Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-03-17
Your Baby and Mine
BY MYRTLE MEYER ELDRED.

No matter how enthusiastically one
talks of various infant foods, no mat
ter how perfect are the babies reared
with them, no one for a moment COM
pares them with mothers milk.
If mothers cannot nurse their ba-
bies, then one must, Of course. try to
find the food most nearly like it to
replace 1t. But mothers milk Is still
the perfect food for the child.
| Mothers milk contains the anti
bodies which make it far less likely
| that a child will contract a disease.
! Nursing babies are in a measure
immune to contagious diseases. This
doesn't mean that you can take them
into direct contact with disease and
| they won't get it, but it means that
| they are less likely than the baby
who is fed on the bottle.
We have gotten to a stage when
bottle feeding is no longer surrounded
| by the dangers of some years ago.
| Now we are going to the opposite ex-
| IRENE.
Because bottle feeding is successful
we are beginning to feel that it isn't
! necessary for mother to try to breast
| feed her baby; that the minute he cries
with collie and becomes fussy and
sleepless she should change to bottle
feeding.
This is all wrong. 1t may take
some time for the mother to adjust
her own milk to the needs of the
child, and temporarily she may have
to piece" out with a bottle, but If
she persists and holds in mind all the
advantages Of breast feeding. in most
cases she will be successful.
1t is true that some small percent
age of mothers cannot breast feed
their children. Sometimes the milk is
far too rich, and this is n condition
that may so upset the baby that he is
actually i'll. Or the milk-what there
is of it-may be good and yet there
be too small an amount to satisfy the
child.
The breast milk can then be supple
mented by feelings of cows milk. and
the child will get the benefit of the
mothers milk and enough more food
to make a satisfactory gain.
The appearance of a mothers milk
is no criterion of it's strength, as 1t
does not look like cows milk, but is
very thin and watery. This frightens
some mothers, who think 1t should
look as cows milk does.
Worry and nervousness, shocks and
illness will temporarily affect the milk.
but this does not necessarily mean
weaving. The baby can be given re-
lief bottles until the mother has recov-
cred. 1t is possible for the mother to
bring back" her milk even after a
period Of non-nursing.
The prime essential Of successful
feeding is to nurse the baby at regu-
lar periods, and try to strip" each
breast, as the richer milk comes last.
If the breast is stripped. the supnN
will grow better, for milk left in the
breast Is reabsorbed, and soon the
breast will begin to secrete less mix.
1t doesn't stay there, as some mothers
think. to be used the next time and
increase the next feeding.
That is, this does not happen Tor
long, for as nature finds no use for
1t. she ceases to replenish the breasts
Otherwise, how would babies ever
be weaned? 1t is just because or this
fact that when a child ceases to nurse
the breasts are dried up. and this
happens also when a mother tries TO
s'saye" the milk instead Of making use
of every drop at each nursing.