•594 DR. CEASE'S RECIPES. 



Tlie child's clothing should be warm without being heavy, and should lit 

 loosely so as to allow the organs free play, and the blood to flow unhindered. 

 The body-binder should be of flannel, as it is impossible to prevent its being 

 soiled with the urine, and flannel, when wetted, does not chill the skin so much 

 as other materials. None but patent safety-pins should be used about a baby, 

 and even for them it is better to substitute two or three stitches wherever it is 

 possible. 



The medical attendant must always be informed, when he makes his first 

 after-visit, whether the infant has passed urine and whether the bowels have 

 acted; also as to any marks or other peculiarities that may have been noticed. 

 The state of the eyes, too, should be narrowly watched, and any unhealthy 

 appearance or the least sign of discharge at once reported. 



It is most undesirable to give a newly -born child butter and sugar, or other 

 similar compound. For the first twelve hours at least, and indeed for a much 

 longer time, the child will take no harm if left unfed. The proper course, 

 however, is to apply it to the breast a few hours after birth — that is, as soon as 

 the mother has recovered a little from the fatigue of labor. The breasts will 

 probably not fill with milk for twenty-four or thirty-six hours, or even a little 

 longer; but there is generally a little thick secretion of creamy fluid, called 

 colostrum, much earlier than this, of which it is good for the mother to be 

 relieved, and which acts as a gentle laxative upon the child. The early appli- 

 cation of tlie child to the breast also helps to form the nipples, and renders the 

 flow of milk easy from the first; it teaches the child how to suck, a lesson learnt 

 less readily if it has previously been fed with a spoon; and, lastly, it provides 

 it, in the majority of cases, with all the food it requires during the first day or 

 two, and obviates the necessity of artificial feeding. 



The child should be put to the breast with clock -like regularity. Until the 

 flow is fairly established, the interval should be four hours; afterwards, for the 

 first month, an hour and a half or two hours in the daytime and four hours in 

 the night. In the daytime the child may be awakened at the feeding-hour; in 

 the night he should on no account be disturbed out of his sleep. Many infants 

 will sleep continuously for six hours in the night, and suffer no harm from the 

 long fast. 



If it is important that a child should be fed as often as is here stated, it 

 is no less important that he should not be fed of tener. Young infants very 

 soon learn habits of regularity, and, besides, their stomachs need rest between 

 their meals, just as in our own case, except that, of course, the intervals 

 required are shorter. Many women put the child to the breast whenever it 

 cries, forgetting that this is the only way in which it can express its sense of 

 discomfort, from whatever cause arising, and that it is quite as likely to be 

 crying because it is in pain, or because its napkin wants changing, as from 

 hunger. 



It is important from the first to apply the child to each breast in turn. 



■When the secretion of milk is long delayed, and it becomes consequently 

 necessary to feed the infant, the proper food is good cow's milk, boiled, so as 

 to prevent its being a carrier of infection, then mixed with about an equal 



