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37
1930
is a cheerful mental attitude on the part of the mother. The
worries incidental upon the active resumption of household duties
and the increased exertion probably do affect the secretion of the
milk, but these are not sufficient to take the baby off the breast.
It is gratifying to know that frequently the advice of the health
visitors is successful in showing that these conditions are transient
and temporary and that the suckling should be persevered with.
We frequently hear the remark that the mother believes her milk
is "too thin," or that her milk does not agree with the baby, and
she imagines that in some other way her milk was not sufficiently
nutritious. When things go wrong, as they often do, the tendency
is to utilise the. resources placed within easy reach, without making
any search for other causes for the want of growth and progress
in the baby. It is so easy to lay the blame on the food, and so
difficult to examine all the circumstances. If the infant is breast
fed, he is weaned, if bottle fed, his food is changed. There may
be no justification for believing that if breast fed milk fails there
will be any better results with an artificial substitute. The breast
fed infant requires a considerable amount of management even
though the milk be of the best quality. But it is ea.sier to change
the food than to see.k patiently for the cause.
From the point of view of the baby the advantages of breast
feeding are so enormous that every effort should be made by all
concerned to make lactation a success. The artificially fed baby
may put on weight adequately, indeed, the weight chart may be
better than that of a breast fed baby, but nevertheless, there may
be differences which are obvious to the expert observer. Thus
the vascularity of the skin may be deficient and the baby will
therefore not exhibit the rosy fresh appearance of perfect health.
Artificially fed infants are known to be more liable to rickets than
breast fed infants, although the hygienic conditions in regard to
light and fresh air be perfect. It is true that rickets does develop
occasionally in breast fed babies, but the liability is far less, and
the comparative absence of severe rickets at the present time is
probably due to the increased vogue of breast feeding.
The most important difference, however, between the two
classes of infants concerns the matter of resistance to infection
in which the breast fed baby is considerably superior. Babies
fed on cow's milk suffer more from those infective intestinal disorders
of an acute or chronic character, which so seriously affect
their nutrition.
Our efforts are therefore directed towards the establishment
of breast feeding, but there are other directions in which advice
is often urgently needed. Too often the babies are irregularly
fed. If a baby cries, the mother imagines that he is hungry and
gives him a feed, thereby starting a train of digestive troubles
by irregular feeding.