Better babies and their care

by Anna Steese Richardson

A healthy baby may cry, especially just before it is fed, because crying is its only method of announcing that it is hungry. It may also cry while being bathed or dressed, because it resents being disturbed. Such crying in moderation is healthful, for it is about the only exercise the baby gets.

Perhaps the best indication that a baby’s digestion is in good condition is the state of the bowels. The mother should watch this closely. For the first three or four days the movements are black and sticky. There should be not less than two and not more than four in number. From black they are very apt to turn green, and remain so for a week or more, because the flow of mother’s milk is not yet established. As a rule, however, during the second week, the breast milk gains in quality, and the stools turn a light yellow and become more solid, about the consistency of mush. If the mother’s digestion and general health are good, the child will have from two to four movements a day.

Neglect to regulate the bowels is one of the most common causes of death among bottle-fed babies. The entire system is poisoned, for the waste matter is not carried off through the bowels. The inexperienced mother will be wise to have her physician watch the stools until the child’s health seems fairly well established. Hundreds of bottle-fed babies, who do not outlive the first month, might be saved if this rule were observed. When a physician is not at hand, the mother must watch the stools with a critical eye.

The bowels of the bottle-fed baby rarely move as often as those of the breast-fed infant; but the stool is larger, and of a lighter yellow, smooth, and of the consistency of a firm ointment or cold cream. If the child does not have at least one movement a day, the proportions used in the modified milk must be changed.

The digestion of the nursing baby may be disturbed by milk that is scanty and poor in quality, or by milk that is too rich and flows too fast. When the former condition exists the child does not gain, and it may even lose in weight; the flesh is soft and flabby, the skin pale; the child sleeps poorly and often brokenly or with sobs. When awake the baby looks dull and listless, or is fretful or irritable. It may also belch gas or, if the gas is retained, there will be colic and a distended abdomen. Sometimes the bowels are constipated, but more generally the movements are loose and the stools green in color and streaked with mucus. Also the movement is accompanied by pain sufficient to make the child cry.

When the supply of milk is scant, the baby will seem hungry and restless; again, three-quarters of an hour after nursing, the baby will seize the nipple greedily but, after a moment, drop it in apparent disgust and begin to cry.

Sometimes both the quality and the quantity of the milk can be built up by attention to the health and diet of the mother; but, as this process is necessarily slow, the baby in the meantime must be given occasional feedings of modified milk, as described in Chapter [V]. Then, if the flow of milk is not established or the child still turns from the breast, a complete weaning must follow.

If the indigestion is due to overfeeding, the child shows an abnormal gain in weight, is restless after nursing, vomits, suffers from wind and colic, is dull and sleeps a great deal but restlessly, not quietly, perspires heavily on head and neck, and passes so much urine that, despite frequent changing, the diapers are always wet.

For these conditions there may be either or both of two causes: milk that flows too quickly, and milk that is too rich. The first trouble is easily corrected by the mother compressing the base of the nipple between her first and second fingers while the child is nursing, thus checking the rapid flow of the milk. The second trouble is not so easily corrected, for it is caused by one of three things: (1) the mother is eating food that is too rich; (2) she is taking too little exercise; (3) she is giving way to mental excitement, hysterics, grief, or temper. If the condition is not mental, and the mother is taking sufficient exercise, then it is a question of modifying the mother’s milk.

This can be done, first, through the mother’s diet—simpler food, less meat, no alcohol; second, just before nursing, the baby may be given an ounce of boiled water in which one-fourth teaspoonful of malt sugar has been dissolved, using an ordinary nursing bottle with a plain nipple. The child will then nurse a shorter time and the water taken from the bottle will dilute the milk drawn from the breast. The first few ounces drawn from the breast are less rich than the last ones; so if the child does not drain the breast, he does not get the richest part of the milk. This experiment should not be tried, however, without consulting the family physician, who will have a sample of the mother’s milk drawn with a breast-pump and analyzed before prescribing the sweetened water.