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.

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    have a vigorous baby fourteen days old, and weigh¬ ing 8 pounds, and as she consented for the time being to play the part of foster-mother to the premature infant, an exchange of babies was immediately effected. Eight days later the premature baby was returned to its own mother, whose breasts by this time had been stimulated into functional activity by the importunate addresses of the borrowed in¬ fant. A glance at the chart will indicate the success of the experiment as far as the weakling infant was concerned. To complete the picture we ought also to be provided with the weight chart of the other infant. Dr. Cameron further suggests that when a baby of this kind is not procurable to perform the required duties, the services of an older child recently weaned might be conveniently enlisted for the purpose. He says: “More than once among the poor out-patients I have induced the mother to put back to the breast a child which has been recently weaned.” Opportunities to employ this ingenious expedient must be comparatively rare, for women seldom nurse their infants during pregnancy, and therefore can seldom have a recently weaned child at hand when the next one is bom. Perhaps, after all, preg¬ nancy need be no bar to nursing, for covrs usually supply excellent milk almost up to the date of arrival of the next calf. The physiological activity of the mammary glands