GUARDING THE BABY’S DIGESTION SOUND DIGESTION MEANS A STRONG BABY—BOWEL CONDITIONS TELL THE STORY—THE UNDERFED AND THE OVERFED BABY—SYMPTOMS OF DISORDER IN THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM—VOMITING—COLIC AND CONSTIPATION—DIARRHEA AND ITS TREATMENT Sound digestion in the family baby stands for many good things. It spells peace and comfort for the entire household; for good digestion means good health and good humor, therefore a baby whose presence does not disturb the family. It spells small doctor’s bills, because a sound digestion gives the baby power of resistance to throw off germs of disease and even to pass safely through exposure to contagion. It spells efficiency and intelligent care on the part of the mother, for, common belief to the contrary notwithstanding, the healthy baby is not a matter of accident but of care. The knowledge of how to give that care may be innate, inherited from a line of sensible, motherly women, or it may be acquired by education in the feeding and care of infants; but it is there. That fact is proved by experiment among untrained mothers. A Philadelphia branch of the Congress of Mothers started an infant-saving campaign in a certain ward of that city. For a given time, they had meetings of mothers, with talks on the care and feeding of babies, week in and week out. Babies were weighed and measured, and, as they gained, the mothers were praised for the improvement in their children. In this one ward, where education for motherhood was taught persistently and intelligently, the death rate was reduced 44 per cent. on the year. No record was kept of the improved condition in mothers and homes. These are blessings which cannot be reduced to figures. When the American woman knows as much about feeding babies and children under three years of age as she knows about mixing bread, polishing furniture, and embroidering doilies, our home economics and domestic relations will undergo a change for the better. Thousands of marriages have been wrecked by the ignorance of the mother in rearing her children, and the subsequent confusion and quarreling. A sickly baby loads the husband and father with harassing expenses. It brings the family bread-winner home to a disordered house and a tired, fretful wife. It keeps both husband and wife awake when they should be securing a good night’s rest to meet the next day’s duties. Result: in poor circles, the husband turns coward and deserts wife and child; higher up in the economic scale, the husband secures work in a distant city and the wife goes home to “her people.” In either case, the man often seeks, in more pleasant companionship, relief from the unsatisfactory conditions existing in his own home.