Breast milk

“ The woman who drinks coffee and tea in moderation may increase the supply of milk by drinking to excess; but the milk will not gain in quality, and her nerves will suffer from overstimulation. Milk, cocoa, and chocolate in moderation increase the quantity of milk and improve the quality, except in the rare cases where the mother cannot digest them. The woman who can sip gruel, plain or with cream, will find the supply of breast milk gaining in both quantity and quality; but when the gruel is disliked, when it actually nauseates the mother, it does not have a good effect on the milk. ”

“ If supplementary food is given because of an inadequate supply of breast milk, it is of great importance that the baby be put to the breast regularly, no matter how little food he obtains, for his suckling is the best possible means of stimulating the breasts to secrete more milk, and of equal importance is the fact that they will tend to dry up if the baby nurses less than about five times in twenty-four hours. ”

“ She should be young, healthy, good-humour’d, sprightly, and temperate. The newer her Milk the better; it is best not to be above three Months old; and should never exceed six Months, when the Child is first put to her Breast; if beyond that, either the Child must be wean’d too soon, or suck a staler Milk than perhaps it ought. Some are of Opinion, that Breast-milk begins to lose of it’s nutritious Quality after the Expiration of a Year; but let us here observe the Operations of Nature. The younger Breast-Milk is, the thinner and lighter it is ”

“ It will be recalled that mother’s milk up to the fourth or fifth day is practically sweetened water on which the baby thrives. The child’s digestion is not injured when the flow of mother’s milk is suddenly established and becomes rich. In planning the diet for a bottle-fed baby, those who have given the matter study follow as closely as possible the rules laid down by nature in supplying breast milk. ”

“ I need not repeat that for infants under the age of one year no food is so suitable as breast-milk, and one affected with the diarrhoea and remaining in the city should, if possible, at least if under the age of ten months, be provided with breast-milk. It can be more satisfactorily treated and the chances of its recovery are much greater if it be nourished with human milk than by any other kind of diet. ”

“ By far the best food for the healthy infant in every way—and this cannot be emphasized too strongly—is mother’s milk. There are certain alimentary disturbances in which it may be advisable to replace breast-milk with certain artificially prepared foods, such, for instance, as albumin milk in alimentary intoxication; but this is never true of the normally healthy infant. While, as regards growth and freedom from digestive disturbances, certain artificially prepared foods may, when used with exceeding care, produce as good results as breast-milk ”

“ Demonstrate how to hold the baby when feeding him. 2. Demonstrate how to weigh the baby.
Every mother should nurse her baby if she is well and has the milk; it is her most important duty for the time being, and all other things should be secondary to it.
The reasons. Breast milk is nature’s food for the baby. It is fresh, sterile, and always at hand. It is the least expensive food that can be given, and contains the proper elements of food in the right proportions.
Breast-fed babies seldom have bowel troubles—which are apt to be so fatal in bottle-fed babies, especially in hot [39] weather. ”

“ This is a well-known fact, hence the premature baby must require more food in proportion to its weight than the baby who is born at the normal time. Then, too, as the premature infant is thinner he does not keep warm like the older infant, and this must be taken into consideration in feeding him. Breast milk is of course by far the best food for such babies, not only because its constituents are in a more available form for the feeble digestive organs, but because the mother’s milk furnishes a resistance which is lacking in even the most carefully modified of milk formulas. ”

“ The collective investigation of the American Pediatric Society includes ten infants who had been given breast milk exclusively, and Concetti adds another ten in his compilation of 682 cases.7 In spite of their paucity these cases require separate consideration because they represent an important aspect from an etiologic standpoint. How are we to explain the fact that human milk may lead to rather than protect against this disorder? ”

“ Every bit of breast milk helps the baby, because it tends to make the digestion of artificial food easier.
Advice to nursing mothers. Keep yourself well. As long as you are well the [42] baby will keep well. Even though you have but little milk at first, do not get discouraged; be patient and persevering. You should have lunches of milk and gruel—one in the middle of the morning, one in the afternoon, and another at bedtime. Remember that an active, cheerful mind is an important factor in good health. Nothing upsets a baby more quickly than a nervous, irritable mother.
Diet of a nursing woman. ”

“ For three or four days it was a question whether the little one would live, for so greatly had it been reduced by the looseness of the bowels that it had not strength to grasp the nipple of its nurse; the milk, therefore, was obliged to be drawn, and the child fed with it from a spoon. After the lapse of a few days, however, it could obtain the breast-milk for itself ”

“ Sometimes the trouble can be corrected by a change in the mother’s diet; and this must be discussed with the family physician. Sometimes the mother is too much exhausted by household duties to provide the amount and quality of milk needed to nourish the child. If it is possible to lighten the mother’s burdens, and thereby strengthen the breast milk, this is better economy than investing in bottles and artificial food. ”

“ He may often be satisfied with one breast if the milk is plentiful; if not, he is given both breasts; and may we add the following injunction? insist that nothing shall go into your baby's mouth but your own breast milk and warm or cool-boiled water; no sugar, whiskey, paregoric, or soothing syrup should be given, no matter how he cries. Never give a baby food merely to pacify him or to stop his crying; it will damage him in the end. More than likely he is thirsty, and milk to him is what bread and meat are to you, neither of which you want when you are thirsty. ”

“ Pure, easily digestible milk is the only food suitable for a young baby, and contains everything baby needs. That is why, if Baby cannot have breast milk, he must have Glaxo, which is milk enriched with extra cream made pure and easily digestible. It costs you but a trifle more than ordinary milk, and is not only the one safe alternative for breast-milk, but is also more economical than foods which have to be mixed with milk to make them nourishing. Glaxo can be given either in turn with breast-milk or as the sole food from birth. ”

