OUR BABIES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 12012, 15 March 1920, Page 7

OUR BABIES.

By Hygeia. TWO QUESTIONS. A mother, writing of the early days after her baby’s birth, asks whether she was wise in refusing to be tempted by a little vegetable marrow, because she had previously found that marrow sometimes disagreed with her. She puts a further question, asking if she would be wise in trying gradually to habituate the baby later to tolerating the disturbing effects which, nudging from her own previous experinece. a little marrow taken by herself might teed to exercise over the quality of her milk, in the direction of making it disagree with the baby. As other readers of this column may have similar questionings with regard to particular articles of diet, we shall deal with the matter on general principles. REPLY. 1. There is not the slightest doubt that when Idid up in bed after childbirth a woman should avoid anything and everything that she knows by previous experience tends to upset her in any way. It does not suffice to adopt a regimen which may ho perfectly suitable to ninety-nine women out of a hundred placed in similar circumstances, if such regi- ' men includes, for instance, a single article of food—let us say vegetable marrow —which has tended in the past to interfere with digestion or with feelings of comfort and well being. It does not matter in the slightest whether this tendency to disagree arises from the intrinsic nature of the food, or is due to the fact that the mother has not been in the habit of chewing it sufficiently, or to a personal peculiarity in her own digestive organs. The first fortnight after childbirth should never be chosen as the time for making experiments of any kind. The food taken by the lying-in mother should be of a kind that previous experience has indicated as beneficial and suitable, not only in its general nature, but suited to herself; and, let me emphatically repeat, the diet at such times most not include food materials which past experience has already indicated as tending for any reason to disagree. 3. The second question, which I will repeat for sake of clearness, is not so easily answered Wai the mother wise in trying gradually to habituate the baby to tolerating the disturbing effects which, judging from her own previous experience, a little marrow taken by herself might probably tend to exercise over the quality of her milk in the direction of making it disagree with her baby? REPLY. People in general are far too apt to judge of the intrinsic digestibility or indigestibility of a food material by the results, which they have observed to follow on the taking of such substance by themselves, or the report of similar experiences by others. Disagreement is regarded as unquestionable evidence of indigestibility. whereas, in reality, it may be nothing of the kind. Pain in the abdomen, discomfort, flatulence, etc, arising after taking food is assumed to afford a simple illustration of cause and effect—the food alone being taken into account, not the way in which the food has been dealt with by the person taking it. A noted physician was in the habit of telling bis patients that they suffered from indigestion because they did not take enough indigestible food. The seeming paradox is not difficult to explain. Digestion means, in general, the process by which food is dissolved and absorbed into the circulation ; and naturally those substances will be most readily and quickly absorbed which need the least work to be done on them by the digestive juices in order to enable ■■ll6ol to pass in a state of clear fluid rito the cells and tubes of the body. ffiged from this standpoint “pred i jested” foods—that is to say, foods that have been partially dissolved by subjection ro the action of extracts Of the digestive glands of the lower animals (e.g., peptonised milk, peptonised gruel, etc)—would be regarded as the most desirable and digestible of foods; and so they may be sometimes for temporary use during sickness—yet the habitual adoption of such foods would tend to render the digestive powers of the individual weaker and weaker, on account of their failing to give adequate work to the mouth, jaws, teeth, stomach, intestines, and various digestive glands of the individual taking them. A mother confined to a peptonised diet would tend to become gradauliy ' unable properly to complete the digestion of even the most soluble of such preparations—much °lesß would she be able to digest ordinary normal food. Thus it is that in the end the most easily digestible materials are capable of bringing the whole organism into a state of extreme Inefficiency—the degeneracy of idleness —while the habitual use of foods needing 6 a considerable amount of work to be done on them prior to swallowing wonld bring the Whole digestive apparatus, and along with it the whole organism, into a state of high efficiency and good health. In the case of a nnrsing mother the former state would be associated with absence or unfitness of milk supply, while the latter would naturally tend in the reverse direction—there would bo a free flow of healthy milk.