LADY PLUNKET'S MISSION.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13761, 25 September 1908, Page 5

LADY PLUNKET'S MISSION.

ADVICE TO MOTHERS. NURSE YOUR OWJ? BABIES! Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, Sept. 24. Lady Plunkefr addressed two meetings of women to-day, on the work of the Society for the Protection of the Health of Women and Children, both meetings being very largely attended. Lady Plunket urged upon those present that the first duty of the mother was to nnrse her child herself. That was by no means such an impossible task as was often represented, and a case had come under her notice of a woman who was nursing her seventeenth child. The woman had a drunken husband, and she had to contend with absolute poverty, yet she allowed nothing to interfere with the nursing of her babies. That, Lady Plunket considered, was a great ex* ample, and one that might be imitated by less conscientious mothers: She pointed out the evils arising from the use of patent foods, and said that in necessary cases the best substitute for. the natural food was humanised milk. \ Lady Plunket also drew attention to the evils resulting from the use of leather hoods on perambulators, which restricted the free flow of air, and the nso of a perambulator at night instead of a cot, the effect being to restrict the infants' movements, which were most necessary for its development. She also spoke emphatically against the use of "dummies," which were altogether nnsntisfnetory nnd unnecessary.