The infant : nutrition and management / by Eric Pritchard.

  • Pritchard, Eric, 1864-1943.
Date:
1921
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The infant : nutrition and management / by Eric Pritchard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    20/280 (page 10)
    the supply. In certain cases of multiple feeding the total amount of milk supplied to the infants in twenty-four hours was surprisingly large. The intensity of the stimulus afforded by the infant will naturally depend on a variety of con¬ ditions—for instance, on the strength of the infant, and its degree of hunger; also on the shape of the nipple and the sensibility of its tactile nerve-endings. An appreciation of these facts will necessarily suggest a number of practical expedients to promote the activity of the secretory apparatus. For in¬ stance, in anticipation of possible difficulties in nursing, the nipples should be drawn out and pre¬ pared for their duties for some considerable time before the date of the expected confinement. This is particularly desirable in the case of the primipara. The best method of drawing out the nipples is to invert over them the bowl of a long-stemmed clay pipe (churchwarden), and then to induce a vacuum by means of suction applied to the mouthpiece. The patient can easily carry out this device for herself, and she should be instructed to commence doing so for some weeks before the confinement. The rim of the bowl should be well greased with vaseline in order that it may adhere to the surface of the skin, and enable a good vacuum to be pro¬ duced. It may here be mentioned that the chief cause of depressed nipples is, probably, a pre¬ existing mastitis, in some cases caused by the