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48
than 91b. The mother knew of this uncertainty and left the hospital in
doubt whether she was nourishing or starving her baby. One is perhaps
entitled to wish that she had been given a letter recommending her
attendance at the Welfare Centre on her discharge from hospital. For, as
it was situated close to her home, the yield of milk could have been
investigated and home visiting started at once. Instead, she took her
baby to a children's hospital several miles from her locality. Breast
feeding was replaced by artificial feeding at about a month of age. It
would be interesting to calculate the cost incurred by these long journeys
taken regularly once a week, and sometimes twice, the expense of the
drugs administered, and, finally, of the 19 weeks during which the baby
was maintained away from home.
This incident of the unreliable birth weight serves to show the great
importance of accuracy. Occasional mistakes must occur, especially
where large numbers are dealt with, and even when, as in lying-in
hospitals, accurate scales are used. A much more serious source of errcr
arises from the common custom of mid wives, who weigh the new-born
wrapped in a towel and suspended from the hook of a cheap spring balance.
Contrasting these reported records with those registered on a beam balance
a few weeks later at the Welfare Centres, one wishes the custom could be
dropped. Were the babies weighed in the same towel at, say the end of the
first week, one could see its object. But this scarcely ever seems to be
done. The results of inaccurate weighing affect adversely our work at
the clinic in two ways. A child said to have weighed 101b. at birth
frequently turns the scale at only 8½lb. or 91b. when brought at three or
four weeks of age. It is not to be wondered if the mother is perturbed by
the discovery, even though her baby shows every sign of thriving. If it
be restless or prone to attacks of screaming, it will require all one's
powers of persuasion to induce her to persist with breast feeding until a
series of weekly weights prove the baby is growing satisfactorily and
suggests the original was placed some 2lb. too high, or until she is content
to forget the suspected fall in face of the record of steady progress. Not
a few, however, cannot stand the suspense and augment the supposed
lack of breast milk with bottle feeds. As these may well produce dyspepsia
and screaming, the breast milk is further suspect and is abandoned.
The other example where erroneous weights cause confusion is when a
small or premature baby is found to weigh, say 61b. at three weeks of age,
when it first attends the clinic. The mother mentions the birth weight
was 2½lb.; she readily calculates that the growth has been exceedingly
rapid. It is a source of great disappointment to find that nothing like
this rate is maintained subsequently. The deduction is made that either
the child has derived harm from visiting the clinic, or that the mother's