CHAFING.--One of the best remedies is powdered lycopodium; apply it every time the babe is cleaned; but first wash with pure castile soap; Pears" soap is also good. A preparation of oxide of zinc is also highly recommended. Chafing sometimes results from an acid condition of the stomach; in that case give a few doses of castoria.
COLIC.--If an infant is seriously troubled with colic, there is nothing better than camomile or catnip tea. Procure the leaves and make tea and give it as warm as the babe can bear.
FEEDING INFANTS.
1. The best food for infants is mother"s milk; next best is cow"s milk. Cow"s milk contains about three times as much curd and one-half as much sugar, and it should be reduced with two parts of water.
2. In feeding cow"s milk there is too little cream and too little sugar, and there is no doubt no better preparation than Mellin"s food to mix it with (according to directions).
3. Children being fed on food lacking fat generally have their teeth come late; their muscles will be flabby and bones soft. Children will be too fat when their food contains too much sugar. Sugar always makes their flesh soft and flabby.
4. During the first two months the baby should be fed every two hours during the day, and two or three times during the night, but no more.
Ten or eleven feedings for twenty-four hours are all a child will bear and remain healthy. At three months the child may be fed every three hours instead of every two.
5. Children can be taught regular habits by being fed and put to sleep at the same time every day and evening. Nervous diseases are caused by irregular hours of sleep and diet, and the use of soothing medicines.
6. A child five or six months old should not be fed during the night from nine in the evening until six or seven in the morning, as overfeeding causes most of the wakefulness and nervousness of children during the night.
7. If a child vomits soon after taking the bottle, and there is an appearance of undigested food in the stool, it is a sign of overfeeding. If a large part of the bottle has been vomited, avoid the next bottle at regular time and pa.s.s over one bottle. If the child is nursing the same principles apply.
8. If a child empties its bottle and sucks vigorously its fingers after the bottle is emptied, it is very evident that the child is not fed enough, and should have its food gradually increased.
9. Give the baby a little cold water several times a day.
INFANTILE CONVULSIONS.
DEFINITION.--An infantile convulsion corresponds to a chill in an adult, and is the most common brain affection among children.
CAUSES.--Anything that irritates the nervous system may cause convulsions in the child, as teething, indigestible food, worms, dropsy of the brain, hereditary const.i.tution, or they may be the accompanying symptom in nearly all the acute diseases of children, or when the eruption is suppressed in eruptive diseases.
SYMPTOMS.--In case of convulsions of a child parents usually become frightened, and very rarely do the things that should be done in order to afford relief. The child, previous to the fit, is usually irritable, and the twitching of the muscles of the face may be noticed, or it may come on suddenly without warning. The child becomes insensible, clenches its hands tightly, lips turn blue, and the eyes become fixed, usually frothing from the mouth with head turned back.
The convulsion generally lasts two or three minutes; sometimes, however, as long as ten or fifteen minutes, but rarely.
REMEDY.--Give the child a warm bath and rub gently. Clothes wrung out of cold water and applied to the lower and back part of the head and plenty of fresh air will usually relieve the convulsion. Be sure and loosen the clothing around the child"s neck. After the convulsion is over, give the child a few doses of pota.s.sic bromide, and an injection of castor oil if the abdomen is swollen. Pota.s.sic bromide should be kept in the house, to use in case of necessity.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration: POOR CHILDREN FROM TENEMENT.]
PAINS AND ILLS IN NURSING.
1. SORE NIPPLES.--If a lady, during the latter few months of her pregnancy, where to adopt "means to harden the nipples," sore nipples during the period of suckling would not be so prevalent as they are.
2. CAUSE.--A sore nipple is frequently produced by the injudicious custom of allowing the child to have the nipple almost constantly in his mouth. Another frequent cause of a sore nipple is from the babe having the canker. Another cause of a sore nipple is from the mother, after the babe has been sucking, putting up the nipple wet. She, therefore, ought always to dry the nipple, not by rubbing, but by dabbing it with a soft cambric or lawn handkerchief, or with a piece of soft linen rag one or the other of which ought always to be at hand every time directly after the child has done sucking, and just before applying any of the following powders or lotions to the nipple.
3. REMEDIES.--One of the best remedies for a sore nipple is the following powder:
Take of Borax, one drachm; Powdered Starch, seven drachms.
Mix. A pinch of the powder to be frequently applied to the nipple.
If the above does not cure, try Glycerine by applying it each time after nursing.
