Better babies and their care

by Anna Steese Richardson

Following on the trail of indigestion and intestinal trouble come anemia and malnutrition. The anemic child, suffering with malnutrition, as the result of improper feeding, loses weight steadily, has vomiting and diarrhea, sleeps badly, is listless and pallid. The pallor is due to a lack of red corpuscles in the blood. It is, therefore, important that all digestive troubles should be corrected promptly before they develop into the dreaded forms of malnutrition and marasmus.

A very common ailment in the modern nursery, especially among bottle-fed babies, is constipation. This is due entirely to improper diet. It can be permanently eradicated only through a change in diet. The child may be given temporary relief through the use of suppositories and massage, never through the use of violent cathartics. To secure an immediate movement of the bowels use an injection of sweet-oil, glycerine, or soap and water. To give the sweet-oil use a bulb syringe and one tablespoonful of the sweet-oil, warm. If glycerine is used, one-half teaspoonful may be mixed with one tablespoonful of warm water. If soap and water are used, make a warm suds of pure white soap, and inject about a teacupful.

Glycerine suppositories, which can be bought at any reliable drugstore, act quickly, but they may also irritate the rectum. The best suppositories for use in chronic constipation in infants are the gluten suppositories, made by the Health Food Company. They act more slowly than glycerine suppositories, and the mother must not look for an action of the bowels for at least two hours.

Neither injections nor suppositories should be depended upon for the permanent relief of constipation; they are makeshifts at best, and their continued use weakens the muscles of the rectum. The diet must be corrected and the causes of the trouble eradicated.

An ailment which is frequently recurrent, and is a severe drain on the baby’s system, is the common every-day cold. In considering this illness, bear in mind that it is contagious. It can be prevented, first, by not allowing the child to come in contact with adults or other children who have colds, and, second, by keeping him in such fine physical condition that he can resist the infection when exposed to it. To harden the child against colds give him plenty of cool, fresh air. This means sleeping in a cool room; wearing light-weight clothing, so that he will not perspire; bathing in warm, not hot, water. The city child is apt to take cold because the nursery is heated by steam. The air is very dry; and this, in turn, dries the mucous membrane of the nose, and the air passages, leaving them susceptible to infection.

In Chapter [II], when describing a sanitary nursery, I mentioned the importance of having a pan of water on the radiator, or the register if the house is heated by furnace. All this heat should be turned off at night, so that the child may sleep in a cool room. This means that he must be warmly dressed; and his bed covers should be carefully adjusted, and should be plentiful, though light in weight. In this connection it may be mentioned that insufficient clothing and excessive clothing are equally apt to cause colds. The child whose hands and feet are cold and whose lips are blue is not sufficiently clad. The child who perspires from heavy clothing in the house will take cold when he goes out into the air. In country houses, in particular, a baby should never be carried from one warm room to another through a cold hall, unless he is carefully wrapped in a shawl.

Neither should a baby be allowed to play on the floor in a draught. He should be laid on the bed and surrounded by pillows if he is active; or some resourceful member of the family can build him a little pen raised two or three feet from the floor on legs, and covered with a pad. This should have a padded fence around it so that the baby will not roll out. Another reason why the baby may contract a cold if allowed to play on the floor is the fact that he will find there the germs which come with dust.

And, finally, the baby’s nose or mouth should never be wiped with a handkerchief used by adults or by other children. Handkerchiefs are the very best carriers of germs.

When a small baby has a cold in the head his discomfort can be relieved by dropping a little melted vaseline or albolene into the nose with a medicine dropper. Vaseline may also be rubbed on the outside of the nostrils. In an older child relief can be secured by using warm boric acid—one teaspoonful to a pint of water—with a nasal atomizer.

Generally a cathartic, like castor-oil or calomel, will help to work off a cold. It is not wise, however, to make any violent change in the baby’s daily habits. He should not be loaded down with heavy clothing. Irritating flannels should not be wrapped around his chest; nor should the room be overheated, or the supply of fresh air shut off. None of these things will relieve a cold. They will make the child more uncomfortable.