OUR BABIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3111, 29 October 1913, Page 59

OUR BABIES.

Bi Hygeia. v

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.”

THE LONDON CONGRESS ON INFANT MORTALITY AND CHILD WELFARE.

(Continued.) LONDON, September 4. Last week I devoted a portion of my article to describing and commenting on a visit paid to the London Hospital, in company with members of the Medical Congress, and shall now continue the subject. In. the first baby’s cot we saw there was a tiny, whining infant, left to itself with a feeding-bottle three-quarters full. I picked up the feeder (which had no cover), and found that the milk was almost cold. One marvels at such careless and faulty treatment exhibited to the world under me very eyes and countenance of eminent doctors and nurses. These authorities are responsible not only for an example set to a largo section of the Medical and Nursing professions, but the London Hospital is regarded by the teeming millions of the East End as embodying that is best for the welfare of suffering humanity—from the cradlo to old age. Our readers can judge for themselves as to how the difficulties of the p.oblem of reform in such matters strike us on this side of the world ! Wo have been working among mothers in Bethnal Green, not far from the London Hospital, and were puzzled at first to find how universal was the “dummy habit,” whereas in St. Pancras one sees a considerable number of babies without the abomination. Now we know the reason: as I said last week, the use of the dummy is absolutely forbidden in the St. Pancras School for Mothers. Further, hygienic cradles are not only on exhibition in that school, but are supplied, provided with f a chaff mattress and a piece of blanket and waterproof, at Is 6d each. I shall have something to say later as to the scathing condemnation and denunciation of the dummy at the dental section of the International Congress. EXERCISE. As regards the need of exercise for both mother and child, nothing in the whole proceedings of the Congresses was more striking than the way in which this important factor of health was left out of account, apart from what the Dentists said in their special section as to the necessity of adequate use of mouth, jaws, and teeth, in order to ensure proper formation and development <6f the parts and freedom from decay. As regards expectant and nursing mothers, we sat hour alter hour listening to delegates (both men and women—mainly doctors) describing the ways and means by which they got more nourishing mateiials for mothers, and were inducing them to take more food. But fresh air was scarcely mentioned, and exercise not at all, until Dr Truby King drew attention to the fact that, even in England, probably less than a fifth of the"mothers icaily suffered from lack of food, <rnd that the general tendency was rather to .over-eat, especially where ignorant nurses told expectant women, as they so often did, that they must “oat for two”—two who at most would not weigh more than about one and a-twen-TIETH !

Dr King spoke strongly as to the experience an<] conclusions arrived at by breeders of the lower animals, who. one and all give exercise the first place for the welfare of mother and offspring. He specially cited hoises, cows, dogs, and sheep, among which he said practical experience showed that parturition was rendered unsafe and difficult if insufficient exercise was provided or induced —the offspring of indolent mothers being inferior among the lower animals just as they were in the case of human beings. At the concluding meeting of the Infantile Mortality Congress the Chairman, Alderman Broadbcnt, referred to these and other allusions to the lower animals as “a strange new element in the proceedings of this Congress, coming from abroad, which had proved very thought-provoking!” However, what interested us most in this connection was the emphatic testimony as to the paramount importance of exercise for women that followed once the subject had been broached. Several doctors got up one after the other to support its claims, and to state quite unequivocally that the tendency of mothers was to over-cat nowadays and to cause indigestion, because adequate exorcise was not taken. Dr Eric Pritchard, physician to a leading London hospital, said that even among the poor of Marylebone it was the woman who nad to work hard at charring and scrubbing who came off best at child-birth. While deprecating over-work, and claiming proper exemption from undue drudgery or excessive work of any kind, he said it was most'important to protest against inactivity and indolence, 'and especially to make clear that pver-catiug, combined with undue passivity, was a far more common source of trouble at child-birth and afterwards than shortness of food, on which so much attention tended to he focused. As regards the children, what strikes ns one and all coming from New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, is the extraordinary way in which children in the West End are coddled in houses or wheeled in perambulators and go-carts for years after they ought to be spending most of their time out on the grass in the parks or on sand heaps, quietly busy’ in their own little ways, or laughing, shouting, running, playing, romping, and tumbling over one another. Of course, all English children of the well-to-do are' - not spoiled. One sees very marked' exceptions. For instance, next door to us there is a doctor’s family where the children are sturdy, ideal little out-of-door romps and splendidly developed. Indeed, while one swallow does not make a summer, these children tend to support John Burns’s contention that “doctors’ families are the beat off, as shown by an infantile death rate of only 4 per cent., as compared with 19 per cent, or more in the general community.” EXERCISE FOR JAWS AND TEETH. As for exercising the jaws, there is a general agreement that the worst teeth arc not found among the children of the poor in the East End of London, where they tend to take “what’s going," and often get most damaging food, but among tho spoiled indolent pap-fed children of the

West End, where neither the mothers nor the muses seem to haye any idea that the jaws and teeth are intended for use in infancy. On the contrary, they almost invariably out off the crusts; and, if any meal is_ given, they finely mince or even pound it, and never dream of giving raw apples, etc. As a result, the food is bolted almost without chewing or mixture with and indigestion, had teeth, and adenoids naturally ensue. One sees many a sturdy, healthy child in the worst quarters of the East End who would more than hold its own against the soft, fat, pampered children of the West End. Indeed, there are in all directions most convincing objeotleasons as to the equal or greater national need for the domestic education of well-to-do girls and mothers, as contrasted with confining training in motherhood to the poorer classes, who alone receive attention m these matters here in England. All our experience on this side of the world goes to confirm the wisdom of the policy which our New Zealand Plunkot Society has always pursued in this matter, and which is so clearly embodied in -the printed rules just received from Christchurch ;

Tms form of education* ("‘Education , in Motherhood"’) will be FREE, because IT IS IN THE HIGHEST INTERESTS OF TUB State that, as fab as possible, evert WOMAN IN THE DOMINION SHALL BE IK- ' DT7CED TO AVAIL HEBSELF OF THE SERVICES OFFERED BY THE SOCIETY, WITH A VIEW TO THE BETTERMENT OF THE RACE —TRB RECIPIENT HERSELF BEING ALWAYS REGARDED AS A POTENTIAL HEAI.TH-ADVOOATB AND TEACHER. ,

Of course, the majority of the children of the East End are gravely damaged and more or less stunted through the unhealthiness of their homes and adverse condition* of life, due largely to the ignoiance of their parents. But what one fools most strongly is that for the “East Enders*’ there is every excuse, compared with wealthy families in the West End. However, even among the well-to-do the fault is the fault of society rather than of the individual. What right has the nation to expect anything of its most fa vanned girls when they come to be mothers if their whole environment, training, and education have loft out of account normal all-round development, high domestic ojid womanly ideals, and especially if the eubicct of motherhood has -been tabooed and tno car* of children never even mentioned?