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20
Cases have been known where the mother on leaving for work
in the morning has left a halfpenny to get a farthing's worth of
milk at dinner time and tea time for the baby.
Street hawkers, when they resume street selling, take their
babies with them and mind them in a perambulator by the side of
the stall.
Some mothers leave their babies for payment with a friend near
their places of work so that they may breast feed them during the
usual meal intervals.
In this connection, the establishment in the borough of two or
more Creches, and of dinner centres for mothers, would prove of
very great value and would meet a demand which is pressing and
urgent,
For, as has been already foreshadowed, the prevention of
infantile mortality in Finsbury is at rock-bottom the problem of
the prevention of poverty.
Just as there are cases of under-feeding and of improper food so
there are occasional instances of over-feeding.
Some mothers feed their children whenever they cry, or assert
that their children " do not seem satisfied," or that the '• breast
milk is not strong enough for them."
The value and importance of fresh cow's milk for baby is
generally appreciated, though some mothers buy and use condensed
milk because they have no convenience for storing cow's
milk. The household jugs, if there are any, are frequently found
to be cracked, broken, dirty, and nearly always used for fetching
ale or beer. The use of a dummy teat or comforter is almost
universal, and is in practice impossible to prevent. It would
appear, therefore, that the better course now is to realize this
fact, to accept the "dummy" as a detail which the mothers
refuse to discard, and to instruct them how best to minimise its
evil effects. The " comforters " are occasionally home made by
putting butter, toffee, or stoned raisins in boiled butter muslin.
One child was sucking the broken handle of a tooth brush tied
around its neck.