Teething

“ Children, about the time of cutting their teeth, slaver much, and have generally a looseness. When the teething is difficult, especially when the dogteeth 560begin to make their way through the gums, the child has startings in his sleep, tumours of the gums, watchings, gripes, green stools, the thrush, fever, difficult breathing, and convulsions.
Difficult teething requires nearly the same treatment as an inflammatory disease. If the body be bound, it must be opened either by emollient clysters or gentle purgatives; as manna, magnesia alba, rhubarb, senna, or the like. ”

“ The habit of thumb sucking is an ugly one. Another way to stop it is to bind a piece of cardboard on the arm and long enough to reach a little above or below the elbow. Then the arm cannot be bent.
Should the baby use an ivory or rubber ring to bite on when teething? A special cracker is now made in the form of a ring; it is quite hard and composed mostly of malt sugar and is intended for teething babies to bite on.
MOTHERS' REMEDIES.-1. Teething, What One Quebec Mother did for.—"Rub paregoric on the gums. This always eased my children." ”

“ Children who are teething are frequently affected with looseness. A warm bath every evening, and attention to the gums, will be ordinarily all that is required in these cases, at least during the cold months. ”

“ MANAGEMENT OF THE INFANT WHEN TEETHING IS WITHOUT DIFFICULTY. In the child of a healthy constitution, which has been properly, that is, naturally, fed, upon the milk of its mother alone, the symptoms attending teething will be of the mildest kind, and the management of the infant most simple and easy.
SYMPTOMS.—The symptoms of natural dentition (which this may be fairly called) are, an increased flow of saliva, with swelling and heat of the gums, and occasionally flushing of the cheeks. The child frequently thrusts its fingers, or any thing within its grasp, into its mouth. ”

“ Infant Teething.—The first teeth generally make their appearance after the third month, and during the period of teething the child is fretful and restless, causing sometimes constitutional disturbances, such as diarrhoea, indigestion, etc. Usually, however, no serious results follow, and no unnecessary anxiety need be felt, unless the weather is extremely warm, then there is some danger of summer complaint setting in and seriously complicating matters. ”

“ The symptoms of the disorders of dentition are hot, swollen gums, accompanied by feverishness and restlessness, starting, as if in fright, or interrupted sleep, increased flow of saliva, various eruptions on the head or body, derangements of the digestive organs. Summer complaint is the most frequent of the ailments peculiar to teething, which see page 225.
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The most prevalent and serious cause for these ailments is to be found in the adoption of a mixed diet at too early an age. A teething infant cannot with impunity be thus fed. ”

“ Teething fits should be treated, as far as medicine goes, exactly as suckling fits. Just as a badly-reared, non-meat-fed bitch who, by reason of an anæmic habit, harbours worms, is a poor subject for the latter trouble, so is a puppy that has been brought up on milky slops and large, wet messes of oatmeal and bread and milk, and thus has a weakened digestion, very likely to suffer badly from fits that in a strong young dog would pass off with small trouble. There is usually some warning of teething fits, as staring eyes, etc. ”

“ The Treatment in all cases of painful teething is remarkably simple, and consists in keeping the body cool by mild aperient medicines, allaying the irritation in the gums by friction with a rough ivory ring or a stale crust of broad, and when the head, lungs, or any organ is overloaded or unduly excited, to use the hot bath, and by throwing the body into a perspiration, equalize the circulation, and relieve the system from the danger of a fatal termination. ”

“ Cold sponging to the head is good, and quiet and darkness are essential. Some times teething fits go on increasing in frequency and severity until they merge into epilepsy, and the dog is lost. This is occasionally caused by allowing a very young, highly nervous, and excitable dog to be with others of the opposite sex, when these should be in seclusion.
Fits, very much like mild teething fits, are not uncommon in run-down dogs suffering from anæmia and the likely corollary, worms. ”

“ CUTTING OF TEETH. Great care is required in feeding young children during the time of teething. They often cry as if disgusted with food, when it is chiefly owing to the pain occasioned by the edge of a silver or metal spoon pressing on their tender gums. ”

“ In the severe form a medical man should be consulted early, as more energetic remedies will be demanded; that is to say, the gums will require to be freely lanced, warm baths to be used, and medicines to be given, to ward off mischief from the head, from the chest, and from the stomach.
If you are living in the town and your baby suffers much from teething, take him into the country. It is wonderful what change of air to the country will often do, in relieving a child, who is painfully cutting his teeth. The number of deaths in London from teething is frightful ”

“ There will be emptiness if a continual nibbling is allowed, with the smallest chance of ever getting a substantial meal. Usually, in the diarrhœa of teething, there is great thirst, which may best be abated by giving plentifully of thin, cool 99gum-arabic water, no sugar. It is this everlasting sugar sweetening that creates fermentation at such times. It is the over-indulgence in objectionable food that causes much of the bowel complaint in teething, rather than the teething itself. ”

“ The testimony of physicians who have specialized in the care and feeding of children, and of mothers who have raised normal babies, proves that both teething and weaning are normal and gradual operations which do not seriously disturb the child’s health, if the digestion is in good condition. ”

“ If the child is kept in all-round good condition, teething is merely a part of its all-round development, no more troublesome than the growth of the hair on the head, or the nails on the fingers. To the healthy child, the cutting of each successive tooth may bring a trifling irritability, restlessness or wakefulness for a few nights, and drooling. The baby may even suffer from loss of appetite, a very slight fever, light vomiting, or streaks of undigested food in the stools; but these symptoms will last only a few days and the baby will recuperate rapidly. ”

