An intense fever may be occasioned in a child as the result of overfeeding or allowing indigestible things.
My experience has been that a child fed properly, and allowed to rest sufficiently, will have very slight or no difficulty when teething. I do not agree wholly with the author quoted in the foregoing as to the cause of the fever in teething. At this period of life the brain of the child is developing remarkably, and if the stomach is not doing its work properly, or if more is imposed upon it than should be, the result is an irritation of the brain, and the whole system, and consequent fever. When we consider that the brain of the child in proportion to the size of the body, is as one to eight, while that of the adult is as one to forty or fifty, we can see how a little disturbance may affect the child at this time.
Vomiting, unless long continued, is of slight consequence in the baby; since it is usually relieving an overloaded stomach, or throwing up the food that has been churned unnaturally while the little one is tossed about by an overzealous relative. Rocking vigorously is not a good thing for the child, as it not only disturbs the stomach, but irritates the brain, from the jarring.
A rash may appear on the child and be of no more moment than to remind you that you are feeding it improperly, that its food is not agreeing with it, or that teeth are about to appear.
If the child is thin and pale and does not grow, it is not assimilating its food and the cause should be looked into at once. It may be that a change is desirable. In bottle-fed babies, there is not so much of variety in its food as in a nursing baby, because the mother’s change of food from day to day, varies the milk somewhat. Changing from one prepared food to another will often tide them over an indisposition, as nothing else will.
Chafing usually means that the little one has not been dried well when changing the napkin, or allowed to go too long after the napkin is wet. Indigestion, and a consequent acidity of the discharges may cause excoriation of the skin, and this will need a change in the food or the proper medicine to correct.
A baby does not cry without cause. It may be spoiled into crying to be tended, but this is easily distinguished from a sick cry, or a fretted cry from discomfort.
A baby should have plenty of water and fresh air; two of the “freest” things and yet we stint the little one in them. It should be given water every day several times, and it often cries for want of it. It should be taken out into the fresh air every day when pleasant, and many times allowed to take its nap in the open air. One of the healthiest, most robust babies I ever knew, though beginning life as a little puny thing, was put into its little carriage and wrapped up warmly, and wheeled out on the front porch for its nap twice daily. A light cover was thrown over the head of the carriage to protect the child from draughts.
If the baby is bottle-fed and constipated, a small pinch of salt put into its food at each feeding will often effect a cure.