16. When does the navel-string separate from the child?
From five days to a week after birth; in some cases not until ten days or a fortnight, or even, in rare cases, not until three weeks.
17. If the navel-string does not at the end of a week come away, ought any means to be used to cause the separation?
Certainly not; it ought always to be allowed to drop off, which, when in a fit state, it will readily do. Meddling with the navel-string has frequently cost the babe a great deal of suffering, and in some cases even his life.
18. The navel is sometimes a little sore after the navel-string comes away; what ought then to be done?
A little simple cerate should be spread on lint, and be applied every morning to the part affected; and a white-bread poultice, every night, until it be quite healed.
19. What are the causes of a rupture of the navel? What ought to be done? Can it be cured?
(1.) A rupture of the navel is sometimes occasioned by a meddlesome nurse. She is very anxious to cause the navel-string to separate from the infant’s body, more especially when it is longer in coming away than usual. She, therefore, before it is in a fit state to drop off, forces it away. (2.) The rupture, at another time, is occasioned by the child incessantly crying. A mother, then, should always bear in mind that a rupture of the navel is often caused by much crying, and that it occasions much crying; indeed, it is a frequent cause of incessant crying. A child, therefore, who, without any assignable cause, is constantly crying, should have his navel carefully examined.
A rupture of the navel ought always to be treated early—the earlier the better. Ruptures of the navel can only be cured in infancy and in childhood. If it be allowed to run on until adult age, a cure is impossible. Palliative means can then only be adopted.
The best treatment is a Burgundy pitch plaster, spread on a soft piece of wash-leather about the size of the top of a tumbler, with a properly adjusted pad (made from the plaster) fastened on the center of the plaster, which will effectually keep up the rupture, and in a few weeks will cure it. It will be necessary, from time to time, to renew the plaster until the cure be effected. These plasters will be found both more efficacious and pleasant than either a truss or an elastic bandage; which latter appliances sometimes gall, and do more harm than they do good.