994 The Cornell Reading-Courses 



of a competent physician. With artificially fed babies, obstinate constipa- 

 tion is often due to defective feeding and may be overcome by a judicious 

 use of thoroughly cooked oatmeal water. Lack of water may be also 

 one cause of this trouble with babies. The habit of a daily movement 

 once established should be carefully fostered as the child grows older. 

 Time should be allowed for this process as for others. A common cause 

 of chronic constipation in later years is the morning hurry in childhood 

 which may interrupt and destroy the child's regularity of habit. Physical 

 functions are just as important as mental ones. It would be better to 

 miss a few lessons than to make brain and body sluggish w4th retained 

 wastes. 



Food for the infant. — Nutrition is of supreme importance during the 

 first years of childhood. Much of the unnecessary waste of life during 

 infancy and childhood is due not to Providence but to wrong methods 

 of feeding. The digestive apparatus of the child at birth is no more 

 developed than the rest of the body. It has never been used thus far 

 and is delicate and relatively feeble in its action. The stomach is merely 

 an enlargement of the digestive tract and lies almost perpendicular to 

 the rest of the alimentary canal. This explains the ease with which a 

 baby rids itself of any excess of food, or food which causes distress. 



Until birth the baby's supply of food has reached it through the blood 

 of the mother. No effort of preparation has been required on the part 

 of the child. After the baby is born it must begin to digest its own food 

 and absorb it through the digestive tract. This does not mean a sudden 

 great increase of growth. The child is only one short stage further on 

 its way toward development. While the newborn baby has power of 

 digestion, that power is limited. All its digestive juices are weak and some 

 of them have not appeared. 



The fundamental needs of the infant for food are the same as those of 

 the adult. The difference lies not in kind but in form and amount. Only 

 those foods which are ready for absorption or require little change can 

 at this period be utilized. It is beyond the feeble power of the baby's 

 immature digestive tract to utilize foods which require marked changes 

 before they are ready for absorption. 



Protein is needed to supply the cornerstone for growth and development 

 of all tissues, but it must be in a form adapted to a weak power of digestion. 

 Fats and carbohydrates must be supplied to meet the demands for energy. 

 But there is only one form of fat which is fitted to the infant and that is 

 fat which occurs in a very finely emulsified form as in milk. Starch is a 

 food stuff which requires marked changes before it is ready for digestion. 

 The baby has practically no power for digesting starch. This power 

 does not develop to any degree until after the end of the sixth or eighth 



