OUR BABIES

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 3, 27 July 1928, Page 2

OUR BABIES

f BY HYCEIA. Published under the auspices of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children (Plunket Society). “It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom.” BABY’S FIRST MONTH. We in Now Zealand are justifiably proud of our infantile mortality figures, but we must Hot forget tliat we still lost unnecessarily a great many babies in the first month of life. Of all the'babies who die before they are a year old two-thirds die before they reach one month of -age, . and the greatest proportion of these do not live to, be a week old. The closer to the moment of birth the higher is the proportion of deaths. *>

( Tltis sounds alarming, but, of course, the vast majority of all babies are born healthy. The great point is that the causes of these very early deaths are closely connected with the mother’s state of health before and when her baby comes. Therefore the thought of these deaths of tiny babies should bring home to every mother the absolute necessity for her to seek the very best possible ante-na-tal advice and medical and nursing care, and to follow the (advice she is given-. Then she has no cause whatever for anxiety, knowing she has done everything she can to enale her to carry her baby normally to full term and to bring him into the world strong and ready to adjust himself to the conditions of his independent existence. Naturally the first mouth is not an, easy one even for the normal baby, and w e should think and plan for Ids comfort and good. A baby who has been floating in a warm bath at blood temperature, protected from shock, injury, or hostile germs, with food and oxygen constantly supplied to him,' is suddenly called upon to manufacture heat, resist germs, digest food, and obtain his own supply of oxygen. We will never bo aWe td alter these fundamental conditions, hut yvith care and forethought we ought to be able to reduce their strain on baby’s system to a minimum. “With a new-born baby we are faced with two problems: First, wo must protect him and make life as easy for him as we can ; secondly, we must start him on the right lines. The manner in which any bodily function is performed serves as a pattern for the manner in which it will bo carried out a. second time or a third or a fourth. We do not want to allow baby to get into any habiits which we must inevitably undo at n later date if ho is to develop on healthy, hygienic lines. There is no need to get baby into a single bad habit; but he must be only gradually accustomed to the full hardihood of good habits. For example, take the matter of breathing. We want the little baby to sleep well and soundly, we wunt to keep him warm; but neither of these needs should be an excuse for allowing baby to sleep with his mouth open. Care must be taken on the first day, as much as on the one hundred and first, that the bed coverings do not come over baby’s mouth and that his little nostrils are clean, so that there may be no sort of hindrance to his breathing the way Nature intends. Should the little mouth fall open it should be gently propped up. The habit of mouth breathing i s sometimes formed during the first week of life, with results that stretch far into manhood. Thus in every detail we shall seek to strike the happy mean—on the one hand remembering the importance of regular rhythm and the formation of good- hiabits ; and, on the other, the delicacy of the new-born. We shall put him straight into his cradle, but it will be a wanned cradle; we shall feed him every three or every four hours, with no night feed, but only with the special food Nature provides, and only for a few minutes at a time; we shall give him a hath, but it will be with unusual predautionis; we shall have the room properly ventilated, hut baby will be 1 carefully screened from draughts. “Too great care cannot he takeii to prevent the little one losing heat; but this doe s not mean keeping him in a stuffy over-warm atmosphere. A rubber bottle with a flannel cover should bo put in his cot and the room warmed before ho is taken out of his bed for feeding or bathing. On tho second dtiy he may be leifc in an nnwarmed, well-ventilated room for a few hours; then lie may sleep by a wide-open window; and, finally, if the weather is kind, say on the third day, he may go right out of doors. His eyes must always be protected from glare in the early days —they are very sensitive to light.”