Notes on the Care of Premature Infants. Read before the Section on Pediatrics, Medical Society of the County of Kings, January 24, 1912. The activity in such infants is of necessity very feeble, and very special care is required to raise them. Any child weighing four pounds or under must be considered to be either premature or congenitally feeble, but the exact determination of its age will be uncertain except in so far as its weight and activity are indications. Especially feeble are the lungs and organs of digestion.
Heat loss is so rapid that it is often impossible to maintain the normal body temperature.
In the matter of the food supply it may be stated that it is essential to have breast milk. One has only to remember the difficulties of adapting artificial food to the normal infant during the early weeks of life to realize the practical impossibility of such adaptation in a premature infant. This latter difficulty may be overcome by obtaining breast milk from the excess supply in a maternity ward, or by taking part of the milk from a wet nurse who is at the same time nursing her own child. Any attempt to obtain a supply by pumping the mother's breast soon fails because of the almost certain cessation of milk secretion in such cases. In order to maintain proper heat, greatest success may be had with the ordinary homemade padded crib or box, to the four sides of which hot water bags may be hung, with an additional one under the baby if necessary.