Better babies and their care

by Anna Steese Richardson

When a child chokes never strike it on the back while in an upright position. Turn it over on your lap, head downward, or even let it hang by its heels, when slapping it on the back.

A cut is never too slight to require the attention of the mother. The ordinary cut should be washed at once with warm water, using absorbent cotton or old, soft, clean linen. Unless the cut is very deep and bleeds so profusely as to exhaust the child, or unless an artery is cut, cleaning it and binding it up with sterile gauze is sufficient. But when the wound comes from broken glass or wood, and the mother is not sure that she has removed all the splinters, and especially if it comes from a rusted nail, she should take the child to a doctor and have the wound sterilized. If a doctor is not at hand she should wash out the wound with hot antiseptic solution. This may be made by dissolving one corrosive sublimate tablet or one teaspoonful of creolin to one quart of water. A piece of sterile gauze, soaked with the same solution, is then laid over the wound, and it is bandaged, and left undisturbed until the wound is healed; unless on the arrival of the physician he thinks it necessary to investigate, and treat the wound.

In case of slight hemorrhage a piece of sterile gauze should be bound tightly over the cut with the bandage. In case of a serious hemorrhage from a wound on the leg or arm, make a tourniquet of a rope or a strip of strong cloth twisted tightly around the leg or arm at a point between the wound and the body. It must be held firmly until the bleeding stops or until the physician arrives to take charge of the case.

Acute nose-bleed is not a common emergency in the nursery. It is more apt to be slight and habitual, in which case it indicates adenoids or ulcerations on the inside of the nose. These should receive treatment at the hands of a specialist. In case of acute and serious nose-bleed, which exhausts the child, try to keep him quiet in an upright position, with a piece of ice held at the back of the neck. The mother can also hold the child’s nose firmly between her thumb and forefinger.

When a child thrusts some small object like a bean or a pebble into the ear or nose, the mother must be very careful not to try to remove the foreign body with her finger. In case of the nose she may press the empty nostril firmly with her finger and induce the child to blow his nose vigorously. In most cases the foreign body will be expelled. If not, she should send for a doctor.

In the case of the ear, unless the obstruction can be easily seized with the finger-tips, it should be permitted to remain until a physician arrives with the proper instruments to remove it. In a mother’s effort to dislodge it, she may push it farther against the canal or drum of the ear.

Earache is one of the most trying emergencies in the nursery. It is an exquisite form of torture. It keeps both mother and child awake. It may be accompanied by fever; and in the infant who cannot locate the pain for the mother, it is indicated by irritation, restlessness and drowsiness, loss of appetite and nausea. The child tosses the head from side to side, not restlessly but violently, according to the intensity of the pain. The tiny hands make constant but futile efforts to reach the seat of the pain. If the attack is recurrent a specialist should be consulted, as sometimes an incision of the drum is necessary to relieve the pain. This does not affect the hearing of the child if properly done.

In the meantime, heat may give some small relief. This may be applied with hot compresses, a bag containing hot salt, or even a hot-water bottle wrapped in flannel. The ear may be irrigated with hot boric acid solution in the proportion of one teaspoonful of boric acid to a pint of water. This may be poured into a fountain syringe, which is held two feet above the child’s head, the small nozzle of the syringe may then be held from one-quarter to one-half inch from the opening in the ear. It should never be pressed far enough into the ear to touch the drum. This warm water injection may be repeated every three or four hours, and where the ear discharges, either because of the incision made by the doctor or when the drum has burst of its own accord, the injection should be given three times a day as long as the discharge lasts.

The best solution of the poison emergency in the nursery is to keep poisons of every kind out of the reach of children. This includes Rough-on-Rats, corrosive sublimate tablets, carbolic acid, oxalic acid, laudanum, and strychnine.

Rough-on-Rats is full of arsenic.