CHAPTER II 



WHEN THE MOTHERS FAIL 



A GREAT many factors enter into the stream of 

 causes which makes the vast ocean of needlessly 

 sacrificed baby lives. Poverty and ignorance are 

 among the most important of these factors. The 

 ignorance of many mothers is simply appalling. To 

 hear a group of settlement workers, visiting nurses, 

 and physicians relating their experiences and enumer- 

 ating the many deleterious things given to young 

 babies, is a tragic and heartrending experience. 

 Babies a few weeks old given tea, beer, vegetables, 

 bread, fish, candy, ice-cream — the awful list might 

 extend almost indefinitely.' Undoubtedly, ignorant 

 and improper feeding is a prime factor in the problem 

 of infantile mortality. 



I say "ignorant and improper feeding," because I 

 desire to draw a sharp distinction between feeding 

 such as that described above, which is due to gross 

 ignorance on the part of the mothers, and feeding 

 which, while it proves to be unsuitable and produc- 



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