OUR BABIES.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144134, 2 July 1913, Page 8

OUR BABIES.

By HYGEIA. Published under the auspices of the Society for tho Health of Women and Children. THE SOCIETY’S BOOK. It was hoped that tho new. greatlyenlarged, and carefully-revised edition of “Feeding and Caro of Baby” would have been out lielore the end oi last year, but the pressure of . other work lias delayed the issue. However, tlio little book “What Baby Needs” has_ filled the gap in the meantime, over 7000 copies having been sold during tlio year. Outside Appreciation.—With reference to tire society’s books, wo will quote only a single extract from hundreds of letters received during tho year. From Pretoria, South Africa, a mother writes;— Would you kindly forward me your newest Baby Book, ns I had one lent to mo by a lady, and have now returned it; but it has bellied me so much that I feel lost to know what to do next in re lending my baby boy, aged eight months. Being my first little one, I am not very experienced, and am so anxious to do right. I have followed your instructions since lie was a month old, and am delighted with results. Everyone sajs he is a picture of health, and so good and eon lei) Led, although a bottle-fed baby. He sleeps right through the night. If there is any charge for the (wok f shall bo more than willing to send postal order. T am hoping to receive it per return. With many thflpks, etc. “OUR BABIES” COLUMN. During the year the circulation of “Our Babies” column has increased from about 150,000 to 200,000 copies weekly. By one channel or another it now reaches practically every homo in the Dominion. Wo mo assured that it is very largely studied by mothers and fathers everywhere, as well as lioing road for its general interest by those who have not tho personal care and responsibility of children. From a northern province comes the following, written when the baby was just three weeks old:—“I delayed writing to thank you for your very helpful letter mid pamphlet until oar baby should be born, so that 1 could tell you how things'had gone. . . . The baby weighed something over Sib. at birth. Everything went well. . • • Onr son gives practically uo trouble, and sleeps all night, without a ‘dummy.’ Both Mrs. X and I have studied ‘What Baby Needs,’ especially the places which you so kindly marked, while . ‘Hygeia's’ weekly notes in the paper are also vqry useful.” EXPECTANT MOTHERS. Tho above letter from a young father is a single illustration of the way in which prospective parents are coming to avail themselves more and . more ol the society’s services. It is most gratifying to report that a greatly-increased number of expectant mothers now consult the Plunkot Nurses and send for the society’s publications before the arrival of their babies. INCREASING INTEREST IN MOTHERHOOD. A welcome indication received from the various committees and the Plunkei nurses is the steadily-increasing interest in motherhood and the welfare of tho baby manifested in nil directions. Especially, noticeable is the fact that women who cannot nurse their offspring become more and more apologetic, while many who have Vailed to do so in the past find-that, with proper advice and management, .all now goes well, and they arc no longer subject to tho humiliation of feeling themselves to he only "half-mothers.”

Most gratifying of all is the general experience that, whereas only five years ago a largo proportion of young mothers did not. contemplate nursing their babies, or wore indifferent whether they did so or not, the present tendency in New Zealand is entirely iu the direction of breast-feeding. It is surprising, too, how few there are.who cannot nurse satisfactorily if due attention bo given to the simple requirements lor health and fitness both before childbirth and throughout the nursing period. Again and again womep come under notice who, after failing to suckle child after child, have proved perfectly capable of nursing the latest ' arrival, merely because in this case they have received rational .advice and instruction, and have been sensible enough to act on it. It is well for the race that bottlefeeding is coming to be regarded as “bad form.”

However, it is too much to expect that the vice of “artificial feeding” in the first nine months can bo stamped out in a single generation; therefore the society must continue to leave no stone unturned in the direction of ensuring for every baby who cannot have the boon of breast-feeding that he shall have at least a food which approximates as closely as possible to mother’s milk; in other words, that he shall be given Humanised Milk. Fresh Air, Exercise, Etc.—Along with the strenuous advocacy of breastfeeding we must continue to make every effort to direct the general hygienic care of children into proper channels. Fortunately, an appreciation of tho advantages of pure, cool, fresh air, exercise, suitable clothing, and the other essential needs of babyhood is steadily growing. . Special Advances in Baby Feeding.— In addition to the above, • tho most notable special advances making for tho well-being of breast fed and bottlefed alike throughout the Dominion are

(1) The widespread adoption of systematic clock-like regularity in the feeding of babies. (2) The extension of the intervals between feedings throughout tho early months to three hours instead of feeding every two hours. (3) The entire abandonment .of night-feeding—that is, between, say, 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. (4) The early use of hard, dry, or tough foods needing mastication.

Tho extreme opposition which each of these reforms met with when advocated by the society only a few years ago is gradually dying out; but many grandmothers and nurses of the old school prove hard to convince. Stranger still, the majority of tho books for mothers coming to us from the Old Country aro as conservative as ever, and tend to perpetuate many of tho worst errors of the Victorian ora. Oblivious of the advances made during the last fifteen years in America and on the Continent in the feeding and care' of children, they continue to ignore and oven condemn system or precision in the modification of milk for babies, and still blindly advocate two-honrly intervals and night-feedings. Last and strang-

cst of all (in spite of the writing on tho wall in the shape of feeble jaws, decaycel teeth, and 1 adenoids), they go on recommending the pap-feediug of infants, and utterly ignore tho nceel of exercise for month, jaws, and teeth at the earliest ago. , Twenty wears of earnest and masterful protest and appeal against papfeeding by such men as Dr. Harry Camptiell and Dr. Sim Wallace have scarcely affected tho advice which continues to be scattered broadcast, and one cannot wonder that Dr. Sim Wallace. speaking at the groat Dental Congress in Birmingham, .should have exclaimed almost in despair to his audience: —“What can we dentists hope to effect when it takes so long lot the ascertained knowledge of a profession such as ours to percolate through?”