The maternal management of children, in health and diseaseBull, Thomas
Science
The maternal management of children, in health and disease
Bull, Thomas
Child care
No one can doubt that the porter was in this case the source of the
mischief. The patient had gone into the lying-in-room in full health,
had had a good time, and came out from her chamber (comparatively) as
strong as she entered it. Her constitution had not been previously worn
down by repeated child-bearing and nursing, she had an ample supply of
milk, and was fully capable, therefore, of performing the duties which
now devolved upon her, without resorting to any unusual stimulant or
support. Her previous habits were totally at variance with the plan
which was adopted; her system became too full, disease was produced,
and the result experienced was nothing more than what might be expected.
The plan to be followed for the first six months.-Until the breast-
milk is fully established, which may not be until the second or third
day subsequent to delivery (almost invariably so in a first
confinement), the infant must be fed upon a little thin gruel, or upon
one third water and two thirds milk, sweetened with loaf sugar.
After this time it must obtain its nourishment from the breast alone,
and for a week or ten days the appetite of the infant must be the
mother's guide, as to the frequency in offering the breast. The stomach
at birth is feeble, and as yet unaccustomed to food; its wants,
therefore, are easily satisfied, but they are frequently renewed. An
interval, however, sufficient for digesting the little swallowed, is
obtained before the appetite again revives, and a fresh supply is
demanded.
At the expiration of a week or so it is essentially necessary, and
with some children this may be done with safety from the first day of
suckling, to nurse the infant at regular intervals of three or four
hours, day and night. This allows sufficient time for each meal to be
digested, and tends to keep the bowels of the child in order. Such
regularity, moreover, will do much to obviate fretfulness, and that
constant cry, which seems as if it could be allayed only by constantly
putting the child to the breast. A young mother very frequently runs
into a serious error in this particular, considering every expression
of uneasiness as an indication of appetite, and whenever the infant
cries offering it the breast, although ten minutes may not have elapsed
since its last meal. This is an injurious and even dangerous practice,
for, by overloading the stomach, the food remains undigested, the
child's bowels are always out of order, it soon becomes restless and
feverish, and is, perhaps, eventually lost; when, by simply attending
to the above rules of nursing, the infant might have become healthy and
vigorous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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