OUR BABIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3624, 28 August 1923, Page 58

OUR BABIES.

HYGEIA.

By

Published under the auspices of th» Royal New Zealand 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.''

PLUNKET NURSES, ETC., DUNEDIN BRANCH. nurses’ services free. Nurses M‘Lean (telephone 9268), Mathie•on itelephoDe 3020), Scott, and Ellis. Society’s Rooms: Jamieson’s Buildings. 76 Lower Stuart street (telephone 116), and 315 King Edward street, South Dunedin itele phone 3020). Office hours, daily* from to 4 p.m. (except Saturday and Suftd a Y) '> a^£ ° Lindon Oddfellows’ Hail, Koslyn,'' Monday and Thursday from 2 to 4 p.m. Outstations: Baptist Church, Gordon road, Mosgiol, Tuesday afternoons from 2 to 4 p.m. ; Municipal Buildings, Pert Chalmers Wednesday aftornoons irom _ to 4 p.m Secretary, ILiss G. Hoddinott, Jamieson s Buildings, istuart street (telephone 116). Karitane-Harris Baby Hospital, Anderson’s Bay (telephone 1985) Matron, »liss Buisson. Demonstrations every Wednesday afternoon from 2.30 to 3.30 Training Institution for Plunket Nurses and Karitane Baby Nurses. Visiting hours, 2to 4 P-m-, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. PECULIAR OF BACKWARD BABIES. Last week I gave passages from an admirable little book for parents just written by Dr John Thomson, the leading authority m Scotland on children. The firsT section which referred to blind, deaf, and or ppled bub.es, mentioned how the sources of happiness and usefulness are liable to be more or less closed to them, and said how their other senses and powers can be educated and improved by practice so as to be able to take the place as far as may be of those which are wanting, Dr Thomson then refers to Babies who Behave Differently from Others. "There are many children who make their parents anxious sooner or later, because they are found to be behaving differently in some ways from other babies. They are either too long in learning to do or to notice things, or such little things as they do are done in an unusual way.” It is for the mothers of such children that Dr Thomson’s excellent little took is written. He says: “When a baby is not quite like other children of his age in his behaviour, it is important that his mother should recognise this early. She can then set herself without delay to learn how she can best help aim to grow like them. “It is often impossible to find out the reason why these babies are born with this weaKiiess: we need not trouble ourselves with puzzling questions as to how and why these things happen. What concerns us is that the children are under our care, an< J that WE MUST leave nothing undone to bring them on in every way we can.’’ Dr Thomson is extremely anxious to save people front useless worry and heart-search-ings in such cases. Only too often parents blame tnemselves or blame others because oi some imaginary neglect or wrong which they conclude would account for their child being different from other children. In reality the peculiarities or defects in question are generally accidental. Nature may , drop a stitch” in the weaving of the brain, just as a housewife, however skilled and careful she may to, may chance to drop a st tch m the knitting of a stocking. As the far-s"emg English physician Sir Thomas Bi owne ..-aid, in effect-, over three centuries aj. : "If people had any idea of the infinite delicacy, intricacy, and complexity of 'I' c human body they would not wonder that sometimes defects. occur in structure or function; indeed, they would marvel rather that any human body was ever properly built, arid that it was ever in working order —they would wonder that any of us couH arrive at or .maintain a state of health and efficiency.” What applies to the tody in general of course applies equally to the brain, the senses, the feelings, and the mind.” This is not- actually a quotation but a paraphrase, as I have not a copy of the “Religio Medici” at the moment. Important Factors in Determining the Majority of Brain Maladies. On the other hand, one feels bound to remind parents that there is another way of regarding mental peculiarities, ineffiemne es, or actual deficiencies met with in early childhood. Professor Lugaro, of Italy (one of the highest European authorities on the mind), goes the length of saving, in his groat text book on Mental Diseases: “The infections which arise in the first years of life, and especially the inflammation of the stomach and bowels, due gerjer ally to unsuitable feeding during the nursing period, are the most important factors in determining the majority of brain maladies occurring in childhood.” Lugaro contends th it deficiencies commonly regarded as inborn or congenital are often brought on in early infancy, and are not really congenital. This may seem to contradict what we have already said as to the more or less accidental nature of most departures from the normal mentality noticed during infancy and early childhood. However, in our anxiety to spare parents from undue distress we feel it is equally incumbent on us to make quite clear that mistakes- m regard to the feeding and care during infancy which give rise to such conditions as serious indigestion, diarrhoea, and impairment of nutrition growth and development invariably stunt and damage the brain more or less, and inevitably place a handicap on the individual for life. A child retarded in this way during infancy will never make up on what he would have been but for the arrest in the orderly processes of building the body, brain, and nervous system. ”It is always too late to be what we might have been,” and the younger the child the more potently does this wise saying apply. Most of the making or marring of the future man or woman is done at home and in the nursery, long before a child goes to an infants’ school.

Mental Disease a Disease of the Body.

Few people truly realise that INSANITY in adults, or so-called “ MENTAL DISEASE,” is in reality just as truly DISEASE OF THE BODY" as inflammation of the lungs or the liver, or as diphtheria or typhoid fever —the org m specially affected or poisoned being apparently the brain, though the primary source of poison and trouble is generally the digestive system. While some of the laity are beginning to have faint glimmerings of light on the relations of body and mind in the causation of mental deficiency, practically no such idea occurs m connection with infants: if a baby appears to be backward, stupid, or imbecile the general conclusion is that it must have been born defect ve. We know from experience that parents who could leadily be convinced that insanity in an adult is often due mainly to indigestion and constipation become quite incredulous when told that simla-r poisoning of the blood in the case of a baby may be even mors damaging, because the brain is then a delicate growing organ-—not the mature and more resistive structure of the adult.. Any Plunket nurse could testify to having seen babies brought to a Karitane Hospital (or confronting her in their own homes) po'soned, vacant, expressionless, and imbecile for the time being, who in the course of a few weeks of proper timely feeding and oare become bright, happy, winsome, and full of life. Had they been adults they would have been committed to a mental hospital, and would have needed for their recovery as many months as it takes jyeeks in the case of a baby. This is becaUse the bod'ly processes have become so set and fixed in the case of an adult, and they are by contrast so quick and responsive, if given anything approaching fair play, in the case of a young child.