What a Young Wife Ought to Know

by Emma F. Angell Drake

In nursing babies, the child is very apt to be affected by the condition of the mother. If the mother is quiet, well balanced, free from worry, not subject to fits of anger, does not overdo, does not eat stimulating food, keeps early hours; in short is quiet, self-contained and healthful, the probability is that her children will be well, easily managed children. On the other hand, if she be easily disturbed, unbalanced, constantly going beyond her strength, eating forbidden things, keeping late hours, and thus using or rather wasting her energies, she has not the vital force to give to her children, and they suffer proportionately. Here again is exemplified the truth that what the mother is that will her child be.

Sitting down when tired and overheated or excited to nurse your little one, do not wonder if you have a cross, fretful, and many times, feverish child as the result. When under a fit of anger, the mother’s milk has many times produced in the child very alarming symptoms, and sometimes even caused death. This, in an exaggerated way, shows us what the effect is upon the delicate nervous temperament of the child, if the mother is not in healthful tone herself.

A healthy, well-trained baby, should in the first weeks, sleep twenty out of the twenty-four hours. The sleep should be quiet and natural, and the baby will in the remaining four hours eat and stretch itself and grow.

Regularity of feeding in the first few weeks will not be as possible as later, for the little one will sleep over its feeding times. Do not imagine from this that when it does eat it should have a double quantity, for the stomach has not expanded in its sleep, and will hold no more than when fed each two hours. It is estimated that a newborn baby’s stomach will hold but three or four tablespoonfuls, and this should regulate the quantity of food at each feeding, if the baby is bottle fed. If a nursing baby, nature regulates the quantity, if regularity of habit is observed, as no more is secreted than is needed, as a rule.

In tiny babyhood the child’s liver is very large in proportion to its size, and the size of the other organs, hence it will sometimes make trouble when the child is nursed on the right side; as the weight of the liver pressing on the full stomach causes distress. When you observe that the child fusses after nursing the right breast, hold it as when nursing the left breast with the feet under the right arm, and when laying it down lay it on the right side, and you will relieve the difficulty.

Every mother should know that “in early childhood there is no relation between the intensity of the symptoms, and the material lesion, or derangement. The most intense fever with restlessness, cries and spasmodic movements, may disappear in twenty-four hours without leaving any traces. The intense nervous excitability in a robust child will often communicate a false appearance of gravity, to a trivial ailment.”

I quote from Eustace Smith, M.D., this comforting thought: “With regard to the temperature of children, it may be noted that we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by sudden and rapid rise of temperature into the belief that the patient must necessarily be suffering from serious disease. Very slight causes will in infants produce a remarkable increase of heat; and during natural dentition, just before the passage of the tooth through the gum, a temperature of one hundred and four or one hundred and five degrees Fahrenheit, even in the morning is not at all an uncommon circumstance. Besides, the normal temperature of young children is rather higher than that of the adult. In a perfectly healthy child of three or four years old the thermometer will often register a morning temperature of ninety-nine and one-half. The pulse of infants can seldom be counted except during sleep.”

We must remember also that children breathe more quickly than adults. About thirty respirations a minute for children under two years, or nearly twice as many as in adult life. Also in a slight degree of indisposition the respirations may be quickened materially without cause for alarm.

The tongue, if white, usually indicates fever, dyspepsia and intestinal irritation. A red, dry, hot tongue points to inflammation of the mouth or stomach.