Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency)Alsaker, Rasmus Larssen
Science
Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency)
Alsaker, Rasmus Larssen
Diet; Hygiene
Another serious trouble that takes root from infant overfeeding is an
abnormal craving for stimulants. This craving may later on be satisfied
in many ways. Some use coffee, alcohol, habit-forming drugs. Others try
to satisfy it by overeating. No matter how the sufferer proceeds to
satisfy this craving, he does not cure it, for it grows upon what it is
fed. Morphine calls for more morphine. Tobacco calls for more tobacco.
An oversupply of food calls for more food or alcohol. The victim at last
dies a martyr to his abnormal appetites.
Comparatively few of those who see the error of their ways have the will
power to thrust off the shackles of habit. Very few think clearly enough
and go far enough back to realize that disease and early death are so
largely due to the habits formed for the infant or unborn babe by the
parents. And the parents received the same kind of undesirable legacy
from their parents, and so it goes, the children suffering for the sins
of the parents. The cheerful part of such a retrospect is that there is
much room for improvement, that we need not continue this seemingly
unending chain of physical bondage to the next generation, and that if
the children are not born right or treated right during infancy, there
is still time to make a change for the better. Nature is kind and with
will and determination a change can be made at any time that will result
in betterment, provided such grave diseases have not taken hold of the
body that recuperation is impossible. This is no excuse for making
delays, for the longer errors are permitted the harder they are to
overcome.
Three or four feedings a day are sufficient for any baby. The feedings
should be arranged so that they are evenly distributed during the day,
and nothing is to be given at night except water. Get a nursing bottle
or two. Keep the bottles and the nipples scrupulously clean. These are
to be used as water bottles. The water must also be clean. Heat it to
103 or 104 degrees Fahrenheit, so that it will be from 98 to 100 degrees
warm when it enters the baby's mouth Let the baby have some water three
or four times during the day, and perhaps it will want some once or
twice during the night, but give it no milk at night.
Overfed babies are irritable and cry often. The mothers interpret this
as a sign of hunger. Most babies do not know what hunger is. Like adults
they become thirsty, but instead of getting water to quench their thirst
they are given milk. This satisfies for a little while, then the
irritability due to milk spoiled, in the alimentary tract causes more
restlessness and crying, and they are fed again. The comedy of errors
continues until it is turned into a tragedy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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