4. GATHERED BREAST.--A healthy woman with a well-developed breast and a good nipple, scarcely, if ever, has a gathered bosom; it is the delicate, the ill-developed breasted and worse-developed nippled lady who usually suffers from this painful complaint. And why? The evil can generally be traced to girlhood. If she be brought up luxuriously, her health and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s are sure to be weakened, and thus to suffer, more especially if the development of the bosoms and nipples has been arrested and interfered with by tight stays and corsets. Why, the nipple is by them drawn in, and retained on the level with the breast countersunk as though it were of no consequence to her future well-being, as though it were a thing of nought.
5. TIGHT LACERS.--Tight lacers will have to pay the penalties of which they little dream. Oh, the monstrous folly of such proceedings! When will mothers awake from their lethargy? It is high time that they did so! From the mother having "no nipple," the effects of tight lacing, many a home has been made childless, the babe not being able to procure its proper nourishment, and dying in consequence! It is a frightful state of things! But fashion, unfortunately, blinds the eyes and deafens the ears of its votaries!
6. BAD BREAST.--A gathered bosom, or "bad breast," as it is sometimes called, is more likely to occur after a first confinement and during the first month. Great care, therefore, ought to be taken to avoid such a misfortune. A gathered breast is frequently owing to the carelessness of a mother in not covering her bosoms during the time she is suckling. Too much attention cannot be paid to keeping the b.r.e.a.s.t.s comfortably warm. This, during the act of nursing, should be done by throwing either a shawl or a square of flannel over the neck, shoulders, and bosoms.
7. ANOTHER CAUSE.--Another cause of gathered b.r.e.a.s.t.s arises from a mother sitting up in bed to suckle her babe. He ought to be accustomed to take the bosom while she is lying down; if this habit is not at first inst.i.tuted, it will be difficult to adopt it afterwards. Good habits may be taught a child from earliest babyhood.
8. FAINTNESS.--When a nursing mother feels faint, she ought immediately to lie down and take a little nourishment; a cup of tea with the yolk of an egg beaten up in it, or a cup of warm milk, or some beef-tea, any of which will answer the purpose extremely well. Brandy, or any other spirit we would not recommend, as it would only cause, as soon as the immediate effects of the stimulant had gone off, a greater depression to ensue; not only so, but the frequent taking of brandy might become a habit a necessity which would be a calamity deeply to be deplored!
9. STRONG PURGATIVES.--Strong purgatives during this period are highly improper, as they are apt to give pain to the infant, as well as to injure the mother. If it be absolutely necessary to give physic, the mildest, such as a dose of castor oil, should be chosen.
10. HABITUALLY COSTIVE.--When a lady who is nursing is habitually costive, she ought to eat brown instead of white bread. This will, in the majority of cases, enable her to do without an aperient. The brown bread may be made with flour finely ground all one way; or by mixing one part of bran and three parts of fine wheaten flour together, and then making it in the usual way into bread. Treacle instead of b.u.t.ter, on the brown bread increases its efficacy as an aperient; and raw should be subst.i.tuted for lump sugar in her tea.
11. TO PREVENT CONSTIPATION.--Stewed prunes, or stewed French plums, or stewed Normandy pippins, are excellent remedies to prevent constipation. The patient ought to eat, every morning, a dozen or fifteen of them. The best way to stew either prunes or French plums, is the following: Put a pound of either prunes or French plums, and two tablespoonfuls of raw sugar, into a brown jar; cover them with water; put them into a slow oven, and stew them for three or four hours. Both stewed rhubarb and stewed pears often act as mild and gentle aperients. Muscatel raisins, eaten at dessert, will oftentimes without medicine relieve the bowels.
12. COLD WATER--A tumblerful of cold water, taken early every morning, sometimes effectually relieves the bowels; indeed, few people know the value of cold water as an aperient it is one of the best we possess, and, unlike drug aperients, can never by any possibility do any harm.
An injection of warm water is one of the best ways to relieve the bowels.
13. WELL-COOKED VEGETABLES.--Although a nursing mother ought, more especially if she be costive, to take a variety of well-cooked vegetables, such as potatoes, asparagus, cauliflower, French beans, spinach, stewed celery and turnips; she should avoid eating greens, cabbages, and pickles, as they would be likely to affect the babe, and might cause him to suffer from gripings, from pain, and "looseness" of the bowels.
14. SUPERSEDE THE NECESSITY OF TAKING PHYSIC.--Let me again--for it cannot be too urgently insisted upon--strongly advise a nursing mother to use every means in the way of diet, etc., to supersede the necessity of taking physic (opening medicine), as the repet.i.tion of aperients injures, and that severely, both herself and child.
Moreover, the more opening medicine she swallows, the more she requires; so that if she once gets into the habit of regularly taking physic, the bowels will not act without them. What a miserable existence to be always swallowing physic!
[Ill.u.s.tration: HEALTHY YOUTH AND RIPE OLD AGE.]
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