Getting ready to be a mother

by Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom

Preparing the Milk. The full quantity of milk which the baby will take in the course of twenty-four hours is prepared at one time and the prescribed amount for each feeding poured into as many separate bottles as there will be feedings.

You should begin by assembling on a table everything that you will use in preparing the milk formula, as the nurse has in Fig. [47]. Boil for five minutes all of the articles that will come in contact with the milk, including the full number of bottles and nipples and the jars in which the nipples are kept; remove them with the long-handled spoon without touching the edges or inner surfaces, dropping the nipples into one of the sterile jars.

Wash the mouth of the milk bottle before removing the cap and pour the amount which the formula calls for into the sterile pitcher. To this is added the sterile water in which the sugar has been dissolved in the measuring glass and then the potato or barley water, the lime water or soda solution as ordered. This mixture is thoroughly stirred and the amount for one feeding at a time, measured in the measuring glass and poured into the specified number of bottles, which are then stoppered.

Fig. 47.—Preparing the baby’s milk. (From a photograph taken at Johns Hopkins Hospital.)

If certified milk is used for the milk mixture it is often given to the baby without being pasteurized, in which case the bottles are placed in the refrigerator as soon as they are filled and stoppered. Very frequently, however, the milk is sterilized or pasteurized. You will feel surer of keeping the mouths of the bottles clean if you cover them with squares of gauze or muslin before they are sterilized, holding the caps in place with tapes or rubber bands.

Pasteurization as applied to infant feeding consists of heating the milk to 140–165° F. and keeping it at that temperature for 20 to 30 minutes.

There are many excellent pasteurizers for home use on the market, but entirely satisfactory results may be obtained by improvising one from the wire bottle rack seen in Fig. [47], and the large kettle already provided. One method is to place the rack, containing the bottles, in the kettle which is filled with cold water to a level a little above the top of the milk in the bottles, and allow the water to come to the boiling point. The kettle is removed from the fire, covered tightly and the bottles allowed to stand in the hot water for twenty minutes. Cold water is then run into the kettle to cool the milk gradually and avoid breaking the bottles, after which they are placed in the refrigerator, well or spring-house and kept at a temperature of 50° F. until they are taken out, one at a time, for feedings. If a wire rack is not available the bottles may be stood on a saucer or a thick pad of folded newspapers in the bottom of the kettle.

Pasteurization does not destroy all germs that may be in the milk, but it kills the more important ones and apparently impairs the nutritive and protective properties of the milk less than boiling. However, pasteurized milk must be kept cold and must be used within twenty-four hours, for the aging of milk is quite as undesirable as souring.

Scalding is another method of destroying germs in milk. The milk is placed in an open vessel and the temperature raised to about 180° F., or until bubbles appear around the edge and the milk steams in the center, after which it is cooled and kept at a temperature of 50° F.