Advice to a wife and mother in two parts

by Pye Henry Chavasse

700. Aperients, etc. during suckling.—Strong purgatives, during this period, are highly improper, as they are apt to give pain to the infant as well as to injure the mother. If it be absolutely necessary to give an aperient, the mildest, such as a dose of castor oil, should be chosen.

701. If she cannot take oil, then she should apply it externally to the bowels as a liniment, as recommended at page [144].

702. An enema, either of warm water, or of gruel, oil, and table salt,[^[124]] applied by means of a good self-injecting enema apparatus, is in such a case an excellent—indeed, the very best—method of opening the bowels, as it neither interferes with the digestion of the mother nor of the child.

703. The less opening medicine, whatever be the kind, a mother who is suckling takes, the better will it be both for herself and for her babe. Even castor oil, the least objectionable, during suckling, of aperients, if she once begin to take it regularly, the bowels will not act without it, and a wretched state of things is established. No, if the bowels will not act, an enema is by far the best remedy; you can never do any harm, either to the mother or to the babe, by the administration of an enema; it will neither induce future constipation, nor will it interfere with the digestion of the mother, nor with the bowels, nor with the health of the infant.

704. When a lady who is nursing is habitually costive, she ought to eat brown instead of white-bread. This will, in the majority of cases, enable her to do without an aperient. The brown bread may be made by mixing one part of bran and three parts of fine wheaten flour together, and then making it in the usual way into bread. Treacle instead of butter on the brown bread increases its efficacy as an aperient.

705. Either stewed prunes or stewed French plums are an excellent remedy to prevent constipation. The patient ought to eat, every morning, a dozen or fifteen of them. The best way to stew either prunes or French plums is the following: Put a pound, either of prunes or of French plums, and two tablespoonfuls of raw sugar, into a brown jar; cover them with water, put them into a slow oven, and stew them for three or four hours. Both stewed rhubarb and stewed pears often act as mild or gentle aperients. Muscatel raisins, eaten at dessert, will oftentimes, without medicine, relieve the bowels.

706. A Bee-master in The Times, or, as he is usually called, The Times Bee-master, has satisfactorily proved that honey—pure honey—is most wholesome and beneficial to the human economy. He recommends it to be occasionally eaten in lieu of butter for breakfast. Butter, in some localities, and in some seasons of the year, is far from good and wholesome.

707. The Germans are in the habit of eating for breakfast and for tea a variety of fruit jams instead of butter with their bread. Now, if the bowels be costive, jam is an excellent substitute for butter. The Scotch, too, scarcely ever sit down either to breakfast or tea without there being a pot of marmalade on the tables. English ladies, in this matter, may well take a leaf out of the books of the Germans and of the Scotch.

708. A basinful of gruel, made either with Robinson’s Patent Groats, or with the Derbyshire oatmeal, sweetened with brown sugar, every night for supper will often supersede the necessity of giving opening medicine. A tumblerful of cold spring water—cold from the pump—taken early every morning, sometimes effectually relieves the bowels. Coffee ought to be substituted for tea for breakfast, as coffee frequently acts as an aperient, more especially if the coffee be sweetened with brown sugar. A glass of sherry should be taken every day during dinner, as, if the bowels be sluggish, it sometimes stimulates them to action. I should strongly recommend a patient, in such a case, to eat a great variety of food, and to let the vegetable element predominate. Much meat encourages constipation. Fruit—Muscatel raisins especially—farinaceous food, coffee, and a variety of vegetables, each and all incite the bowels to do their duty.

709. Although a nursing mother ought, more especially if she be costive, to take a variety of well-cooked vegetables—such as potatoes, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, French beans, stewed celery, and turnips; she should avoid eating greens, cabbages, and pickles, as they would be likely to affect the baby, and might cause him to suffer from gripings, pain, and “looseness” of the bowels.