The Care and Feeding of Children. 803 



matter, as iron or lime, or it may lack mineral matter as a whole. 

 Anaemia, decayed teeth, or derangement of the whole system may 

 result. 



Constipation should never be allowed to continue for any length .of 

 time. The intestines should be kept free from any accumulation of waste 

 matter, as poisonous substances result which are absorbed into the blood 

 stream of the mother and interfere with her health and with that of the 

 child. A tendency toward this disorder may be overcome in most cases 

 by right regulation of the diet and proper exercise. The following 

 la.xative diet is suggested : 



Whole wheat or graham bread ; stewed prunes ; properly cooked cab- 

 bage and onions ; well-cooked oatmeal ; shredded wheat ; plenty of fruit, 

 fresh or cooked ; abundance of vegetables ; if in normal health, six or 

 eight glasses of water a day. 



To sum up, the mother's diet should contain an abundance of eggs, 

 milk, cream, well-cooked cereals, fruits and vegetables, meat in small 

 amounts ; it should be easily and completely digested ; rich foods requir- 

 ing great effort to digest them should be omitted. 



Cheerfulness is always a means toward good health. Gloo r.iness may 

 be the result of digestive disturbances but it mav also cause them. 

 Melancholia interferes with the mother's digestion and general assimila- 

 tion of food. This may affect the composition of her blood and thus 

 disturb the nutrition of the child whose food reaches it indirectly from 

 her blood vessels. The same result may occur during the nursing period 

 and many a grieved or angry mother has seen the ill eft'ect of such emo- 

 tion in a lessened or changed supply of milk. 



The old idea that melancholy at this time perpetuated itself in the 

 disposition of the child, thus marking it for its lifetime, has been proved 

 untrue. Gloom does cause malnutrition and a poorly nourished mother 

 may produce a sickly child. A sickly child is a suffering one, and may 

 it not be allowed to be melancholy under such conditions without any 

 mysterious prenatal influence? Gradually we are forsaking some of our 

 former beliefs concerning this same prenatal influence. We know nov/ 

 that birth luarks are not due merely to a state of mind in the mother, but 

 to a condition of body, to some interference with nutrition, to some 

 diseases or inherited condition of the germ, to some blow sustained by 

 the mother which has affected the growing child, but not to a mother's 

 sudden fright or fear or mental attitude unless these have caused actual 

 bodily harm to her and to the growing child, cr have so .seriously inter- 

 fered with her nutrition as to affect the food supply of the child. In 

 other words, the prenatal bugaboo has been routed. 



