The breasts of the newborn may fill with milk and become indurated and tender. Nothing should be done to them. Let them alone and the swelling will subside in a few days and the milk (“witches’ milk”) disappear.
Icterus may develop from the third to the sixth day. The child becomes yellow and stays yellow for a week, when the color gradually leaves. It is thought to be due to the liberation of some embryonic residue in the fœtus, but nothing is known certainly. For the simple form no treatment is required. Recovery is prompt and uneventful. However, jaundice is associated with other conditions that prove fatal, hence every icterus should be watched carefully until it disappears.
Child’s Nails.—The nails are frequently rough and ragged at ends and sides. They should be smoothly trimmed lest they become infected at the junction with the skin and give rise to paronychia. If infection does occur, the skin and flesh may be pushed back with a sterile applicator, and the point touched with peroxide of hydrogen. A syphilitic history may be traced in some of the babies.
Thrush is a form of contagious soreness, characterized by white flakes or patches on the mucous membrane of mouth or anus which look like milk, but can not be wiped off.
It is due to a vegetable fungus and occurs most frequently among anæmic or poorly nourished babies or those suffering from harelip. It is associated with symptoms of indigestion.
It may always be prevented by keeping the mouth and nipples clean, as directed on another page, and by keeping the bottles and rubber nipples in a solution of boric acid when not in use. When the disease appears, the mouth must be swabbed three or four times a day with an applicator soaked in saturated solution of boric acid. This is curative.
Aphthæ or stomatitis is the name given to whitish vesicles, followed by superficial ulcers that occur upon the inside of mouth and lips of the infant. It is rare in the newborn child. Boric acid solution is cleansing, and stick alum, frequently applied, will effect a cure.
Wheals, urticaria or “stomach spots” appear as generally distributed small spots about the size of a split pea, with a white center and a red periphery. They appear about the third day and last twenty-four hours.
They may be mistaken for insect bites and they may, or may not, be accompanied by temperature, which is probably only a coincidence.
The wheals disappear spontaneously without treatment.