“ Doctors take too much responsibility upon themselves, when they so readily part husbands and wives. It has often been the cause of greater trouble than is to be feared from the climate. It should be remembered that teething is not a disease, but a natural process, which might be influenced by the digestion in any part of the globe. Poor India gets all the blame!—even when an ayah is careless with the feeding bottles. ”

“ Nothing is more uncertain than the order of teething. A child seldom cuts his second grinders until after he is two years old. He is usually, from the time they first appear, two years in cutting his first set of teeth. As a rule, therefore, a child of two years old has sixteen, and one of two years and a half old, twenty teeth.
60. If an infant be either feverish or irritable, or otherwise poorly, and if the gums be hot, swollen, and tender, are you an advocate for their being lanced? ”

“ He made the observation that in healthy infants, children of healthy parents and nursed by healthy women, the time of teething is gotten over without difficulty, while serious accidents occur frequently in weak and sickly children not brought up and nourished according to hygienic principles, or born, as not often happens, with special hereditary predispositions. ”

“ It is a mistake to dread the teething period and to feel that the baby is sure to be sick. Sickness at this time usually attributed to teething is more apt to be due to faulty feeding or to some other condition, and the family physician should be consulted at once.
Diet. Good teeth in a baby depend largely on his diet. During the first few months of his life, in addition to milk he should be given fruit juice and meat juice (see Appendix B) . As his teeth develop he should be given food that requires chewing; this is necessary to keep the teeth and muscles of the jaw strong and healthy. ”

“ When a babe is born with teeth, they generally drop out. On the other hand, teething, in some children does not commence until they are a year and a half or two years old, and, in rare cases, not until they are three years old. There are cases recorded of adults who have never cut any teeth. ”

“ Convulsions are never the symptoms of teething. Consult a physician at once, as such seizures probably spring from causes other than teething.
Cleansing of the teeth should be carried out systematically every morning by means of a piece of cotton which has been dipped in a boric-acid solution or a solution of bicarbonate of soda (common baking soda) . A soft brush may be used for cleansing, and when there are particles of food between the teeth they should be removed by strands of waxed floss.
Throughout life, frequent visits should be made to the dentist ”

“ All cavities should be filled with a soft filling. The milk teeth should not decay, but should fall out, or be forced out by the second set. A child should be taught to gargle early and a mouth wash should be used morning and night.
Dentition.—As a general rule the process of teething is accompanied by some symptoms. There may be fever, restlessness, and loss of appetite; though in many cases there are absolutely no symptoms. Some children seem to teethe hard, others easily. The same child may have some teeth without pain, and with others it may suffer severely. ”

“ The child is at one time restless and irritable, and at another heavy and oppressed: the sleep will be broken, and the infant frequently awake suddenly and in alarm from its short slumbers. Such are the chief symptoms of difficult teething, and which will be present to a greater or less degree. ”

“ The physiological stimulus of the erupting tooth is capable of causing a painful irritation of the gum, so that the child is said to suffer from teething, accompanied, it may be, and the association is significant, by "teething convulsions." The irritation of the urine produces rawness and excoriation of the skin of the prepuce, contact with intestinal contents not in themselves very abnormal, an intractable dermatitis of the buttocks or a persistent diarrhoea and enteral catarrh. ”

“ Various native berries had restorative and preventive properties when strung as a necklace. Uglier decorations were those recommended by Josselyn to New England parents, strings of fawn's teeth or wolf's fangs, a sure promoter of easy teething. He also advised scratching the child's gums with an osprey bone. Children died, however, in spite of these varied charms and doses, in vast numbers while teething.
Mayflower Cradle, owned by the Pilgrim William White
There were some feeble expressions of revolt against the horrible doses of the day. ”

“ Though teething is a natural function, and to an infant in perfect health should be unproductive of pain, yet in general it is not only a fertile cause of suffering, but often a source of alarm and danger; the former, from irritation in the stomach and bowels, deranging the whole economy of the system, and the latter, from coma and fits, that may excite alarm in severe cases; and the danger, that eventuates in some instances, from organic disease of the head or spinal marrow. ”

“ Young mothers whose children are cutting their teeth will be glad to hear that by burning the tooth of a horse, grinding it to ashes, mixing it with the infant's saliva, and then rubbing it on the gums, the pain may be greatly moderated and the process of teething materially assisted. ”

“ FIFTHLY, OF CONVULSIONS.—If they should occur, and they are not unfrequently excited by difficult teething, and then give great alarm to the parent, relief will be afforded by immersing the hips, legs, and feet of the infant in water as warm as can be borne, and at the same time applying over the head and temples a piece of flannel wet with cold water. I have also often cut the fit short by sprinkling cold water in the child's face while in the bath. The gums should always be looked to, and if they appear swollen, and painful, at once lanced. ”

“ The time of teething is looked forward to by most mothers with undisguised apprehension, nurses attribute to it the most varied forms of constitutional disturbance, and doctors constantly hold forth to anxious parents the expectation that their child will have better health when it has cut all its teeth. ”

“ That, if the parent is able to support her infant upon the breast alone, teething will be found comparatively an easy process, and unattended with danger; the mother thus reaping a delightful reward for all the anxieties and privations nursing necessarily involves. That the child brought up partially, or entirely, by hand will always pass through dentition with more or less of pain and difficulty; but that even here, if the diet has been properly regulated, much less suffering and inconvenience will arise than when less attention has been paid to it. ”

“ It is in general impossible to assign any distinct exciting cause for the affection, though the fact that in two-thirds of the cases it occurs between the ages of six months and three years, proves it to be in some way intimately associated with teething. The oldest child in whom I have ever seen it was aged between seven and eight years, and the youngest a little under six months. It is of excessive rarity for the arm alone to be affected, but it is by no means unusual for the legs alone to be paralysed ”