Wet nurse

“ But there are certain physical conditions which necessitate the employment of a hired wet-nurse, or weaning. If the mother belongs to a consumptive family, and is herself pale, emaciated, harassed by a cough, and exhausted by suckling, wet-nursing is eminently improper. A temporary loss of strength under other circumstances should not induce a mother at once to wean her child; for it is often possible, by the judicious use of tonics, nourishing food, and stimulants, to entirely restore the health with the child at the breast. ”

“ The treatment of the condition of system described as resulting from over-nursing is, if it cannot be remedied by partially feeding the infant and the use of tonics, to remove the child from the breast altogether, and either procure a wet-nurse for it, or wean it. The wet-nurse is greatly to be preferred; and the preference is the stronger, the younger the child. ”

“ The fact that it used to be the common practice of wet nurses to keep secret bottles of these dangerous syrups and to use them to a terrible extent, is notorious; and too great care cannot be taken by any employer of a wet nurse to-day to guard her child against the possibility of such ignorant or unprincipled treatment, remembering in all cases to consult a medical man for her infant, in preference to following the counsel of her nurse. ”

“ But in the case of children in a foundling hospital, it is preferable that they should be boarded out with non-resident wet-nurses, for in the present condition of medical science, the institutional care of infants is a very difficult matter to carry out with success.
But the choice of a wet-nurse involves other considerations in addition to those just stated. A woman can safely be employed in this capacity only if her own confinement has taken place some little time before. By suckling the child of another the wet-nurse deprives her own child of its natural nourishment. ”

“ If the mother, either on account of sickness or failure in her breast-milk, is obliged during the summer to give up nursing, she should at once procure a wet-nurse. If she cannot, the child must be sent into the country. To wean an infant in the city in hot weather, is to expose it to almost certain death. ”

“ To dream that you are a wet nurse, denotes that you will be widowed or have the care of the aged, or little children.
For a woman to dream that she is a wet nurse, signifies that she will depend on her own labors for sustenance. ”

“ The mate and Stitches found her, and lifting her gently, as if she were a person, from beneath the hatch, they carried her up to the poop deck to my father. She had broken both her legs and several ribs were smashed in. Father, who has always had a gentle hand with animals, carefully set her legs in splints and bound her ribs with bandages made from small pieces of canvas. Then he lay Wet Nurse in his bunk beneath my hammock. In spite of everything he could do for her, Wet Nurse died that night. She was given a regular ship’s funeral. ”

“ Such generally imagine, that a dose of medicine will make up for all defects in food, air, exercise, and cleanliness. By errors of this kind, I will venture to say, that one half the children who die annually in London lose their lives.
Allowing children to continue long wet, is another very pernicious custom of indolent nurses. This is not only disagreeable, but it galls and frets the infant, and by relaxing the solids, occasions scrophulas, rickets, and other diseases. A dirty nurse is always to be suspected. ”

“ So, also, the presence of certain diseases forbids wet-nursing. Thus it is ordinarily prohibited by consumption, scrofula, skin affections of long standing, and cancer. In consumption, all efforts to suckle are frequently equally fatal to the mother and child. Even a strong hereditary predisposition to this disease may render it advisable, in the opinion of the family physician,—who should always be consulted in such a case,—to counteract the family taint by giving the milk of the healthiest nurse that can be procured. The condition of the nipples and of the breast may not permit of nursing. ”

“ If the weather be cold, yet neither wet nor damp, he ought to be sent out, but let him be well clothed; and the nurse should have strict injunctions not to stand about entries or in any draughts—indeed, not to stand about at all, but to keep walking about all the time she is in the open air. ”

“ That it would relieve us of all external scrubbers in the Nurses’ own rooms. Each Nurse would sweep, wet-brush and dry-brush her bed-room and day-room herself, daily, would once-a-week give a little extra wash, and would wash the wooden skirting which runs along the bottom of the walls. As the bed-room must be tiny and the day-room small (it would be better if we could keep to one room, which would take a quarter of an hour daily, and the grand weekly purification not more than one hour, even to a slow performer) a short time daily and a moderate time weekly will do it. ”

“ Nothing more is requisite for their avoidance than strict observance of the rules of modern hospital hygiene, with individualisation in all departments, and especially in the matter of diet, which should whenever possible be carried out through the instrumentality of wet-nurses. Since wet-nurses of the best quality are difficult to obtain in sufficient numbers, it is best that the hospital for infants should be associated with a lying-in hospital. ”

“ If a child is not suckled by its own mother, it is either suckled by another woman, or else artificially fed; and the child may either remain in its maternal home, or it may be sent to be reared elsewhere. If the infant is sent elsewhere, either its relatives or some benevolent society may arrange for its care. Wet-nurses are thus resident or non-resident. In foundling hospitals, those wet-nurses who give suck to children in the institution are known as resident wet-nurses. ”

“ It is only because the thralldom will not last forever that it is tolerated. The wet-nurses obtain their positions through agencies which exist in the large cities and through advertisements. The necessity for a thorough investigation of the health and status of the applicant for such a position by the family physician is imperative, and in recommending one he takes upon himself a grave responsibility. ”

“ Wet nurses are almost unknown, and are only employed in cases of death or great debility. The care of attending upon the mother devolves upon the female relatives; but the women in my country are usually so strong and robust that little attention is required. ”

“ A surprising amount of water may be given to the sleeping or unconscious patient by dropping it into her mouth from the point of a teaspoon, taking care to give it only at those moments when she is lying quite still. If the nurse attempts to hold the restless patient’s head, or so much as places her hand upon the chin to steady it in order to give water, the irritation, though slight, may be enough to cause a return of the tossing and struggling. ”