“ The formation of the fœtus, the manner of its existence, and the growth of its parts, are great secrets of nature; and in all viviparous animals, the milk found in the female parent is a maintenance ready for the young animal, the moment it enters the world. We have here, the nutritious quality of the fluid—the organ for its reception and retention—the excretory duct, annexed to that organ—and the determination of the milk to the breast, at the particular juncture when it is about to be wanted. The advanced pregnancy of the female has no intelligible tendency to fill the breasts with milk. ”

“ Feed him entirely on cow's milk—the milk of one healthy cow; let the milk be unboiled, and be fresh from the cow. Give it in small quantities at a time, and frequently, so that it may be retained on the stomach. If a table-spoonful of the milk make him sick, give him a dessert-spoonful; if a dessert-spoonful cause sickness, let him only have a tea-spoonful at a time, and let it be repeated every quarter of an hour. But, remember, in such a case the breast milk—the breast milk alone—is incomparably superior to any other milk or to any other food whatever. ”

“ Babes: as it grows older, it becomes thicker, richer, and more stubborn of Digestion; by which gradual Change it is suited to the relative rising Powers of Digestion in the Child. Hence it would seem, that Breast-milk, does not at this stated Time become poorer, but richer; rich perhaps to a degree of Rancidity; which, like gross Food to others, is sometimes stronger than Children can bear: and on this Principle it is I recommend where a Breast is to be sought, that either the Milk be young, or the Child wean’d soon. ”

“ Breast milk is the only proper food for infants until after the second summer. If the supply is small keep what you have and feed the child in connection with it, for if the babe is ill this breast milk may be all that will save its life. ”

“ Artificial Feeding. There is no entirely adequate substitute for satisfactory maternal nursing, and any other food that is given to the young baby is at best a makeshift. Considering the baby’s delicacy, therefore, and his urgent needs, no pains should be spared to make any artificial food which is given to him as satisfactory as possible. In preparing and giving artificial food it must be borne in mind that normal breast milk:
1.490 Is exactly right in quantity, quality and proportion. 2. Is fresh, clean and sweet. 3. Is free from bacteria. 4. Tends to protect the baby from infection. ”

“ After the first month the breast should not be given more frequently than once every two and a half or three hours during the day, and during the night once every three or four hours. As the child grows older, the time which is allowed to intervene between each meal should be increased,
Till the appearance of the first or milk teeth, the child should be fed exclusively on the breast milk; after that, which is Nature's indication that the stomach has become fit to digest other substances, the child may be given rusks, Mellin's food, Robb's biscuits, or Robinson's groats. ”

“ The care of the MOTHER’S BREASTS is important. Before the milk is abundantly secreted, she should not be fretted by very frequent ineffectual attempts at nursing, though it may be necessary to draw out the nipple by means of a breast pump. The milk should be drawn out when the breasts become full and distended, and they should not be allowed to remain hard and sore. Apply fomentations; cabbage leaves, wilted in hot vinegar and 48water, or warm solution of carbolic acid, one part to eighty. ”

“ This can be done, first, through the mother’s diet—simpler food, less meat, no alcohol; second, just before nursing, the baby may be given an ounce of boiled water in which one-fourth teaspoonful of malt sugar has been dissolved, using an ordinary nursing bottle with a plain nipple. The child will then nurse a shorter time and the water taken from the bottle will dilute the milk drawn from the breast. The first few ounces drawn from the breast are less rich than the last ones; so if the child does not drain the breast, he does not get the richest part of the milk. ”

“ Pure Milk In the education of public opinion on the question of reducing infant mortality, it is inevitable that great attention should be given to the matter of pure milk. One cannot think of a baby without thinking of milk, so that the effort to provide pure milk is directly associated with every effort to reduce infant mortality and make children strong. The problem of milk is twofold: to supply the best possible grade for bottle-fed babies, on the one hand, and on the other to provide the mother of the breast-fed baby with necessary conditions for nursing her infant properly. ”

“ The cases in which breast-milk, such as can be had, is not digested by the infant are rare, but they will occur. In them the proper substitute will yield a better result than mother's milk; for mother's milk will not always be a boon, and must then be dispensed with. ”

“ The application of a poultice made from the pulverized leaves of the castor-oil plant is a most efficient remedy when milk fails to make its appearance in the breast in sufficient quantity after confinement.
WET-NURSING BY VIRGINS, AGED WOMEN, AND MEN.
As a rule, the secretion of milk is limited to one sex, and in that is confined to a short period after childbirth. But there are many cases on record of the flowing of milk in women not recently mothers, [Pg 261] in girls before the age of puberty, in aged women, and even in individuals of the male sex. ”

“ The only way of ascertaining whether the infant actually draws the milk from the nipple, can be done by examining the mouth of the child immediately after his taking the breast, and seeing for yourself whether there be actually milk in his mouth.
Very feeble new-born babes sometimes cannot take the bosom, be the nipples and the breasts ever so good. In such a case, cow’s milk and water, sugar and salt, as recommended at page 45, must be given in small quantities at a time—from two to four teaspoonfuls—but frequently ”

“ It might be well to state that, after the child has been weaned, the milk does not always entirely leave the breast, not even for weeks, and, in some cases, not even for months; it is not of the slightest consequence, and requires no treatment to get rid of it. ”

“ If the mother’s milk is satisfactory and the baby is doing well, it is often considered wiser not to discontinue the breast feeding entirely, during the hot summer months, even though the weaning falls due at this time. ”