Cow’s milk contains three times the quantity of salts found in human milk, but the water is the same in both.
So, while the two milks seem in comparison to be much alike, in reality they are quite different; hence it is necessary to modify cow’s milk in such a way as to make it not like mother’s milk chemically, but to make it act like mother’s milk.
It is extremely difficult to bring up an infant on artificial food, and inasmuch as half the infants that die during the first year, perish from intestinal disorders, it is imperative that every resource should be exhausted before the breast feedings are abandoned. It is fallacious to believe that anyone can feed a baby, or that feeding consists merely in trying one food after another until one is found to agree. Only a competent physician should prescribe the food, and he should study his problem and make his modifications just as he would alter his medicines for a particular disease.
However, it is necessary for the nurse to know how to carry out the doctor’s orders intelligently and how to report to him the conditions present.
In prescribing for the child, the doctor usually has some definite outline in his mind, such as
| Age and weight. | Example: 3 months old; weight 10 pounds; 7 feedings; 1 every 3 hours. |
Interval, three hours.
Amount in each bottle, four ounces.
Formula:
Milk, 12 oz.