If at any time a white fluid should be discharged from the vagina, or private parts, of a girl child, it should be washed away as often as seen, and the parts washed out with a solution of common salt I have seen mothers become greatly frightened at this common occurrence. Cleanliness and perseverance will remove the trouble. If families would make it a rule to have a thermometer in the nursery or the sleeping-room, by which to regulate the temperature of the body, many of these baby-ills would be banished from our midst. The nervous system of babes deserves a large share of our sympathy. But if one were to judge from the treatment they sometimes undergo, it might be inferred that, like dolls, infants have no nerves or rights which men are bound to respect. Children of the same family differ much. One may be sprightly, making frequent music by crying; the other may be comparatively docile. And if a child is quiet and does not cry, or act silly, it is called stupid, and everything is done to arouse its ire.
Children cry for pastime; so they should. It develops the lungs and relieves the air-tubes of any collections of phlegm. Besides, it causes them to be noticed by some one who might forget their existence. There cannot be any comfort in being rocked, tossed, shook and kissed, and that, too, without any regard to the odor of the breath. It is decidedly injurious to wake babes from a quiet sleep, or even to excite their attention while lying quiet. Mothers should early learn to listen and become familiar with the different tones produced in the cries even of the same child. Listening should be cultivated more; then the possibility of making a crying baby more noisy, by shocking it with additional noises, will need no more explanation. “Oh,” says one, “they get used to it and look for it.” True,—bred, born, aye and raised in excitement; never can hear or understand anything but noise, noise, noise.
Currents of cold air from a window or door should not be permitted to pass over the exposed body of infants; as, by so doing, the sudden change may, like electricity, direct the irritation to some vital organ. It is considered much safer, when the weather permits, to put on suitable wraps and take them in the open air. The most trouble arises from keeping the infant too warm from birth. Hot-house plants rarely endure the changes of the open air, until it becomes equal to what they have been used to.
CHAPTER IX.
ARTIFICIAL NURSING.
Should the mother afford no milk by reason of malformation, or otherwise, the child should be accustomed to the most healthful kind of food from the first. Milk from one animal should be sought. Animals that are fed on corn, hay and fodder, make the best milk in winter; those fed on clover and cured hay, the best in summer. The milk of animals fed mostly on turnips, cabbages, and potatoes, is more apt to disagree with the stomach.
The goat furnishes an even diet for infants, but its milk is not so easy to obtain in large cities.
Milk should be given to a child in its purity, not deprived of the cream or watered. Watering is equal to skimming, and vice versa. And when the child has never known the taste of its mother’s milk, I can see no philosophy in directing the milk to be watered and sweetened to make it taste like breast-milk.
All attempts to increase the quantity of babes’ food by watering are indeed robbery, as relates to the infants; such weakening should only be practised for special reasons. But to insure success, pure milk, or cream with some water, should be the rule, not the exception.
In a warm atmosphere the milk or cream should be made scalding hot by setting it in a vessel of boiling water, and stirring it the while. Boiling deprives it of the cream and other nutritive properties. There should be no more warmed than is to be used up. The warming should be by putting the milk in the bottle, then placing the latter in hot water a few minutes. In this way the quality and temperature of the drink remains uniform. The capacity of the bottle selected should be about one ounce. The material of which the black elastic nipple is composed, is not supposed to injure the mouth. No sugar should be added.
Babes have been raised to a fine size on various kinds of porridge; and they can be supported by putting a piece of clean linen into the shape of a teat, fastening a soft string about it so that it may be held by the nurse or any one, while food is poured into it from a spoon. Many are the times that I have fed them in that way. I never thought of laying them down to feed themselves.