Better babies and their careRichardson, Anna Steese
Science
Better babies and their care
Richardson, Anna Steese
Infants -- Care; Infants -- Health and hygiene
Here are some of the answers: “I don’t know.” “When he wakes up.”
“Whenever he cries.” “When I have time to sit down.”
The child that is fed irregularly is very apt to vomit.
So is the child that is jostled, jogged, or rocked after nursing.
Directly a baby is fed it should be laid down in its crib and the food
given a chance to digest.
Tight clothing over the stomach and abdomen will cause vomiting; and,
for that reason, belly-bands must not be pinned tightly.
If none of the above reasons is present, and the baby vomits
habitually, the diet must be changed.
The third form of vomiting is acute and sudden. It may generally be
regarded as a symptom of an acute illness, such as measles, pneumonia,
scarlet fever. It is safest to send for a physician under such
circumstances. He can decide whether the acute vomiting is due to
something the mother or child has eaten, or whether other symptoms of
a serious ailment are present. Under ordinary circumstances the mother
should merely withhold food until the arrival of the doctor. If the
doctor cannot be secured for some time, she may safely give the child
calomel, one-tenth of one grain every half-hour until one-half of a
grain has been taken. The calomel should be carried off by an enema of
warm water and sweet-oil. This may prevent serious consequences until
the doctor arrives.
Gas on the stomach, with distention and pain, is indicated by belching,
sometimes accompanied by a sour, watery fluid. Relief can be given by
adding half a grain of benzoate of soda to each ounce of food for the
bottle baby; but it is far better for both nursing and bottle baby if
the mother will either change her own diet or reduce the quality of the
bottle milk. Dr. Holt recommends, for gastric indigestion, two ounces
of lime water to each twenty ounces of food.
Colic and flatulence come from the distention of the bowel by gas,
and are generally accompanied by constipation. As a rule, if the
constipation is relieved, the colic will disappear.
The presence of gas in the intestines generally indicates that either
the sugar or the starch in the food is not being properly digested.
The mother must reduce the quantity of starch and sweets which she is
eating, in order to modify the breast milk. For the bottle-fed baby
starch may be omitted from the food, and malto should be used instead
of cane sugar.
For constipation in bottle-fed babies, milk of magnesia, which can be
purchased at any first-class drugstore, may be added to the modified
milk, in the proportion of one-half to one teaspoonful to each twenty
ounces of food. The proportion must be according to the age of the
child and the stubbornness of the constipation.
Constipation may also come from weak milk; in this case top milk
instead of plain milk should be used in preparing the food for the
bottle-fed baby.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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