y that gives us trouble, and it is sometimes
difficult to find the cause for such trouble in a baby who has had
nothing but its mother's milk since it was born.
The cause of stomach trouble in a baby a few days old, fed exclusively
on mother's milk, is invariably to be found in the quality of the milk.
The quality of the mother's milk may be affected in a number of ways
which will render it unfit for the baby. For example, if the mother for
any reason becomes sick, and has a high fever shortly after confinement,
it will affect her milk and render it unfit temporarily.
If the mother worries or becomes highly nervous during the first few
days of her baby's life, she will so affect her milk as to render it
unfit for baby. If a baby is fed for a number of days after its birth by
its mother, and it should prove afterward that she has not enough milk
to continue feeding it, and has finally to put it on artificial food,
the baby will most likely have acquired slight stomach ailments that may
be troublesome for some time, because in this case both the quality and
the quantity were no doubt wrong. Constipation in the mother will also
cause trouble. The child will develop colic and extreme irritability
until the mother's condition is relieved.
Each of these conditions affecting the milk of the nursing mother
usually demands a change of food for the baby, and the substitution of
the proper artificial food will invariably immediately correct the
trouble. In some cases, however, the quality of the mother's milk is not
dependent upon a temporary temperamental condition, but is caused by
errors in diet, or conduct, or both. The milk of a physically tired,
worn-out mother, is not good, no matter whether the exhaustion is caused
by actual physical labor or by the exactions of a strenuous social
programme. The milk of a mother who persists in eating irregularly, or
who willfully caters to an appetite which craves the rich, highly
seasoned articles of diet, or who attempts to satisfy a legitimate
hunger by drinking large quantities of stale tea or coffee and eating
bread, is unfit for her baby.
These cases are amenable to the proper treatment, which of course means,
that the mother must change her conduct if at fault, and live strictly
upon the diet prescribed elsewhere for nursing mothers.
If these troubles occur in babies who have been fed exclusively upon
artificial food, an entire change of food is frequently necessary.
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