Mother's milk is always to be preferred for infants whenever it is possible. Children who have this start in life have a far better chance for health and normal growth than those that are artificially fed. Statistics gathered by social workers and hospitals show that the death-rate among children under a year old is lower for breast-fed babies than for bottle-fed. Seven die in every one hundred the first year of breast-fed babies while there is an average of thirty in every one hundred of the bottle-fed. If our young girls of all classes could be taught how important for the health of their children is the ability to feed them properly, they would take more pains in the right training and condition of their own bodies so that they might be able in later years to perform this function.

There are certain conditions which tend towards successful nursing and others which must be carefully avoided. A nursing mother should always avoid over-fatigue, worry, and undue excitement. She should also be careful to eat only such food as is readily digestible; she should have plenty of fresh air, regular exercise, meals of wholesome, nourishing food at regular hours, and plenty of water to drink between meals. Tea and coffee are not wise foods at any time and if a nursing mother wants to have a quiet, unexcitable baby, she ought never to take them during the period she is nursing the baby. She would of course not drink any alcoholic beverages and would be a little careful about the acidity of the food that she eats. (On the whole, however, food that does not disagree with her she can be quite sure will not be likely to upset the baby.) She should be very careful not to do too hard work but it is well if she can have a pleasurable occupation and some diversion of a simple kind, avoiding excitement. She also needs plenty of sleep. If her nights are disturbed by the baby, she should plan to take a nap during the day-time when the baby is asleep. It is also important that she should have a regular schedule of hours for feeding the baby and should keep strictly to these hours whether the baby cries between times or not. This is necessary not only for the health of the baby but also for her own supply of milk, since the milk glands, like all other glands in the body, perform their function better on a regular demand.

Mother's milk best

Conditions affecting breast feeding

If a mother is so unfortunate that she cannot have the privilege of nursing her own baby, she must use some substitute for her milk. Since there is no food that is exactly like mother's milk, the only thing that can be done is to take the food the nearest like it that we have, cow's milk, and modify it by various ways in order to make it as much like mother's milk as possible. This modification is based on the chemical analysis of the two milks. Because mother's milk contains more fat and more sugar than cow's milk, it is customary usually to take the top of the bottle of milk after it has stood some hours, dilute this with boiled water to the required strength, and then add milk sugar and limewater. Milk to be modified in this way should of course be the best possible obtainable. The whole process must be done under clean conditions with utensils that are not used for any other purpose. These utensils should be carefully washed, scalded, and dried with a clean towel every day after the baby's bottles are fixed. The exact formula to be used for the baby varies with the age of the child, and with the wishes of the doctor. Mother's milk is adjusted by nature to suit the varying demands of the growing infant, while modified milk must be continually increased in strength as the child grows. Different children's specialists use different formulae for modifying milk and these can be found in such books as Dr. Holt's Care of the Baby, Dr. Kerley's Short Talks with Young Mothers, and Dr. Richard Smith's The Baby's First Two Years. If artificial feeding must be resorted to, it is well to avoid all proprietary foods, since they usually contain starch which is not easily digested by the young infant.

Modifying cow's milk

After the child is six months old, orange juice may usually be given to the infant from a spoon a half hour before the morning feeding. Barley water may be substituted for the boiled water in the bottles at the same period. The infant, at a very early stage, should be taught to take plain boiled water between feedings from a bottle even if he is breast-fed. If he is accustomed to doing this, there will be very little difficulty when it becomes necessary to wean him. For this reason also it may sometimes be well to introduce at least one bottle of milk a day along about the fourth or fifth month in order to supplement the mother's milk and to get the child accustomed to taking milk from a bottle. The mother who can nurse her baby unaided for eight months is doing very well indeed. Even if she can only do it four or five months, she has given the child a good start in life.

Other foods for infants

It is customary with doctors to-day to put the babies very early on a schedule of feeding of three-hour intervals. These may be arranged conveniently at the following hours: six, nine, twelve, three, and six. During the early months the child is also given another feeding about ten and then should go until six in the morning without any more. A child that is established on a definite schedule closely adhered to by the mother, soon becomes accustomed to it and is very easy to take care of. As the child becomes older these intervals will be found to be too close; the child will not be hungry enough to take all the food it should at each feeding. When this point is reached, which will vary with different children, somewhere about the ninth month, the schedule should be changed to a four-hour one. The feeding hours will then be six, ten, two, six, and ten. If a child is gaining steadily and sleeping well, the ten o'clock feeding at night may safely be omitted. These changes, however, should only be carried out under the advice of the physician in charge.