Where are the places where baby is most likely to chafe? The buttocks, in the folds of the neck and in the groins.
How can you prevent chafing? Use very little soap; no strong soap; rinse the body carefully; dry thoroughly after rinsing; use clean diapers; use dusting powder in the folds of the flesh, especially in fat babies.
If the skin is very sensitive, what then? Do not use any soap, but use bran or salt baths.
How can you prepare a bran bath? Place one pint of wheat bran in coarse muslin or cheese-cloth bag and put this in the bath water. It should then be squeezed for five minutes until the water looks like porridge.
How is a salt bath prepared? One teaspoonful of common salt to each two gallons of water.
If the parts are chafed what should we do? Do not use any soap, and give only bran or salt baths or use pure olive oil and no water at all on the chafed parts. Dry the parts carefully with old, soft linen and dust them with a powder made of starch and talcum—equal part—with one-fourth as much boric acid, all carefully mixed together. Or use starch two parts and boric acid one part. Pure stearate of zinc powder is also good. Keep a little piece of soft linen between the folds of the flesh, so they will not be irritated by rubbing together.
[Illustration: Portait of Ardis]
[ALL ABOUT BABY 553]
MOTHERS' REMEDY.—1. Chafing in Infants, Mutton Tallow for.—"Five cents' worth of mutton tallow, melted. Apply at night." If there is a tendency to chafe during the day, use talcum powder, putting the mutton tallow on at night when the child will be quiet, giving it an opportunity to heal.
How shall I take care of the buttocks to prevent chafing? This is the most common place for chafing, as it is so frequently wet and soiled; hence all napkins should be renewed as soon as wet and soiled and the parts always kept perfectly clean.