OUR BABIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11359, 10 April 1915, Page 3

OUR BABIES.

(By HYGEIA.)

Published under the auspices of the Society for the Health of V, omen and Children. " It is wiser to put up a fence at the t-op of ft precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the hott-om.'' FRUIT IN INFANCY. A letter roaehed me recently from a •mother asking advice about, the use of fruit in early infancy. The question being of genera.! interest, .1 shall give extracts from the letter, followed by a few hints in reply. Til IS MOTHKR'S LF/ITTCE. My baby, who is two months and a. half old. has been entirely battle-fed for-the last month. T did ah' I eon id to nurse him, but my health was very poor, and the breasts soon failed. He w-eighed 6£lb at birth, and now weighs 91b. His gain in the Inst tour weeks on humanised milk has been nearly lAlb. and lie seems to be doin<x well. But he is troubled with constipation, and n friend has recommended me to give some fruit juice every tiny. I notice that in ''The Feeding and Ofi.ro of lkibv •" it says fruit juice may be given from three or four months onwards, so 1 have wondered whether now would be too or.vly t<> bi'gin. Another thing J should like to know is this: The book says. •• Carrot juiee may be us't-d if t'resh fruit is not procurable." Would :uiy ether vegetable juice do? T h:iv« been told hv a friend that fro&h potato juiee was txhvrl and found to do quite well at the Knritane Baby Hiwpital. Just- now I can get good apples reasonably. but v»e are a very out-oft!n*-tvny olnee. and potato Is the only thing T emikj be sure of cot fine in Vrosh it' the winter. \\ oni'l it be safe to try potato juiee.

and would l't; net on the bowels aR well •w fruit juice? ANSWER. There i.<-' no objection whatever to beginning the use of fruit or vegetable juiot> at, two months and a half. One can go further than this and sav _t.ha.fc tli«-\ wvrly iiso of such juice is highly desirable whore a huby is bottle-fed,_ in ""dor to <vrin?n>iusato for the " living principles" of mother's milk, which are always more or less impaired oven in the best preparations from cows niilk. niTvCAUTJOXS. j The great. precaution to observe : when starting to use fmit or vegetable j juice is to make quite sure that the j material is clean. im4i, sound .and | good. and that only about five or ten j drops are given the first day. If the j juice agrees all right,, tlie mother can \ work up step by stop to a te.aspoonful | in the course of ten days, a desertspoon t'u I iii the. course of two or three | weeks, and a tablespoonfu! in the j course of a month or six reeks. This would bo a fair average rate of pro-" gross. So far a.s the provision of the unimpaired "living principles'' are concerned, the gradual addition of a little fresh unboiled' cow's milk io the morning food nigs is to bo highly recommended ; but this tend'' to cause constipation rather than relaxation of the bowels. The ideal to oim at is the daily use.of from half an ounce to an ounce of fruit juice, and also the giving of good fresh milk along with the prepared food. The reason for recommending that the raw milk bo given with the morning feedings is that this is the best way of ensuring that as little time as may be shall have elapsed between the time of milking the cows and the use of the rxivr milk bv the baby. POTATO JUICE. Our correspondent is quite right as to potato juico having been tried' at the Karitane Hospital and found eatisfactory. Potato juice was not used at the hospital with the idea of its being preferable to fresh fruit juice, or even equal to it, but because they wanted to arrive at a simple substitute which would be procurable almost everywhere. Regarding the question of relative efficiency for regulating tile bowels,_ I cannot say exactly how potato juice would stand as compared with orange juice or apple juice, but I should say that probably the fruit juices would be rather more effective. Miss Campbell. the matron of the Karitane Hospital. says she used potato iuice for some ten practically normal babies, and it agreed with all of them; but this trial had not much bearing on the question of constipation, as the babies in question were resrclar before the potato jv.ico was substituted for the fruit juice.