“ Cleanliness and fresh air from open windows with unremitting attention to the patient, are the only defence a true nurse either needs or asks.”
“The very first canon of nursing, the first and the last thing upon which a nurse’s attention must be fixed, the first essential to a patient, without which all the rest you can do for him is as nothing, with which I had almost said you may leave all the rest alone, is this: To keep the air he breathes as pure as the external air, without chilling him.” ”

“ A bath-room attached to it will be of great importance and benefit to the health of a child.
It will be advantageous to have a water-closet near at hand, which should be well supplied with water, be well drained, and be well ventilated. If this be not practicable, the evacuations ought to be removed as soon as they are passed. It is a filthy and an idle habit of a nurse-maid to allow a motion to remain for any length of time in the room.
The VENTILATION of a nursery is of paramount importance. There ought to be a constant supply of fresh pure air in the apartment. ”

“ During the warmest part of the day, however, he will often be much better off and more comfortable in the house, in a room with the shutters closed. But while keeping the baby cool, the nurse must bear in mind the harm that will be done by chilling him or exposing him to a cold draft or wind. Several tub baths, daily, are often given, at a temperature of 100° F., rather than cool sponge baths because of the baby’s feebleness and inability to react to cool bathing. ”

“ The warmth and vital influences of the nurse are very important, and make this mode of exercise both more soothing and more efficacious, especially in the open air, the infant being warmly clad.
In case of feverishness from teething or from any other cause, wrap the infant in a towel wrung out in tepid water and then wrap it in a woolen blanket. The water may be cooler according as the child is older and stronger. The evaporation of the water draws off the heat, while the moisture soothes the nerves, and usually the child will fall into a quiet sleep. ”

“ A strange washerwoman, coming late at night for the "things," will burst in by mistake to the patient's sick-room, after he has fallen into his first doze, giving him a shock, the effects of which are irremediable, though he himself laughs at the cause, and probably never even mentions it. The nurse who is, and is quite right to be, at her supper, has not provided that the washerwoman shall not lose her way and go into the wrong room. ”

“ At your side, on the floor, have a small blanket ready to lay over the rubber apron when needed. Put your baby basket where you can reach it, be sure that it contains all the things you will need—sponge, soap, powder, pins, vaseline, etc., and an extra diaper or two. Now get the tub (tin) and pour in the water until it is about four inches deep. Have the water no warmer than 100 degrees F. Bath thermometers are made that are quite cheap, and a great convenience; one should always be at hand, as no nurse should ever trust her feelings as to whether the water is hot enough or not. ”

“ In the first place, all effective care given to a consumptive has to include nursing as well as teaching. Now, one can “educate” in a woollen dress, but one certainly cannot give bed-baths in anything but a cotton dress, which can be plunged into a tub and washed. And whether she enters the home to give a bed-bath, or whether she goes in merely to distribute prophylactic supplies, the 30fact remains that a nurse spends some eight hours a day in contact with an infectious disease. Good technique demands that she be dressed in washable material. ”

“ But a careless nurse, be her rank and education what it may, will stop up every cranny and keep a hot-house heat when her patient is in bed, — and, if he is able to get up, leave him comparatively unprotected. The time when people take cold (and there are many ways of taking cold, besides a cold in the nose,) is when they first get up after the two-fold exhaustion of dressing and of having had the skin relaxed by many hours, perhaps days, in bed, and thereby rendered more incapable of reaction. Then the same temperature which refreshes the patient in bed may destroy the patient just risen. ”

“ The surgical nurse must be ever on the watch, ever on her guard, against want of cleanliness, foul air, want of light, and of warmth.
Nevertheless let no one think that because sanitary nursing is the subject of these notes, therefore, what may be called the handicraft of nursing is to be undervalued. A patient may be left to bleed to death in a sanitary palace. Another who cannot move himself may die of bed-sores, because the nurse does not know how to change and clean him, while he has every requisite of air, light, and quiet. ”

“ The nurse, accustomed to drink her tea and her beer at all hours, does not, herself patronize cold water, and she never imagines the child needs it. Many a baby, after being tortured for hours with a feverish, consuming thirst, passes into the doctor’s hands before the trouble is recognized. But if the child’s own mother had been nursing it she would not have been long in finding out the cause of its impatient, urgent fretfulness. ”

“ Some obstetricians feel that it is as important to increase the excretions of the skin as of the kidneys, and that inability to induce perspiration is an unfavorable sign. Others, who disagree on this point, believe that the skin is of minor importance but that the bowels are of equal consequence with the kidneys. However, the nurse will do no harm, and will err on the safe side if she takes care to keep her patient warm and constantly protects her from being chilled, that is from exposure or changes in the temperature of her surroundings. ”

“ Always test any water to be used for the sick or the delicate with a thermometer. Another point a nurse should be most careful about, is to be careful that her hands are warm before she takes the baby, as her cold hands on his warm flesh will surely make him scream.
All being now ready, take the baby and sit down with him, spreading the blanket over your knees as you do so, and having the tub just in front of you on another chair. The sponge is best to use for the washing, but a piece of old table damask is very good. Wash the eyes very carefully first, then the face, and dry on the towel. ”

“ One thing I am worried about is that a big tank I had especially asked to have, in which we might boil all the typhoid linen, has been broken on the way, and I don't think I shall be able to get another. We are establishing a place for the washerwomen behind the hospital, on a slope where their water will run away from our direction; I should like to have had a separate place for the staff's washing, but cannot manage it, so must be contented with keeping special women and special tubs, &c., for it.
The men are really working very well now, and it is hard work they have to do ”