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87
"oh yes lady, I knows as it's a fad of you ladies, but
I've had six children and I knows what's good for 'em"
Some of the others promised to get cots and failed to
do so.
Thanks to being able to supply Virol to the delicate
babies at cost price (through the kindness of the Virol
Company), we do not have nearly so many babies die
of Marasmus The mothers come from all parts of the
Borough to ask for it for their babies if they do not get
on. It certainly has saved the lives of many and very
much benefited others. The babies begin to improve
almost at once, many of them gaining in weight rapidly.
The majority of our Bethnal Green babies are
breast fed and when they are hand fed it is almost
always because the mother cannot feed the baby and
not because she will not. I have, in my visits, only
found three cases where the mother declined to suckle
her infant.
Of the cases visited about 90 per cent. are breast
fed for the first month, about 80 per cent. for the first
three months and about 75 per cent. for the full nine
months.
In cases where the mother has to go out to work
she has to supplement nursing by one or two bottle
feeds during the day and however bad this may be for
the baby it is the lesser of two evils and the baby is
compensated by the better food the mother is able to
obtain. Some of the people are so desperately poor that
only the mother's work provides money for the extra
food so badly needed.