Artificial stimulation of the breast sometimes succeeds. Massage will irritate the glands, increase the congestion, and promote functional activity; or a Bier vacuum apparatus may be put over the gland several times a day and the air pumped out. The breast should be kept distended for fifteen to twenty minutes. There is difficulty in this country in getting glass bells of sufficient size.
Galactorrhœa is the name applied to an abundant secretion of milk poor in quality toward the end of a long lactation or after the child is weaned. The symptoms are an almost constant flow of milk with resultant anæmia.
Treatment.—Elix. of iron, quinine and strychnine with compression of the gland. A dry diet and the avoidance of all irritation of the breasts will aid.
To “dry up the milk,” follow the treatment for “caked breast.”
Fig. 110.—A standard breast pump. (American Text Book.)
Quality of the milk may be such that the child will not take it or, if taken, it fails to nourish. In some cases this is due to overlong, or to irregular, periods between feedings; for when the nursing interval is too short, the milk becomes too rich, when too long, it becomes thinner and less nutritious.
Fright, anxiety or anger may change the character of the milk so that colic, vomiting, and diarrhœa and indigestion are produced in the child. A wet nurse becomes homesick and the milk dries up. It may become extremely indigestible, as shown in cases where a wet nurse quarrels with her husband and her foster child develops green stools. If the mother’s milk does not agree, the child may be put on feedings for twenty-four or forty-eight hours, while the milk, pumped from the breast, is sent to a laboratory for analysis. If a return to the breast is unsatisfactory, artificial feedings or a wet nurse must be supplied.
Removal of the child from the breast may be required for a variety of reasons. Thus, the mother’s addiction to alcohol or opium is good ground for taking away the child. Arsenic, bromides and iodides of potassium, saline cathartics, salicylates, alcohol, opium and belladonna must be given to the mother with great caution during lactation, for they pass over into the milk.
Acute diseases, such as erysipelas, pneumonia, diphtheria, typhoid, malaria, pronounced puerperal sepsis or persistently high fever from any cause, usually dries up the milk; while cardiac lesions, unless well compensated, chronic anæmia and tuberculosis, obviously demand the removal of the child for the sake of both. Sometimes a new conception, especially when the milk becomes poor in the last half of gestation, compels the mother to wean her babe.