Better babies and their care

by Anna Steese Richardson

Half her battle for baby’s good health will be won if she nurses it. The natural, the almost unfailingly safe food for the new-born babe is mother’s milk. The Creator, who made woman the mother of the human race, provided also the first means of nourishing the children brought into the world. The average woman has the strength to nourish her child in the natural way; and only a real physical inability, admitted by the family physician, should lead her to deprive the child of its rightful nourishment.

It is often said that the lack of maternal instinct in the modern woman is responsible for the large proportion of bottle-fed babies. I think that this charge against my sex is undeserved. Women are far more apt to stop nursing their babies as the result of ailments in themselves which they do not know how to cure or control, or because they accept the word of those who are not in a position to give medical advice or even offer common-sense suggestions.

Sometimes, directly after the baby’s birth, when the mother is extremely weak, well-meaning but interfering relatives or neighbors urge her to wean the baby at once. So another baby’s life is endangered and another mother is induced to undertake the grave responsibility of artificial feeding, when, with a little patience at the time of the baby’s birth, the supply of mother’s milk could be increased and strengthened.

The mother who suffers or has suffered from tuberculosis, epilepsy, persistent anemia, kidney disease, or any grave mental disturbance should not attempt to nurse her baby. If a fever, such as scarlet fever, typhoid, etc., develops shortly after the birth of the child, it must be weaned promptly. An operation which will greatly weaken the mother is another cause for discontinuing breast-milk. The reappearance of menstruation does not necessitate weaning the child; but pregnancy makes it desirable. Thus it will be seen that only the gravest conditions in the mother justify her in placing the new-born baby on the bottle until she is convinced by symptoms in the child itself that breast milk does not nourish.

The mother of her first-born, beset by a thousand fears, is very apt to regard the first flow of milk from her breast with suspicion. For two or three days it is a thin, colorless, watery fluid. The frightened young mother decides that it cannot possibly satisfy her baby. The very thought of the precious little creature being hungry terrifies her, and she accepts the advice of an untrained nurse or a fussy neighbor to give him sweetened water, or diluted and sweetened cow’s milk. So the new baby starts life all wrong on artificial food, when the thin, watery fluid provided by nature is precisely what he needs at this time. Naturally, if he is fed artificially, he will not draw on the breast, for he is not hungry, and so the flow of milk is discouraged. The new-born baby should be given the breast every four hours, whether he seems hungry or not, whether the flow of milk is established or not.

It is most important that at this time the mother should not worry. Nervousness and hysteria of themselves react on the baby’s digestion.

As the mother gains strength and begins to move about, she should guard her health carefully, because upon this depend the quantity and quality of the milk she furnishes her baby. At this time she requires plenty of sleep; and while her rest is broken at night to nurse the baby, she should have regular naps during the day. Eight hours’ sleep at night and a short nap in the middle of the afternoon form a good rule.

As far as possible, she should lead what, to her, is a normal life, free from excesses or any wide deviation from her habits before the birth of the baby. Unhappiness and discontent unsettle the nerves of the mother and injure the quality of the milk. The woman who is accustomed to much outdoor exercise should not shut herself up in the house, nor should the woman of sedative habits plunge into violent outdoor exercise. The latter needs fresh air as a mother, precisely as she should have had it as a girl, but she should form the habit gradually, not start with exhausting walks. Moreover, the woman who is fond of society and accustomed to going out, should not deprive herself of all social pleasures because she has become a mother. Within reason, she should enjoy them. The moment motherhood becomes a hateful burden, an altar on which the woman sacrifices all personal preferences and pleasures, the drastic changes entailed affect the health of the mother and react on the child.

The same is true of diet for the nursing mother. Deprivation and excess alike are undesirable. A well-balanced diet, made up from a variety of foods which the mother craves under normal conditions, will nourish both the mother and the child.

In this connection, the young mother should be warned against what might be termed superstitions in diet, “old women’s tales.” While attending Better Babies Contests, I have often been shocked at the superstition and ignorance which interfere with the nourishment, comfort, and contentment of the nursing mother. One young mother said that she was drinking malt to make her milk more nourishing for the baby. And how she did hate that malt! It nauseated her every time she drank it.