THE WASTE OF LIFE 189 



is the lack of maternal nursing. It has been estimated that as many 

 as 70 per cent, of the infants in New York City are bottle-fed, and 

 therefore have only about one tenth the chance for life of the breast-fed 

 child. Some of these mothers are physically unable to nurse their 

 babies, by reason of ill-health, overwork and under-nourishment ; but 

 many more could do so if they sufficiently realized the importance of 

 the service. 



A third leading cause, operating, of course, among bottle-fed babies 

 and after weaning, is the use of impure milk. Bad air, flies and all 

 other unhealthful conditions naturally affect the babies more quickly 

 than the adult population; yet experts agree that the health of the 

 mother, her successful nursing of her child for several months, at least, 

 and failing this, a supply of clean, sterile cows' milk, are factors of 

 first importance. 



To sum up, we find that from one sixth to one tenth of American 

 babies die before they are one year old, and that more than half of these, 

 perhaps nearly all of them, perish because of maternal ignorance or care- 

 lessness, or, more fundamentally, because of unjust social conditions 

 and laws which fail to protect the makers of the new generation. It 

 is full time that the mothers of America were roused to a sense of 

 their grievous, their criminal neglect. 



The Mother's First Duty 



First of all, there ought to be an active propaganda among women 

 concerning the importance of maternal nursing. Such a movement is 

 needed most in the so-called educated class, since it is estimated that 

 60 per cent, of well-to-do women employ artificial feeding, and only 

 about 20 per cent, among the poor. The causes underlying the decline 

 of the American family, such as inordinate love of ease and pleasure, 

 the entrance of women into industrial and professional life, and certain 

 diseases of over-civilization, are doubtless responsible for much of this 

 deterioration in the quality of our motherhood. Yet the convenience 

 and attractive appearance of the various widely advertised baby-foods, 

 and the common use of the obnoxious nursing-bottle, have blinded 

 many mothers to the truth, and not a few allow themselves to be per- 

 suaded by meddlesome friends or pretty pictures that this is the modern, 

 sanitary way of bringing up children ! 



Let every young wife be told bluntly that the woman who fails to 

 nurse her child is but half a mother, and that she deprives herself of 

 one of the sweetest pleasures in life, while robbing her little one of its 

 birthright and enormously reducing its chances of survival, and its 

 vigor if it lives. Tell her that artificial feeding is ten times more 

 troublesome and inconvenient than natural feeding ; and that the bottle- 

 fed child, though fat and apparently well-nourished, is far more likely 



