The Care and Feeding of Children ioo7 



indigestion 



If the baby suffers from indigestion, for a day or two give it a milk 

 mixture suited to a younger child and then increase the strength gradually 

 meal by meal. 



premature weaning 



If the baby is prematurely weaned, begin by feeding it with a milk 

 mixture suited to a younger child, and increase the strength of the mixture 

 meal by meal and day by day as fast as the baby can bear it without 

 showing symptoms of distress. One of the essentials to success is that the 

 child's intestinal tract should come gradually to adjust itself to digesting 

 cow's milk. 



weaning 



When a baby is weaned at the normal time, the milk mixture used to 

 replace mother's milk should at first be much more dilute than the usual 

 mixture required for that age in artificial feeding. The strength of the 

 mixture to full cow's milk should then be increased as rapidly as the baby 

 can bear it. Gruels should be used to dilute the milk at this time, for the 

 baby will have established its power to digest starch and the gruels will 

 have an actual food value as well as being of use to break up the curd. 



peptonized milk 

 Sometimes even the most careful efforts to feed a baby with modified 

 milk fail. It may then be necessary partly or completely to predigest the 

 milk with pepsin. This is a very simple process. A given amount of the 

 digestive substance, pepsin, is added to milk and the milk is kept at about 

 body temperature for five to thirty minutes, according to the completeness 

 of digestion desired. It is then chilled as soon as possible to stop further 

 digestion. Predigestion of milk must be carefully considered. It means 

 carrying on outside the body a process which normally should occur within 

 the body. If it is kept up too long the child's powers of digestion may 

 become weakened by having too little work to do. Therefore the milk 

 should be slightly less completely digested day by day until the child learns 

 to do its own work. Directions for peptonizing milk are given with the 

 powders or pepsin purchased for that purpose. 



sterilized milk 



If the milk supply is at all doubtful, milk should be either boiled or 



pasteurized. Pasteurization is the name applied to a process of heating 



milk for a given length of time at a temperature below the boiling point 



of water. Milk is less changed by the action of this lower temperature 



