Encyclopedia of Diet: A Treatise on the Food Question, Vol. 5Christian, Eugene
Science
Encyclopedia of Diet: A Treatise on the Food Question, Vol. 5
Christian, Eugene
Diet; Diet in disease; Food
The majority of bottle-fed children suffer greatly from constipation,
caused largely by the milk, or the failure to modify the milk properly,
or to make it contain the constituent elements of breast-milk. This
condition can be relieved by giving the child sweet orange juice every
night and morning, or the juice from soaked prunes, if preferred. This
should be administered in quantities ranging from a dozen drops to two
or three teaspoonfuls, according to the age of the child and the
severity of the condition. Intestinal congestion can often be relieved,
however, by giving the abdomen gentle massage, preferably with a rotary
or kneading motion.
In cases of diarrhea, infants from three to eight months old should be
given first an enema, and then a diet entirely of boiled milk mixed
with rice or barley-water.
EXERCISE
All infants need some exercise. They should be gently rubbed and rolled
about after the morning bath, before they are dressed. There is nothing
more healthful than exposure of the baby-skin to fresh air in a normal
temperature.
CLOTHING
Next in importance to the food of the infant is its clothing. The usual
style of dressing babies the first three months of their lives is
positively barbaric; not that it imitates uncivilized people, but
because it evidences the grossest ignorance and cruelest vanity. The
mother seems to have no way of expressing her pride in her child except
by bedecking it with elaborate garments. These usually consist of three
long skirts, two of them attached to bands which are fastened around
the body. The weight of this clothing prevents the free use of the
baby's feet and legs, putting it into a kind of civilized strait-jacket,
thus preventing it from exercising the only part of its anatomy that it
can freely move.
It is nothing uncommon to see a beautiful baby sore, irritated, and
broken out with heat all over its little body by being heavily enveloped
in barbaric rags. The child, therefore, is made to suffer merely that it
may please a proud mother, and conform to an ignorant custom a thousand
years old.
The only purpose clothing should serve is that of bodily warmth. When it
is made the instrument of painful adornment it is serving the same
purpose as "rings in the ears and bells on the toes," and the mind of
the mother who thus afflicts her child is in the same class as that of
the ignorant barbarian whom she imitates.
TEMPERATURE OF BABY'S FOOD
It should be remembered that all liquid food for a child up to twelve or
fifteen months old should be administered at a temperature no lower than
blood-heat. The liquid mixtures named herein may be made in advance of
the needs, and placed upon ice merely to preserve them, but should be
warmed to a temperature of at least ninety-nine degrees Fahrenheit
before administering to the child.
Pure water should be given to all children from the time they are two
weeks old.
BANDAGE
The bandage should be removed about the close of the third month.
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