OUR BABIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3384, 22 January 1919, Page 58

OUR BABIES.

By Hygeia

Published under the auspicss 6f the Royal New Zealand Society lor tho Health of Women and Children.

"It Is wiser to put up a tence at tho top ot a precipice than to maintain a<i ambulance at tl.e bottom."

COLD BATH FOR CHILDREN

At the close of last week's article I referred my readers to what is said in the Society's book, "Feeding and Care of Baby," on the subject of cold bathing. For tho berefit of those who have not a copy at hand I.may quote the passage:— How To Start. "Cold bathing should bo begun as soon as the child is sufficiently strong to take really active exercise. The vast majority of children of two years, and some even younger, would be immensely benefited if given a cold bath every morning, the following precautions being carefully attended to: " 1. Gradually reduce the temperature of tho water day by day, until at the end of 10 days or a - fortnight the bath can bo taken quite cold. With a very young child it is well to start in the summer, and in any oase to pave the way by standing the child with' its feet in warm water while sponging with cool water, reducing the temperature of the latter each day until cold is reached. "2. The child should be taken straight from its bed, popped into the bath for a few seconds, rubbed, and dried well with a linen towel, dressed very quickly, and taken for an active walk, run, or game (in the open air. if possible) for not less than 20 minutes. The exercise must never be omitted, and it should be made as active and pleasurable to the- child as possible. There is no greater mistake than that of allowing children to dawdle about either before or after the bath. "Cold bathing, iollowed by really active exercise, is one of the most heakfr-givmg of all habits, and should ba continued throughout life." THE OLD SCHOOL. It will be "remembered that in a passage I cited last week Dr Leroy Yale, a typical representative of the old school (the school to-which most mothers,are still tied), gave it as his opinion that " the hardening method in any shape should not be begun on a little child." In another place he says:. "I have no sympathy with the senseless hardening theory"—condemning, the practice ahead by using the epithet " senseless." For young children he says water should be warmed to 70deg Fahr., rendering it almost lukewarm. As I shall show later, water thus mildly -warmed is apt to be depressing and devitalising, where cold water would provo axi invigorating stimulus to the whole system. Why, then, are mothers strongly advised against the use of cold water? Dr Yale gives as a reason for his advice the fact that in proportion to its size, heat escapes more rapidly from a child than from an adult Of course, small bodies do tend to cool more rapidly than large, and this' does afford ample reason for having everything in - readiness for drying a baby rapidly, for wasting. no time oyer dressing or undressing, and for tucking it snug and oosy in its cradle as quickly as possible This last refers to the " nursling"—in other words, to the young baby who cannot be induced to take active, sustained exercise, and who has, therefore, not reached the proper stage for cold bathing. When sustained voluntary bodily activity is possible a new factor, (curiously enough habitually left out of account in dealing with thi3 problem) really dominates the situation. That factor is exeroise. There is nothing to fear and everything to gain by habituating infants to the regular daily use of the cold bath as soon as they are capable of taking a sufficiency of active exercise to ensure healthy reaction —usually at any time from the eighteenth to the twenty-fourth month. Sometimes the cold bath may be given earlier, where the mother or nurse can give the attention and spare the time to ensure suitable energetic play for at least a quarter of an hour immediately after dressing. ' > . Rapid Burning in Infancy. In plain terms, the question whether a young creature will or will not benefit by a cold bath is not determined simply by size and relative surface exposed to the escape of heat, but by this consideration taken in conjunction with the heat-producing power of the individual. Dr Yale takes no account of the fact that the fire of life burns much more actively in a baby than in an adult. An infant six months old " burns " a quart Of milk a day. An adult weighing 12 times as much as the baby needs to "burn" the equivalent of only three or four quarts—in other words,, needs only that relatively small proportion of food for his complete nutrition —not 12 quarts! This explains why children revel in seasidebathing, and why, carried away by the sheer joy of their experiences in paddling and tumbling about in tho surf, they are apt, if left to themselves, to overdraw their phvsical capital. They have such a splendid balance of natural reaction that they realise no limitation to tho extent to which it can be safely drawn on. However, after having allowed an excess of heat to be abstracted from tho surface, we must never forget to ensure a more active burning throughout the system —in other words, we must oh no account allow proper, active exercise after cold bathing to be_ omitted. Tho fact that excessive or injudicious seaside-bathing "is the reverse of beneficial affords no ground for stopping one of the most healthful and invigorating pleasures of early life, and the same may be said of the momentary dip or cold sponging of infants

If Nature had been guided by the old school she would have confined trie instinctive resorting to cold water among warmblooded animals to leviathans, like the whale and hippopotamus, and the joy of swimming would have been unknown to full-grown ducks or dogs—to say nothing of ducklings and puppies. In thi3 country those who foolishly Inveigh against cold bathing for .young children should yisit a primitive Maori settlement—where they would find Infants swimming, almost as soon as they can walk—or thoy should consult the usages of other vigorous races in the past before they werd sapped by modern civilisation.