The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1910-04-30
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two years New York's outdoor babies have
ceived 100000 little garments and inside the poor
mothers and babies have been equally well sup
piled.
How many buttons do you suppose need to
be sewed on? Here is charity one can dis
pute-sewing for the babies. Sisters and nurses
only look after their health and happiness
Deserted babies can count on friends, If other
things in life have failed them. Hundreds of rich
society women in New York, who have seam
stresses to sew for their own children, work for
the Founding babies. Sewing classes meet in
private homes, their sole purpose devoted to the
wants of the hospitals children Twelve hundred
little garments were the gift of a single class.
The babies have everyday clothes and dressup
clothes when visitors come, like the rest of the
world. The churches also have sewing circles
devoted to the trousseaus of the deserted babies.
Money for materials for their clothes comes from
women who find this the simplest way of helping
with such extensive wardrobes. Occasionally a
shop will send something to help clothe a baby.
New York gives quarter of million dollars
year to look after her founding babies and
forty thousand more is contributed The Found
ling hospital extends from one end Of long block
to the other, and besides its nursery buildings
has quarantine hospital and hospital for oper-
atfons and for the treatment or ordinary diseases.
The Founding hospital must not only care for
the waits deserted at its doors, but also for the
babies sent by the department of charities the
Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children and
the courts.
There are three groups Of babies from the
few weeks old to those three or four years and
they have their separate quarters; the runabouts
are the children from IL months to two years
old; and the grown-up babies, as old three or
four, the kindergarten children The recep-
ton room is the schoolroom-a long room full of
nv Slc 4ba lie linz mic
lures and corners piled with splendid TOYS, In
the middle of the room is a parrot IN goId cage
who talks and sings like the children.
The founding babies who are brought up in
side the institution know nothing of the perils
and joys of the street. In connection with each
of the nurseries there is roof garden, where the
children take their air and exercise. The Found
ling baby has scientific bringing up that may
give it a better chance for health than the home
baby reared in affectionate ignorance Doctors
nurses and matrons study its life from hour to
hour The most vital principle in modern thought
is the effort that is being made in every direction
to start the child the right way
With all its wealth of babies to care for. the
Founding hospital does more for the baby's
health than the average mother. AS each child
is received at the hospital its weight is regis
tered, together with the name and number of the
baby, on weight chart The weekly weighing
of all babies is an established feature of the hos
babies as Of utmost Importance in the proper care
of babys health. The sick baby is Judged by
its loss of weight; the well baby by its increase
Sick babies are weighed oftener-sometimes ey-
cry second day. Notes of the babys illness are
kept on the back of its weight card.
The Infants Science Academy which is now
discussed in New York city a possible way
to save the babies from the ignorance of mothers,
wishes to establish the same scientific method
for the care Of all little children that is applied
in the Founding home Each mother is to be
taught to keep chart of her babys condition
not in any special class of society-rich and poor
alike-and this chart is to be submitted weekly
to babys academy to be inspected by boards
of baby specialists.
Founding babies are always in charge of spe-
cialists Important books children's diseases
have come from the study of the unwelcome ba-
bies. Not only do the students and physicians on
the STAFF of the hospital work with the children
but nearly all the city's prominent doctors have
served the hospital as consulting attending
physicians. In special cases physicians come from
the outside to study the mysterious causes the
mysterious expressions of baby diseases, which
are borne in silence or expressed only in mar
ticuate sounds
The outdoor baby is the surplus baby. Not
always because the Founding home has no room
for IT, but because the baby often needs what
the hospital cannot give
Little babies live on love. l don't mean this
as a sentiment; / mean it as fact; tiny baby
lives on the love that cuddles it, that warns and
feeds it. To take it into the hospital without
mother means it may die. If an outside nurse
IS found to care for it, the baby often grows
healthy, strong and happy in her charge"
Women who have lost their own babies, or
respectable women who desire to earn a small
living by nursing. the foster mothers Of the