OUR BABIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3512, 5 July 1921, Page 51

OUR BABIES.

* By lltgiia, Published under the auspice? nf the Royal New Zealand Society tor the Health oi Women and Children. “it Is wiser to put up a fence at the top ol a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom.” THE PLACE OF COW’S MILK IN THE FEEDING OF CHILDREN. I his problem is much more complex than is generally realised, though the main points can be simply stated. First of all wo should get rid of the common idea that) tho rearing of healthy children depends upon an ample supply of mite—say cow’s milk or goat's milk. In reality half the peoples ■of the world have been reared without any milk at all beyond that supplied to the children by their o\\ lx mothers, lhe use of milk derived from tue lower animals has been so slight as Do be insignificant. The- ivtaon is a case in pffint: he liacl no cow 3 milk and no milk supply, but hi 3 physique and the high position he attained on the mental and moral plane prove that lus food was all right for the building of a great race. An examination of the jaws and teetih of the old-time Maori shows that they were ideally perfect until we, ourselves brought in the corrupting influences of a sedentary, indoor, idle life, artificial feeding during early infancy and cow’s milk and pan-feeding afterwards Since then tho teeth of tiho Maori have become almost as bad as our own. Milk is an essential article of human food only during the first year or so of life, and it would be infinitely better for tho children, after they have” reached 18 mon tills of age, and have developed a good set of teeth, if most of their diet consisted not of cow s milk and pap, but mainlv of a judicious selection of such foodstuffs as crisped whole-meal bread, vegetables, raw ripe fruits, etc., and only a moderate allowance of milk, porridge, puddings, etc. EXCESSIVE USE OF MILK. A great) deal of harm is being done in the United Stares to-day by a'school of extremists who have proclaimed that every child should have a quart of milk a day. They don’t really mean a quart as we understand it, but only a little more than a pint and a half, the American quart being 320 z, not 40oz, as in England. However, one English pint is certainly quite enough milk for a healthy child at two years of age, and high authorities, such as Dr Harry Campbell and some of the loading dentistr, contend that children would do better if less than a pint of milk per diem were given, and if a larger proportion of the food were of a character to ensure full exercise for the jaws, teeth and salivary glands. THE LESSON OF THE EAST END. For the last 20 or 30 years the stock .joke made by the West End at the expense of the East End of London, when commenting on the way the East Enders feed their children, has been to say that they “give them what’s going,” and to illustrate this by stories of infants fed with pickles and salt pork, liver and bacon, or cockk-s and periwi nk 1r s ! On the other hand, the West End children of the Victorian era (which wo have never got beyond), were brought up on milk and par), and wore carefully safeguarded during their early years from raw fruit and anything that it was feared might overtax their masticatory or digestive powers. Tho result is to be even in London to-day. The children of the East End —brought up by parents with very crude ideas as to food and feeding, and on wages which have averaged only from £1 to £2 a week —have far sounder jaws and teeth and far less liability to decay of the teeth than the pampered children of the West End. This strikes everyone who looks into the matter, especially the doctors and the dentists. The most casual examination of the children in East and West End schools shows the dental superiority of those who have had the harder fare. Of course it would be quite wrong to jump to the conclusion that such facts afford any justification whatever for giving little children specially indigestible forms of food, such as salt meats, shellfish, or pickles; but the fact is that very few parents, even in the East End. have been in the habit of making such serious mistakes, though most of the ordinary staple food used bv the adults is certainly shared by the children. This is quite a natural and right procedure. The fact is that once past infancy the masticatory and digestive powor% of the healthy child are far more vigorous than those of the average adult. Provided a child is taught to chew food thoroughly a few nuts or even a small piece of raw turnip, taken at three or four .years of ago, rarely disagrees, though many adults dare not take such foods.

FIRM, HARD, MUSCULAR, WELLDEVELOPED CHILDREN, VERSUS BIG, FAT, FLABBY CHILDREN. Dr Harold Waller, who has been for many years the chief physician of a large and important Infant. Welfare Centre at Poplar, in the East End of London, draws special attention to the mistake of assuming that because a young child is big and fat that! therefore he is doing well. Dr Waller remarks how common the overfat flabby type of child is in the perambulators of Kensington Gardens, and in an article on the '‘Hygiene of Infancy” he says:— Those are the children who are allowed to feed on milk and starchy food almost exclusively, and whose parents, content] with weight, mistake massive bulk for health. . . . The chief mistake in these cases is the preponderance of starchy foods —bread, biscuits, potatoes, many of the patient foods, milk puddings—with a corresponding hick of muscle forming substance and fats. . . . There is an unwise tendency to o,uote with scorn a frequent saving among the poor people that their infants have “just what they have themselves/’ Speaking to the writer on this subject, Dr Waller remarked how common it was to elicit some such reply as the following by remarking on the sturdy, robust health of some Poplar child (say in its second or third year), and by asking how much milk l;e was getting : “Oh. R ,o t little nipper, ’e don’t git no milk; leastwise very little W’y, wo only git a pint and a ’arf for the ol© five of us.” Of course, there i- plenty of bad and deficient feeding in the East End, and it would he better if more good, fresh cow’s milk were available; but the contrast of the East and West End forms a good corrective to feeding children merely on milk and pap instead of giving them plenty of simpler, eruder, more normal foodstuffs which would ensure hard work for tiheir teeth and salivary glands, and give them the natural, healthy, and vigorous joy of active exeic ise. Since the armistice the French have reestablished 3540 of the 11,500 factories which were destroyed.