A third baby was what you would call a “fat boy.” He was covered with the most “pattable” creases, and his complexion was blooming, but he had an ugly scowl on his round face and he shoved everything and everybody away from him as if the entire world were distasteful. Mother said he had never been a really good-natured baby, and she didn’t know why. But the doctors found out. The plump stomach of which his mother was so proud was not an indication of health but of undigested, unassimilated food, overfeeding. At sixteen months, a baby’s head, chest and abdomen should measure just the same, 18½ inches. This poor little laddie had an eighteen-inch head, a seventeen-inch chest and an abdomen measuring twenty inches. And just by exploring with his finger, the doctor found an ugly little mass of undigested food down in one corner of that bulging abdomen. Of course, Baby wanted to shove people away. So do grown-ups when they have a sick headache or a bilious attack. Here was a baby being overfed with milk, just milk, but milk not properly prepared. And there you have it, rash, malnutrition, and indigestion, all because three mothers did not know what was going on inside of Baby’s stomach. Mothers often think that so long as Baby has milk and nothing else he is safe; but milk, even mother’s milk, needs watching. Nature provides signs when milk does not agree with the baby. Of course, if the baby could talk, mother would know exactly how he feels, because he could explain where the ache is located. But when one’s means of communication is limited to wriggling, and rolling up the eyes, and emitting disturbed yaps, mother must look for signs or symptoms to take the place of worded complaints. It is estimated that 300,000 infants under one year of age die in the United States each year. Of this frightful number, it is also estimated that fully 50 per cent. could be saved by proper care. Men and women who specialize in the care and feeding of infants affirm that practically all of these unnecessary, preventable deaths can be charged to improper feeding. Is it not vitally important, therefore, that every mother should make an earnest, unremitting study of infant feeding as health-insurance for her family circle? The nourishment of the child begins before it is born. Ailments in digestion accompany it into the world. For this reason, in Chapter I, special stress was laid on diet for the pregnant mother. But it is not enough to bring the baby into the world blessed with a sound digestion. The mother must study the science of keeping her child’s digestion sound.