OUR BABIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11282, 9 January 1915, Page 3

OUR BABIES.

(ByHYGEIA.) Published under the auspices of the Society for the .Health of Women and Children. " It is wiser to put up a fence at the top oi a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." THE CURSE OF SUMMER.. While summer-time is delightful to all of us and its warm days and bright sunshine tempt people into the open air, and thus tend to banish the "colds," sore throats, and " chest affections " of the damper, chillier seasons of the year—while this healthgiving effect of summer on young and old alike, is recognised in every temperate region of the world, it )s also found that summer kills far more babies than any other season of Hie year.

Why is this? Why should summer not be the safest instead of the most dangerous time of the year for infants? The reason is not far to seek. Most babies are fed on liquid food, which is specially liable to ferment in warm weather. Milk becomes infested with microbes; in other words goes bond and becomes poisonous, more, readily than any other food, and if we are not careful in the selection of a milkman it may have gone bad in warm weather before reaching the home. So long as an infant is suckled, and the, mother is not only regular, cleanly, and careful in her habits, but also gives the baby all his simple primary rights (outing, fresh air. sunlight, exercise, etc.), there is no safer season than summer. But, however careful the mother may be as to general hygiene, summer is dangerous, and often fatal, if there, is a.ny carelessness in artificial feeding (whether resorted to in the early months or coming in the natural course later on at weaning or afterwards), simply because microbes grow apace in warm weather if milk is not properly attended to. SUMMER DIARRHCEA. Why should diarrhoea single out babies and calves and leave the. rest of nurslings more or less exempt from this special curse of summer? In warm weather the young of horses, pigs, dogs, cats, and the rest are almost uniformly healthy, while calves in all direction's are victims to " scouring," and few babies escape* the same scourge under the name of " summer diarrhoea." WHY DOES NATURE SINGLE OUT CALVES AND BABIES? Calves are .sacrificed because man takes the cow's milk for himself, and feeds the calf out of a bucket. The. baby is sacrificed because the mother's breast is denied to it also., a.nd improper food, contaminated with germs, is substituted for the pure, perfect, blood-warm, living stream direct from the proper source. The important practical question which we have to face at the present menicnt is this:— Are ill-hcnith and diarrhoea inevitable during summer time for calves and babios who cannot be suckled? Certainly not! In both cases tho trouble arises not from the mere fact of artificial feeding, but be* ause proper care is not exercised to secure suitable food and to prevent fermentation. For babies, humanised milk supplies by far the nearest approach to the mother's milk, and it' kept cool and given according to the directions contained in i the. instructions issued by the Society. 1 there would be little risk of disease. : Even with breast-feeding a baby may j suffer from summer diarrh<ra, but imj mediate suitable treatment of such itiI fants. or of those who have been jw.lij ciously fed by artificial means, s:)o:t | brings about recovery in the great j majority of cases. babies who i have been Improperly r>.V on the other 1 hand, the risk oi death from an .>ttack of difsrrhcea is very great indeed, and lasting debility is often left wbare tho baby does not actually succumb. DEATH TOLL OV DfAILRHCEA. Professor Budiu showed thai the number of artificially-fed babies who died in Paris per week was about 20 in winter, but that in mid-summer tho deaths rose to almost 260 per week. This is very strikingly shown in a diagram given on page -H) of the Society's pamphlet. "What Baby Needs."

A rise in the. death rate among infants similar to tlie above occurs in New Zealand during warm weather, with the locality :in<l the heat of the particular summer. Knowing the cause, the disease is one of the most easily pivveni able, and the mother wlio allows her baby to succumb during tho next i'vw months should feci in nine cases out of ten that she lias herself to blame. It i<- not Nature or Providence that, indicts the curse of summer diarrb<TP. but the mother herself. That this is literally and absolutely true will be realised by anyone consulting the Paris diagram, which shows that over 1000 babies died in six weeks when the weather was warmest. Among breastfed biibies the death rate for the same, period averaged only 20 per week. The deaths that did take, place in either class xvere mainly the result of ignorance and carelessness I'especifeeding of mother and child, the use of the. longtubc feeder, hick of fresh air and exercise, irregular habits, failure to keep tho breasts and the clothing covering them clean, mid use of dummy and comforter for the Ini'iv). .Dnnrig tho-a me i ;nv-.> or lour

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