And Fll fight any bottle-fed four-year-old one hand. It's all nonsense to say big British battles were won on the cricket fields of Eton; they were won on thei mother's breast. And it s only just cant for us to talk about the wickedness of the Chicago canners selling diseased food when half the British mothers don't hesitate to give bottles full of wishy-washy patent foods, condensed milk, and. all kinds of silly rubbish to their own babies. COMMENT BY "HYGEIA." While heartily endorsing what this severe little critic says. I am glad to feel that he would as heartily approve the effect of the Society's persistent crusade against bottlefeeding. He would not only welcome the steady increase in nursing year by year in New Zealand, but would be glad to know that, where babies have to bo bottle-fed, they are for the most part given something very, different from the "wishv-wasby rubbish" which he inveighs against. Nothing too unsparing can be said against feeding babies on any of the so-called infant foods put up for tnem in tins, and it is well that adults should be confronted with the question, "How would you like to bo kept for nine months on tinned Chicago food that had had all the lifo and freshness heated out of it?"