CHAPTER IX.ARTIFICIAL NURSING.
Should the mother afford no milk by reason of malformation, or otherwise, the child should be accustomed to the most healthful kind of food from the first. Milk from one animal should be sought. Animals that are fed on corn, hay and fodder, make the best milk in winter; those fed on clover and cured hay, the best in summer. The milk of animals fed mostly on turnips, cabbages, and potatoes, is more apt to disagree with the stomach.
The goat furnishes an even diet for infants, but its milk is not so easy to obtain in large cities.
Milk should be given to a child in its purity, not deprived of the cream or watered. Watering is equal to skimming, andvice versa. And when the child has never known the taste of its mother’s milk, I can see no philosophy in directing the milk to be watered and sweetened to make it taste like breast-milk.
All attempts to increase the quantity of babes’ food by watering are indeed robbery, as relates to the infants; such weakening should only be practised for special reasons. But to insure success,pure milk, or cream with some water, should be the rule, not the exception.
In a warm atmosphere the milk or cream should be made scalding hot by setting it in a vessel of boiling water, and stirring it the while. Boiling deprives it of the cream and other nutritive properties. There should be no more warmed than is to be used up. The warming should be by putting the milk in the bottle, then placing the latter in hot water a few minutes. In this way the quality and temperature of the drink remains uniform. The capacity of the bottle selected should be about one ounce. The material of which the black elastic nipple is composed, is not supposed to injure the mouth. No sugar should be added.
Babes have been raised to a fine size on various kinds of porridge; and they can be supported by putting a piece of clean linen into the shape of a teat, fastening a soft string about it so that it may be held by the nurse or any one, while food is poured into it from a spoon. Many are the times that I have fed them in that way. I never thought of laying them down to feed themselves.
Milk may be used just as it comes from the animal; it is only in cases where it is kept on hand for a day that it really need be scalded.
So much emphasis has been put upon the necessity of water as a constituent of baby diet, that it is almost venturing too far to remind anyof the fact that most milk dealers are careful that this constituent shall be already supplied.
Formerly, dropsical, emaciated, half-starved, fretful babes were very numerous; but since, of late, judicious legislation has been brought to bear on the matter of adulterating milk, things have changed.
Henceforth we may hope to hear that infantile deaths from this probable cause decrease annually.
With meagre feeding a “bouncing fat boy” will soon present the appearance of a wrinkled old man. And, too, the condition in which food is presented to a child is equally as important as the quality and quantity. It is impossible to rule the stomach of another; a spunky child will resent the attempt some way, and at some time, even though it be after the injury is irreparable. A uniformity in heating the milk or food of any kind is very important. Hot things should never enter a babe’s mouth. If milk is in the least sour, it is running a great risk to try to sweeten it by adding soda, as some persons do, for convenience.
The coarse habit of “stuffing” babes, to avoid frequent feeding of them, should vanish like dew before the noonday sun; as it probably will, under the management of educated mothers and nurses. The old-fashioned way of compelling babes to suck a “sugar teat” or a piece of fat meat rindfor hours together to keep them quiet, is cheating, to say the least. Our domestic fowls will eat meal, grain and vegetables when they can get them. And if all supply of food is cut off, they may be seen to pick, pick, day after day; this they will do if the ground is frozen and bare. But are they getting food? Nay, they are only tasting, smelling, and hunting for food.
Sucking a sugar teat or meat rind, like gum-chewing, tends to undermine the natural vigor of the mind, by a waste of the fluids that are intended to prepare the food for making pure blood.
A child can just as kindly be fed, changed, and laid quietly to rest; it does not need patting or rocking.
Baby raising is made irksome by adults themselves. The feeding and putting to sleep should be superintended by some competent person, as by intrusting it to children, or even young girls, the feeding may be imperfect. Many children scream with fright at the noise created to get them to sleep.
Canned or otherwise prepared baby-food is quite uncertain, unless, in the case of canned milk, particular pains is taken to have the water hot, and the mass well dissolved; a large part will remain at the bottom of the vessel. Again, as there is more than one brand of this article, it is hard to find out which is the purest, as all areadvertised to be the best. Of course the largest firm will have the largest sales. Then the price is not so convenient at all times, rather encouraging the habit of rinsing the can; while all infants’ food should be prepared fresh when wanted.
Some babes spit up their food from the first, but there is nothing alarming about that. Should what is spit up smell sour, and appear undigested, small doses of pulverized magnesia—say about as much as will lay on a five-cent silver piece—will correct it, while any known cause should be removed at once. In case of purging in early infancy, it is a mistake not to stop it as soon as possible. It is always safe, after removing the cause, to quiet the motion of the bowels; a thing which can be done only by proper scientific means, that no one should fail to secure.