Anencephalus is a monster, having a body, but only a part of a head. The eyes protrude, the tongue may hang from the mouth, and the brain is under-developed.
Sudden death of infants that are apparently healthy comes with a shock to the physician as well as the parents, and in some instances, no plausible reason can be assigned for it. Apoplexy, pneumonia and stoppage of the trachea by milk curds may explain some cases. Suffocation by lying on the face in wet bedding, or overlying by the mother will account for others. Internal hæmorrhage into lungs, pleura, stomach, or brain is also known to be causative.
CHAPTER XXII
INFANT FEEDING
A well fed infant is a happy little animal, who sleeps approximately twenty-two hours a day, and gains from four to six ounces a week. If properly fed at the breast, this condition is easily obtained; but if artificial food is necessary, the resources and skill of the attendants may be tried to the utmost before the welcome result is brought about.
The feeding of infants may be considered under three heads, (1) the breast; (2) breast and bottle combined (mixed feeding); and (3) artificial, which is really modified cow’s milk.
Breast feeding has been taken up elsewhere, but the same care should be taken in feeding from the bottle as in feeding from the breast, so far as concerns the intervals between the feedings and the duration of the same. Since it takes from one to two hours longer for cow’s milk to digest than it does for mother’s milk the longer interval of three or four hours between feedings is better for the artificially fed child. With such an interval there will be less vomiting, less colic, less tendency to overfeed, and a better natured baby.
One feeding should be omitted at night, and if possible, two.
Length of time for taking the bottle depends somewhat on the child, but it should not exceed fifteen minutes, as a rule.
Supplemental Feeding.—A mother who has too little milk may have it supplemented by a modified mixture in one of two ways.
First, the quantity furnished by the breast must be determined by weighing the infant before and after feeding, and then the total amount for twenty-four hours can be deduced. With this information, it is not difficult for the doctor to know how much cow’s milk to prescribe. The supplemental feeding may be given by alternating the bottle and the breast, or by giving the breast and following it immediately with the bottle. In the meantime, the mother must be put on tonics with an abundance of fluids, and a generous diet that will raise the blood pressure, in the hope that the milk will increase sufficiently to enable her to feed the child entirely from the breast.