OUR BABIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3743, 8 December 1925, Page 72

OUR BABIES.

Br

Hygeia.

Published under the aurpleee ef thr Myal New Zealand Society for the Health tf Women and Children (Plunket Society). “It is wiser te put up a fence at Uia tep a? a precipice than ta maintain a« ambulance at the bittern.”

PLUNKET NURSES, ETC. DUNEDIN BRANCH.

KUPBKS* SKHVICES FREE. Nurses O’Shea (telephone 2548), Richards. Darling, and Ewart (telephone 116), ana M>thieson (’.ekphone 3020). Society's Rooms: Jamieson’s Buildings, 76 Lower Stuart street (telephone 116), and 315 King Edward street, South Dunedin (telephone 3020). Office hours, daily from 2 to 4 p.m. (except Saturday and Sunday); also 125 Highgate, Roslyn—Monday and Thursday from 2to 4 p.m.; and at KelseyYaralla Kindergarten, Tuesday and Friday, from 2 to 4 p.m. Out-stations: Baptist Church, Gordon road, Mosgiel, Tuesday afternoons from 2 to 4 p.m.; Municipal Buildings, Port Chalmers, Wednesday afternoons from 2 to 4 o’clock. Secretary, Miss G. Hoddinott, Jamieson’s Buildings, Stuart street (telephone 116). Karitane-Harris Baby Hospital. Anderson’s Bay (telephone 1985). Matron, Miss Buisson. Demonstrations given on request every Wednesday afternoon from 2.30 to Nurses and Karitane Baby Nurses. Visiting hours: 2 to 4 p.m., Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.

KEEPING BABY SLEEPING IN BED BESIDE PARENTS. Last week I wrote strongly on this offence, in connection with the doing to death by overlying of two babies in one month in Dunedin some years ago, and a similar case which occurred during a recent month. At the same time I referred to the even greater wrong inflicted in the aggregate on the very large number of babies who, though not killed outright are injured for life by lying at night in the vaporous, muggy, enervating air beside theii parents. THE OCEAN OF AIR. Do people realise the ocean of air as they do the ocean of water? I am perfectly certain they do not, though air is just as real a substance as water, and in one sense is more immediately important to us. A fish living at tho bottom of the ocean of water, and never coming to the surface, would not realise that water was anything at all. It might say to itself. ‘T know there is nothing between me ancl that rock yonder, because I can see through and swim through the intervening space; it is merely empty space.” If the fish were (face to go to the surface and thrust its head up into the air, it would grasp the fact that water was a very real substance; but it would now imagine that in reaching the top of its own ocean it had come indeed to a completo void and emptiness. The fish would not realise that it had only reached the bottom of another ocean—the great ooo&n of air, which covers the whole World for miles deep.

Human beings are in much the same position as the deep-water fish: never having gone up to the top of their ocean, they do not really understand that air is anything—that it is real matter—real and substantial. How many people truly apprehend, for instance, that every living thing in the world is built mainly out of air and water and that in its : mmediate relations to human existence and vitality air is by far the most important food.

Without air we die in 3 or 4 minutes. Without water we die in 3 or 4 days. Without ordinary food we can live for 3 or 4 weeks, or even longer. It is amazing that we should voluntarily subject our children or ourselves to the devitalising influence of damp, sodden, enervating air for five hundred minutes every night, when we know that the complete withdrawal of air for only a few minutes will stamp out life for ever. Children habitually deprived of pure, fresh air grow up soft, pale, and feeble in body and mind compared with those reared in the open air, and they fall ill and succumb to disease much more readily than those who are brought up ruddy, healthy, and hardy. GOD’S GRACIOUS BOUNTY. Every particle of vegetation, every herb and tree, every fruit and flower, every block of coal, every drop of oil is essentiallybuilt out of tho air, not out of the solid land, as so many people still imagine; and back to the atmosphere they return sooner or later. We all know this in one sense, but we signally fail to grasp it in another. We learn it as a kind of shibboleth; but how many of us put this knowledge to practical use in our own lives or in the rearing of our families? When will our people understand that an abundant supply of pure, cool, air day and night—God’s bounty to all, rich and poor alike—is one of the greatest privileges and blessings of existence: a gracious gift that would be legarded as even more worth struggling and paying for than food, but for the a< j * s * llv * s,, ble, intangible, free, and therefore unappreciated and unaccepted ? FORM THE HABIT OF LIVING IN FRESH AIR. Such a sad occurrence as the overlying of a baby proves conclusively how much room there is for real practical education in the hygiene of the home and the individual. We have lately been dealing with the teaching of health in the schools. hat an enormous advance in the health of the whole community would take place if, from now On, all the children in our schools were brought to understand the advantages of pure, cool, fresh air by day and night, and were practically taught how to ensure them in the school and in the house; and at the same time were encouraged to form the habit of living in clean, pure air. Unfortunately, the actual daily practice in most schools would seem to be designed to prove the very opposite. Practice is better than precept. ’V hat is the use of merely telling children they ought to live in pure,--cool, fresh air, swim, play active (tames, and tako plenty of outdoor exercise, if the class rooms are close and stuffy, and no adequate playgrounds or other facilities for healthy recreation are provided. The formation o‘f healthy daily habits is the main essential. If proper hygienio training and practice obtained in all our schools it is unthinkable that in after life any man or woman would commit the senseless folly and crime of keeping a baby in bed with them. The offence is not less criminal because most such babies are not actually killed outright: it is enough that they were weakened and damaged for life.

The Board of Health has recommended the Government to issue regulations controlling barbers’ shops, and it is understood they will shortly be ready. The shops will be registered and licensed by local governing authorities. There will be provision for ensuring cleanlinoss and proper equipment and attendance, with a view to preventing the spread ,ot communicable disease to clients.