The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-07-26
SAVING THE BABIES
CssAfsTTr WORKERS FIGHT INFANT MORTALITY BY EDUCAION.
Campaign to Teach Value of Pure Food, Atr and Bathing--Cured Babies Advertise the Results to
 Parents.

| New York. July 25--(Speciai. )-with | hundreds of mothers feeding tiny vba- l bies watermelon. cucumbers. and green bananas, or else regarding water and | fresh air as fatal to infants, with thousands of baby bottles filled with milk which. even if once good, has be- come bacteria-tainted by being left around in a hot kitchen, and baby death rate of one out of fifteen babies under year old, the charity workers l of New York have come to the con clusion that something radical must 1 be done to save the children from thr, ignorance Of their parents.
 As result, many of the leading charity organizations of the metropo- lis have entered upon a great campaign of parent education. The campaign. is If two sorts, practical demonstration and careful training, for 1t has been fouud that no matter how much you talk to some mothers, and no matter how sincere their promise not to give the baby highly colored penny soda water, the baby is allowed to continue in tn Is course Of diet, which, at the first spell, leads to hurry call for the re-. lief society to rush the baby down to some seaside home where a trained nurse is boss of the feeding department. Even at some of these seaside homes. a strict watch has to be kept on the mothers, for many get the idea that a six months old baby. who is being given simply pure milk modified with barley water or other foods, Is being starved. and. at the first chance, snug gle in bad fruit or some other out rageous edible, and the nurse comes to the crib to find that a long battle against summer complaint has been lost by one mouthful of solid food.
 It is, not only the tenement mothers who are hygienic offenders. however, Many plysicians report that apparently Intelligent mothers. wh en asked about the baby, say with pride. "tIe's fine. He eats everything we have at table" The wonder is, the doctors Say. not that one in fifteen dies before a first birthday, but that so many don't die. But of those who live, a sad percent age grow up with wrecked little coh- stitutions and never become the strong, healthy adults the nation needs for it's work. Later, these find their way to. tuberculosis hospitals, or because Of physical weakness and the permanent results of mistreatment. either never can complete the public school course. or else grow up with misshapen bones, the sequence of babyhood Tickets. So the charity people are giving dem onstrations. First, they catch the sick baby and fix things so that the mother
 
 They wash the baby put him clean and sweet out in the air without bundlIag him up in arctic wrappings. feed him only on pure, modified milk, unless his mother can nurse him, and the after taking" picture makes the convert. The haby who was puny and fretfuI becomes a laughing, bouncing young ster. and helps nightly to convert the whole neighborhood to sanitary meth ods..
 There Is but one thing that they are cranks about. They do not reconn- mend any measures impossible for a tenement or beyond It's means. But they are cranks about breast feeding" and the mother who tries to escape this obligation has a merry time of 1t with the nurses and physcians. Far science frankly admits that it can find no sub stitute as safe and as good for the little chaps as mothers milk.
 But they do not leave everything to education. Let baby set very sick. and there Is a lively time of 1t. They get hold of that baby. if they have to care for the whole family fin order to gain the privilege of saving the baby's life It Is not done however, with the loud ringing Of afiibulances. A dis trict doctor or nurse or visitor finds the sick baby. A telephone call from