It is safe to say that if the doctor and the nurse and the baby’s mother all want him to nurse at the breast, and all do everything in their power to make this possible, they will almost invariably succeed. This assertion can scarcely be made too positively and we should never lose sight of the fact that if the baby is not breast-fed he is being defrauded, and in the vast majority of cases, because of insufficient effort on the part of those who are caring for him. Practically the only conditions which doctors in general now recognize as sufficient reason for the mother’s not nursing her baby are retracted nipples, tuberculosis, convulsions, severe heart or kidney trouble, certain acute infectious diseases such as typhoid fever, and the state of pregnancy. When none of these conditions exist, a favorable frame of mind and a state of good nutrition are the two indispensable factors in establishing breast feeding and maintaining the production of a satisfactory quantity and quality of breast milk. These factors in turn are both affected by the mother’s general mode of living. Women with happy, cheerful dispositions usually nurse their babies satisfactorily, while those who worry and fret are likely to have an insufficient supply of milk or milk of a poor quality. In addition to this sustained influence exerted by the nursing mother’s state of mind it is well to remember that the quality of milk that has been entirely satisfactory may be seriously injured, for the time being, by a fit of temper, fright, grief, anxiety or any marked emotional disturbance. Actual poisons seem to be created as a result of these emotions and they may affect the baby so unfavorably as to make it necessary to give him artificial food, temporarily, and empty the breasts by pumping or stripping before he begins to nurse again. I realize that it is not easy entirely to reorganize your life and assume new and exacting duties, while recovering from an experience resembling an illness in some of its effects, and still remain calm, undiscouraged and perpetually cheerful. But each tiny victory that you accomplish in your attempt to achieve this end will bring such satisfaction that you will not count the cost. And the incomparable, always deepening happiness of watching your very own baby grow lovelier and sturdier, day by day, because of the things that you, and no one else, are doing, will make you deny, even to yourself, that anything you do is hard. Particularly will this be true if you repeatedly remind yourself that the satisfactorily breast-fed baby is much more likely to live through the difficult first year than is the bottle-fed baby, and also is much less susceptible to disease and infection. We shall consider, for a moment, the more important details of the routine care that you should give yourself, for the baby’s sake, and then we shall be ready for the pleasantest task of all—the actual care of the baby himself.