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quite unlikely to be divulged at a Clinic consultation. They may
nevertheless have a profoundly important bearing on the chance of
successful lactation, and the experienced worker can often give help in
their solution. Where anxiety has reduced a mother to a state verging
on breakdown, we have often found it wise to bid her leave the baby in
our charge for the day and call for it at night. Breast-feeding can be
suspended with advantage for the time being. The mere rest from
responsibility, and freedom from contact with a screaming infant for a
few days, will sometimes restore a failing milk supply better than
anything else.
Observations thus made are recorded, some in detail and some as
brief summaries, and sent on a special note-sheet to the physician who
presides at the baby's weekly Clinic. He is then able to institute any
orders which are revealed as desirable, reinforce advice or modify
instructions, and judge whether further tuition requires the woman's
attendance at the department, or whether the needs of the case will be
met by visits from the Health Visitor to the home. Three days' attendance
will sometimes show all that is necessary and much that was unsuspected.
Three months is not always enough. There is sometimes no other way,
or none with which I am familiar, to remove the obstacle of a spate of
confusing advice from relatives or neighbours; advice which is all the
more disastrous because it pours in at a time when a woman's fears impel
her to turn for help to any kind of wild experiment. The opportunity
which the special department affords, for applying measures to reinforce
failing lactation, is demonstrated many times a year. The success of
the training given is seen in the faithful way the teaching is carried out at
home; in the women's willingness to make three, four and even five
journeys a day from considerable distances, and in their requests to reattend
if they detect or suspect a relapse. A great deal has been achieved
here in getting a rational amount of clothing and clothing of a rational
type. There is no way to compare with it for demonstrating the value
to a baby of open air and light. Many a backyard, filled for years with
lumber or given over to sickly poultry, has been cleared, cleaned and
adapted as an open air nursery. Moreover, this has come about several
times by a father calling at the building to fetch his wife, and seeing the
peace and safety which the outdoor sleep has brought his baby.