Women of Belgium: Turning Tragedy to Triumph — John Shaqi
Women of Belgium: Turning Tragedy to TriumphKellogg, Charlotte
History
Women of Belgium: Turning Tragedy to Triumph
Kellogg, Charlotte
Commission for Relief in Belgium; World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals
Belgium is succoring her weak children, but she is going deeper than
this: she is trying to prevent weak children. All through the country
there are cantines where an expectant or young mother without means may
receive free a daily dinner, consisting usually of a thick soup, a meat
or egg dish with vegetables, a dessert with lactogenized cream, and
a measure of milk. Light service, like the peeling of vegetables, is
often required in return. The mother may come as early as three months
before the birth of her child, and if she is still nursing it, may
continue nine months after its birth. About 7,000 mothers are receiving
this dinner, and 6,000 more come to the affiliated consultation
cantines for advice.
Of course, there are always those who can not nurse their children, or
who can carry them through but a short period, when the question of
pasteurized milk becomes all-important. The “Goutte de Lait” (drop of
milk) sections meet this problem by offering the necessary feedings of
pure milk. The mother may pay for the bottles, and have them delivered,
or she may, if necessitous, receive them free by calling or sending for
them.
[Illustration: A MEAL FOR YOUNG MOTHERS]
In Antwerp, where this work has assumed unusual proportions, a
big-hearted president of the Belgian Provincial Committee got
permission to purchase 100 cows in Holland and to hold them without
danger of requisition. He installed a model dairy on his place, and
now gives all the baby cantines pure milk. He is always most anxious
to finish his arduous day’s work at the bureau, so that he may return
to his dairy, examine the milk tests, and review his fine herd.
One of his daughters, in addition to hours spent in the cantines,
takes the entire responsibility of the management of this dairy. Other
towns are less fortunate, and must struggle continually to get the
milk they require. There is a beautiful development of the work of a
“Goutte de Lait” in Hasselt, in a cantine occupying part of a maternity
hospital. There they have an admirable equipment for sterilization and
pasteurization. At 7 o’clock in the morning I found the women directors
already busy with the preparation of the milk. Each feeding has its
separate bottle, and may be kept sealed till the baby receives it.
After seven months, white phosphatine, a mixture of the flour of wheat,
rice and corn, with salt, sugar and phosphate of lime, is furnished; at
fourteen months, cocoa is added, and after two years, soup and bread.
I happened to arrive on the weekly weighing day. One hundred mothers
were gathered in a large, cheery room, their babies in their arms,
many of them gay in the pretty bonnets the doctor’s wife had made for
those who had the best records. They passed, a few at a time, into
the smaller room where the doctor and his wife examined, weighed,
counseled, while two assistants registered important details; the three
young nurses generally aided the mothers and their chiefs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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