Better babies and their care

by Anna Steese Richardson

The safety of the child that is to be fed on modified cow’s milk depends largely upon the source of milk supply. The mother should acquaint herself with this source of supply and the conditions under which the cows are housed and milked. If you had to hire a wet nurse, you would not choose a tubercular or personally unclean woman. Why permit your baby to drink milk that comes from a tubercular cow, or one which is milked in a filthy stable?

If you live in a city, write to your department of health or your health officer for information regarding properly inspected dairies. If no such information can be furnished you, then it is high time that you started a campaign for dairy inspection in your town. If you live in the country, find a dairyman or a neighbor whose cows will stand the test and whose stables are clean. Do not buy baby’s milk at a grocery-store or dairy whose source of supply you cannot trace.

Cow’s milk which comes from a herd of healthy cows, or at least several cows, is preferred to that which comes from a single animal, as it varies less in quality and elemental proportions. It is not necessary to order rich milk from highly bred Jersey and Alderney cows. In fact, physicians agree that the milk produced by ordinary grade cows in the herd is better suited to the needs of the child. You should be quite sure, however, as to the age of the milk. In cold weather it must not be fed to the child after it is forty-eight hours old. In summer it should never be more than twenty-four hours old.

In nearly all large cities are now found agencies of dairies which specialize on milk for infants. This is sometimes known as certified or guaranteed milk. The cows from which it is drawn are carefully inspected, the stables and milkers are clean, all the utensils, pails, cans, etc., are sterilized before use, and the milk is cooled immediately after it is drawn from the cows and kept at or near a temperature of 50° F. until delivered to the purchaser. Milk produced in this way saves the mother anxiety and trouble. It costs only a few cents more a quart than milk which is not certified.

When certified milk is received in the home, the stoppered bottles should be placed immediately in the refrigerator or set in a pail of ice-water to remain until it is modified for use during the next twenty-four hours.

The city mother, with her stationary refrigerator and convenient ice supply, has no possible excuse for not keeping the baby’s milk in perfect condition. Some of the new refrigerators have separate compartments. One of these should be used for the baby’s milk. In many well regulated homes you will find special nursery refrigerators which can be bought at any department or house-furnishing store. These have their own supply of ice and nothing but the baby’s milk is stored in them.

The small town or country mother, whose ice supply is irregular and who depends upon an old-fashioned ice-chest or perhaps a spring or cool well for chilling the baby’s milk, faces a more difficult problem. It is especially important that she keep the milk bottle tightly stoppered. If she uses the old-fashioned ice-chest, where food and ice are not separated and where germs lodge easily, she had best pack the stoppered bottles in a covered pail and set them next to the ice. If she has no refrigerator at all, she should induce her men-folk to provide a substitute, if it is only one strong wooden pail set within another, the sawdust and ice packed between. Then she can thrust her stoppered bottles into the inner pail, cover all with heavy felting or burlap, and feel tolerably safe.

At one of the contests a mother told me how sad experience had taught her the importance of having such a safeguard in her home. With her first baby she kept the milk in a tin pail, hung in the cool water of an old well. The milk absorbed germs and the doctor traced the baby’s death from acute bowel trouble to these germs.

Next in importance to the supply and storing of milk comes the care of the utensils for modifying it and feeding it to the child. These should be kept in a sanitary condition that is absolutely above suspicion. If the mother herself does not take charge of this task, she must delegate another member of the family or a servant upon whose faithfulness she can depend. The supply of milk for the ensuing day should be cared for at a certain hour each morning, soon after the milk is delivered. The utensils should be used for this purpose alone, and should not be kept in a cupboard with ordinary cooking equipment.

For the ordinary modifying of milk the following utensils are needed: