Quite evidently, breast-feeding is every baby’s right and the nurse can and should help him to secure it.
CHAPTER XVII
NUTRITION OF THE MOTHER AND HER BABY
The importance of providing the expectant and nursing mother with suitable food has been stressed so insistently in the preceding pages, that it is advisable to explain to the nurse the reason for these recommendations, in regard to certain groups of foods, and thus make clear why a young mother may eat a large amount of food and have an adequate amount of breast milk, and yet fail to nourish her baby satisfactorily.
The following material is available in these pages through the interest and generosity of Dr. E. V. McCollum and Miss Nina Simmonds, Professor and Assistant Professor of Chemical Hygiene, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University. This information is the result of many years of research and experimentation on many thousands of laboratory animals and of observations upon human beings as well. Dr. McCollum and Miss Simmonds offer the fruits of their labors to obstetrical nurses, in the belief that they are in a peculiarly favorable position to aid in improving the nutritional state of the coming generation.
In order that such a discussion may not seem irrelevant to obstetrical nursing, the nurse must remind herself anew, that the object of obstetrics to-day is not only to carry a woman safely through childbirth, but to give her such care from the beginning of pregnancy that she and the baby shall emerge from this experience, not merely alive, but well and vigorous and with every prospect of continuing to be so.
It is the acknowledged obligation of those engaged in obstetrical work to strive toward improving the health of the race at its source—the health of the mothers and babies. Malnourished mothers and malnourished babies do not develop a hardy race.
It is probably safe to say that the two most influential factors in creating and maintaining a satisfactory state of health are suitable nutrition and prevention of infection; and although we shall concern ourselves solely with nutrition in this chapter, it should be stated in passing that a state of good nutrition goes far toward protecting the individual from infection.
It will help in clarifying the subject to explain in the beginning that a state of good nutrition is not necessarily evidenced by one’s being tall nor by being fat. But it is evidenced by normal size and development; sound teeth and bones; hair and skin of normal color and texture; blood of the normal composition; stable nerves; vigor both mental and physical; normally functioning organs and resistance to disease, and above all that indescribable condition which is summed up as a state of general well-being.
That this degree of nutritional stability is not as prevalent in this country as might be desired is disclosed by reports upon findings of the examining boards for army service, over a period of three years and physical examinations of various groups of school children throughout the country. It was found in the first case, that about sixteen per cent. of the apparently normal young men who were inspected for military service, were undernourished in some degree, and according to Dr. Thomas W. Wood, Professor of Physical Education, Columbia University, “Five million children in the United States are suffering from malnutrition.” This army of undernourished children, which represents about one-third of the children of the country, is on the broad highway to ill health, invalidism of various kinds and degrees, instability and inefficiency. They are certainly not developing into the clear-eyed, alert, buoyant individuals that go to make up good citizenry.
The tragic aspect of this state of undernourishment is that though a great deal can be done to nourish and build up the malnourished child or adult, a certain amount of damage that results from inadequate nourishment during the early, formative weeks and months cannot be entirely repaired later on in life.