OUR BABIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3769, 8 June 1926, Page 72

OUR BABIES.

By

Hygeia.

Nlllihil unfer the aaipleta ef ttu •eyal Haw Zealand Saclaty far tha Naaim if Waman and Children (Plunkat Society). "It le wiser ’• pat ap a fenae at tha top at • precipice than to maintain aa ambulanca at tha battam. M

PLUNKET NURSES, ETC., DUNEDIN BRANCH. nurses’ services free. Nurses o’Shea_ (telephone 2348), Isbis* ter (telephone 7566), Darling, and Ewart (telephone 116), and Mathieson (telephone 302 Q). Society’s Rooms: Jamieson’s Buildings, 76 Lower Stuart street (telephone 116), and 31.*! Cing 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 -2 to 4 p.m.; and at Kelsey-Yaralla Kindergarten Mondav and Friday, from 2 to 4 p.m. Out-stations: Baptist Church, Gordon road, Mosgiel, Tuesday afternoons from 3 to 4 o’clock; Municipal Buildings, Poft Chalmers, Wednesday afternoons from 2 to 4 o’clock. Secretary, Miss G. Hoddinott, Jamieson’s Buildings, Stuart street (telephone 116). Karitane-Harris Baby Hospital, .-\.ulerson’s Bay (telephone 1985). Matron, Miss Fitz-Gibbon. Demonstrations given on request every Wednesday afternoon from 2.30 by Plunket Nurses and Karitane Baby Nurses. Visiting hours: 2 to 4 p.m., Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. AIR—THE FIRST ESSENTIAL. Sunshine is * necessary for the proper growth and health of- every living creature. Fortunately, in New Zealand there is abundance of sunshine; but in spite of this some babies are prevented from having their share. Every baby needs the direct rays of the sun on his skin for some time every day. Sun shining through a glass window will warm baby, but it does not do the same good a direct rays on to the body surface. When a baby is a week old, and in some cases sooner, he may be put out in the sunshine. His eyes can be shaded from the glare by turning him on his side in his cot and shading his head, without putting any covering near his face. The leather hood of a perambulator affords a very unhealthy shelter for baby, and yet many babies live in a leather-lined perambulator during tne greater part of their first year.

When the temperature of the day is not under 60 degrees Fahrenheit the legs and arms of a young baby may be bared to the sun for about 10 minutes before the 10 a.m. feeding, and in a few days before the 2 p.m. feeding also. The mother should hold the baby on her knee if possible, so that while he is being suurayed she can give him exercise by stroking his legs and arms gently but firmly fr~.n the feet and hands upwards. As baby grows older his legs and arms ran be bared to the sunshine for half an hour before his 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. feedings. After a baby is six months old, if it is warm weather, he may have his morning bath on a verandah or right out in the open—in the sunshine, where its rays will play on liis body. Later, when he can crawl and run about, he should be allowed to be quite bare in the sunshine for about 20 minutes before his morning sleep. If baby lives by the seaside it is easy for his mother to let him run about on the beach in the sun with very little, if any, covering. Babies whose mothers carry out this mothercraft do not catch cold easily, and will not feel the changes of weather if made robust and hardy in this manner. Their circulation will be good, and their feet and hands will glow with warmth even on cold days. If a baby has not been used to exposure to sunshine, he should not be fully undressed at first, but gradually accustomed, little by little, to fuller exposure of the body. To ensure baby having pure air day and night he must have a bed to himself. “A baby must never sleep in bed with his mother.” Only a few weeks ago there was a case of death through overlying in Auckland, the coroner at the inquest condemning this foolish practice of mothers. “If the cot is kept in the room in which the parents or other persons sleep, it should be on the side of the room opposite to where the other bed or beds stand, and there should be a current of pure outside air flowing across the room between the cot and the bed, so that the baby may not re-breathe the air which the other occupants of the room have used up and poisoned.” To give guidance and help to every mother, expectant or otherwise, is the ideal of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children (under whose auspices these articles are published). .It is not a charity, but rather a free education, given in the best interests of our country for the perfection of the health of the race. Letters seeking advice may be forwarded to “Hygeia,” “Mount Melrose,” Melrose, Wellington.