OUR BABIES

Otago Witness, Issue 3015, 27 December 1911, Page 69

OUR BABIES

Br Htgeia.

Published under the auspices of the 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 ambulance at the bottom,;’

ADDRESSES OF PLUNKET NURSES AND SECRETARIES. Dunedin. —Plunket Nurses Laing, Torrance, and McLaren, Tel. 1136. Office of the Society, Health Department Rooms, Liverpool street, Dunedin. Office hours, daily (except Saturdays and Sundays) from 3 to 4 p.m. Hon. sec.. Mrs Edmond, Melville street. Tel. 53. Christchurch.—Plunket Nurses Hicljson and Hansard. Office of the Society, 847 Chancery lane. Tel. 847. Office hours, 9 to 10 a.m. and 2 to 5 p.m. daily (except Saturdays and Sundays). Hon. sec., pro tern.. Mrs C. Reid, Knowles street, St. Albans. Tel. 1071. Welington.—Hon. sec., Mrs M‘Vicar, 27 Brougham street. City. Tel. 2642. Auckland.—Plunket Nurses Chappell and Brien. Park street. Tel. £6l. Office of the Society, 2 Chancery street. Tel. 829. Office hours, Tuesdays and Fridays, 2.30 to 4 p.m. Hon. sec., Mrs W. H. Parkes* Marinoto. Symonds street. Tel. 240. Napier.—Plunket Nurse Donald, Masonio Hotel. Tel. 485. Hen. see., Mrs H. E. Oldham. Telegrams, “Oldham,” Napier. Tel. 585. New Plymouth. —Plunket Nurse Morgan, Imperial Hotel. Tel. 123. Office, Town Hall, Wednesdays and Fridays, 2 to 4 p.m. Hon. sec., Mrs R. J. Matthews, Fitzroy. Tel. 104. Timaru.—Acting Plunket Nurse Campbell. Office of the Society, Arcade Chambers, Tel. 314. Office hours, 3.30 to 4.30 and 6.50 to 7.30. Hon. sec., Mr Ernest Howden. Invercargill.—Plunket Nurse O’Shea, Allen’a Hall, Kelvin street. Hon. sec.,. Mm Handyside, Gala street. Ashburton. —Plunket Nurse Hickson. Office of Society, Bullock’s Arcade. Nurse in attendance every Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hon. sec., pro tern.. Miss Standish. Society’s Baby Hospital, Karitane Harris Hospital, Anderson’s Bay, Dunedin. Tel 1985. Demonstrations on points of interest to mothers are given every Wednesday afternoon from 2.30 to 3.30. All mothers are invited. may be left at any time at the Plunket Nurses’ offices or private addresses. All other information available from the hon. secretary of each branch. PLUNKET NURSES’ SERVICES FREE.

THE TRAGEDY OF BABYHOOD. Bast week I set about telling the pitiful life-history of an infant -who, in thti first two months of her existence in out* midst beyond the shelter o? her mother’s womb, was subjected to nearly all the Furies that lie in wait for babies in the guise of ignorant parents and “won’t-be taught” monthly nurses. In the course of eight short weeks there had been piled up for this little child a “list of griev* ances,’* which, if she could have expressed them by speaking or writing instead of by mere agonised moans and writhings, Would have quit© outweighed the claYmq against the Government or Society about which we grown-up children make so much qlamoug nowadays—from the wrongs of “Sweating” to “Votes for women.”

BABIES’ EIGHTS VERSUS WOMEN’S RIGHTS. <. Lady Stout would hay© “the other side of the world!” believe that the first thing enfranchised womanhood did for New Zealand tviS -unselfishly to set about right-

ing the tragic wrongs of child life. The Strange thing is that the "political women" of New Zealand did not range themselves on the side of those who were suffering the greatest wrongs in the land, suffering untold present pains and being doomed to untold consequent weaknesses and miseries throughout life at the hands of the very women themselves. Why the "political woman" did not at once set about establishing her claim to recognition as a new and higher element in politics by saying less about her own rights and doing more to right the wrongs of the children, for whom she was directly responsible, is a standing marvel ot the women movement in New Zealand. It is not too late to come forward in force even now. . Of course, certain women in the Dominion (among whom in Society Lady Plunket was the foremost) did realise where the need and power of reform on the part of women could be made most effective—she realised that the provision of means and facilities for learning how to be a good mother was the first duty of our women to the race, but her work in this connection was on domestic, not on political, lines. We all know how Lady Plunket set about giving effect to her convictions, and I feel very strongly that if the Plunket Nurse could get into every home in New Zealand three months before the baby was born, there would soon be no more stories for me to tell about the cruelty of ignorance as applied to motherhood; and paragraphs such as the following would lease to occupy a prominent place in our iolumn: OVERLYING. Auckland, December 18. The nine-months-old daughter of , a resident of , died in bed yesterday morning. The child slept in bed with her parents, and was apparently suffocated'. MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS. A "nine-months-old" baby takes a lot of killing, but' we have to remember that the baby who sleeps with its parents is used to being half-suffocated. Every night while the mother is "buried in sleep" the poor little victim lies sweltering, torpid, and from time to time gasping for breath in what Dr Oliver Wendell Holmes scathingly describes as a "foetid lair." A little more poisoning than usual and a little deeper burying of the baby's face in the pillow or the mother's breast makes the child insensible, and death may ensue without a struggle; or, the mother may turn in her sleep and crush out the last nhanoe of getting air into the lungs. Then comes an awakening of the parents to bitter tears and useless lamentations —next day the public humiliation of a coroner's inquest, followed by the public proclamation of names and particulars in a hundred newspapers, from Auckland to the Bluff. The whole tragedy arises from women knowing little and believing less as to the value and necessity of fresh, pure air—the cruelty of denying any baby the natural birthright of all air-breathing, warm-blooded animals. STARVING TO DEATH. The Society will continue to publish and proclaim the shame of starving babies to death by depriving them of air so long as such cases continue to occur in our midst, just as it would proclaim the shame of those who appear in the dock because they have allowed a child to die of ordinary starvation. Indignation on account of the latest case of overlying has prevented me from keeping my promise of giving the after-history at the Karita-ne Harris Hospital of the baby whoso misfortunes I chronicled last week. It must stand over in the meantime.