OUR BABIES.

Southland Times, Issue 14635, 27 January 1911, Page 6

OUR BABIES.

(By Hygeia). Published under the auspices of the Society for the Health of Women and t'h ildren. "It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at. the bottom." Invercargill.—Blanket Xurse O'Shea, Allen’s Hall, Kelvin Street. Hon. Sec., Mrs Handyside. Gala Street. COLIJ BATH FOR CHILDRKX. At the close of last week’s article I referred my readers to what is said in tiie Society’s hook, “Feeding and Care of Baby,” on Hie subject of cold bathing. For the benefit of thpsc who have not a copy at hand 1 may quote the passage : —How to Start. — “Cold bathing should be begun as soon as the child is sufficiently strong to take really active exercise. The vast majority of children of two years, and some even younger, would tie immensely benefited if given a cold bath every morning, the following precautions being carefully attended to : “1. Gradually reduce the temperature of the water clay by day, until at the end of Id davit or a fortnight the bath can lie taken cjuite cold. With a ■■cry young child it is well to start in

the summer, and in any case to pave the way by standing the child with its feet in warm water while sponging witli cool water, reducing the temperature of the latter each day until cold is reached. “2. The child should be taken straight from its bed, popped into the bath for a few seconds, rubbed and dried well with a linen towel, dressed very quickly, and taken for an active walk, run, or game (in the open air if possible) for not less than 20 minutes. The exercise must never be omitted, and it should be made as active and pleasureable to the child as possible. There is no greater mistake than that of allowing children to dawdle about either before -or after the bath. “Cold bathing, followed by really active exercise, is one of the most healthgiving of all habits, and should be continued throughout life.” THE OLD SCHOOL. It will be remembered that in a passage 1 cited last week Dr Leroy Vale, a typical representative of the old school (the school to which most mothers are still tied), gave it as his opinion that “the hardening' method in any shape should not be begun on a little child.’ In another place he says : “1 have no sympathy with the senseless hardening theory”—condemning the practice ahead by using the epithet “senseless.” For young children he says water should be warmed to 70deg. Fall., rendering it almost lukewarm. As I shall show later, water thus mildly warmed is apt to be depressing and devitalising, whore cold water would prove an invigorating stimulus to the whole system. Why, then, are mothers strongly advised the use of cold water ?

Dr Yale gives as a reason for his advice the fact that in proportion to it's size, heat escapes more rapidly from a child than from an adult. Of course, small bodies do tend to cool more rapidly than large, and this does afford ample reason for having everything in readiness for drying a baby rapidly, for wasting no time over dressing or undressing, and for tucking it snug and cosy in its cradle as quickly as possible. This last refers to the “nursling”—in other words, to the young baby who cannot be induced to take active, sustained exercise, and who lias, therefore, not reached the proper stage for cold bathing. When sustained voluntary bodily activity is possible a new factor (curiously enough habitually left out of account in dealing with this problem) really dominates the situation. That factor is exercise. There is nothing to fear and everything to gain by habituating infants to the regular daily use of the cold bath as soon as they are capable of taking a sufficiency of active exercise to ensure a healthy reaction—usually at any time from the eighteenth to the twenty-fourth month. Sometimes the cold hath may be given earlier, where the mother or nurse can give the attention and spare the time to ensure suitable energetic play for at least a quarter of an hour immediately after dressing. —Rapid Burning in Infancy.— In plain terms, the question whether a young creature will or will not benofit by a cold hath is not determined simply by size and relative surface exposed to the escape of heat, but by this consideration taken in conjunction with the heat-producing power of the individual. Dr Yale takes no account of the fact that the “fire of life” burns much mors actively in a baby than in an adult. An infant six months old “burns” a quart of milk a day. An adult weighing twelve times as mucli as the baby needs to “burn” the equivalent of three or four quarts—in other words, needs only that relatively small proportion of food for his complete nutrition, —not 12 quarts 1 This explains why children revel in seaside battling, and why, carried away bv the sheer joy of their experience in paddling and tumbling about in the surf, they are apt. If left, to themselves, to overdraw their physical capital. They have such a splendid balance of natural reaction that they realise no limitation to the extent to which it can be safely drawn on. However, after having allowed an excess of heat to he extracted from the surface, wo must never forger to ensure a more active burning through out the system—in other words, we must on no account allow proper active exercise after cold battling to be omitted. The fact that excessive or injudicious seaside-bathing is the reverse of beneficial affords no ground for stopping one of the most healthful and invigorating pleasures of early life, and the same may he said of the momentary dip or cold sponging of Infants. if Nature had been guided by the oM school she would have confined the instinctive resorting to cold water among warm-blooded animals to leviathans, like the whale and hippopotamus, and (ho joy of swimming would have been unknown to full-grown ducks or dogs—to say nothing of duckling and puppies.

In this country those who foolishly Inveigh against cold bathing for young children should visit a primitive Maori settlement—where they would find infants swimming about almost as soon as they can walk—or they should consult the usages of other vigorous races In the past before they were sapped by modern civilisation. X shall pursue this subject next week, and give in detail some striking instances of tiie benefits of cold bathing for young children coming within the scope of my own experience.