The maternal management of children, in health and diseaseBull, Thomas
Science
The maternal management of children, in health and disease
Bull, Thomas
Child care
On the 17th September, 1839, I attended a lady twenty-four years of
age, a delicate, but healthy woman, in her first confinement. The
labour was good. Every thing went on well for the first week, except
that, although the breasts became enlarged, and promised a good supply
of nourishment for the infant, at its close there was merely a little
oozing from the nipple. During the next fortnight a slight, but very
gradual increase in quantity took place, so that a dessert spoonful
only was obtained about the middle of this period, and perhaps double
this quantity at its expiration. In the mean time the child was
necessarily fed upon an artificial diet, and as a consequence its
bowels became deranged, and a severe diarrhoea followed. A wet-nurse
was advised for the child as the only means of saving its life, and
change of air for the mother as the most likely expedient (in
connection with the general treatment pointed out above) for obtaining
a good breast of milk. Accordingly, on the 5th October, the patient,
taking with her the infant and a wet-nurse, went a few miles from town.
For three or four days it was a question whether the little one would
live, for so greatly had it been reduced by the looseness of the bowels
that it had not strength to grasp the nipple of its nurse; the milk,
therefore, was obliged to be drawn, and the child fed with it from a
spoon. After the lapse of a few days, however, it could obtain the
breast-milk for itself; and, to make short of the case, on the 25th of
the same month, the mother and child returned home, the former having a
very fair proportion of healthy milk in her bosom, and the child
perfectly recovered and evidently thriving fast upon it.
Where, however, there has been an early deficiency in the supply of
nourishment, it will most frequently happen that, before the sixth or
seventh month, the infant's demands will be greater than the mother can
meet. The deficiency must be made up by artificial food, which must be
of a kind generally employed before the sixth month, and given through
the bottle. If, however, this plan of dieting should disagree, the
child must, even at this period, have a wet-nurse.
Women who marry comparatively late in life, and bear children,
generally have a deficiency of milk after the second or third month:
artificial feeding must in part be here resorted to.
THE INJURIOUS EFFECTS TO THE MOTHER AND INFANT OF UNDUE AND PROTRACTED
SUCKLING.
UPON THE MOTHER.--The period of suckling is generally one of the most
healthy of a woman's life. But there are exceptions to this as a
general rule; and nursing, instead of being accompanied by health, may
be the cause of its being materially, and even fatally, impaired. This
may arise out of one of two causes, either, a parent continuing to
suckle too long; or, from the original powers or strength not being
equal to the continued drain on the system.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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