Common disorders and diseases of childhood / by George Frederic Still.

  • Still, G. Frederic (George Frederic), Sir, 1868-1941.
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Common disorders and diseases of childhood / by George Frederic Still. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    38/872 (page 18)
    ture to think is often taken too lightly. There are reasons enough which may make it advisable to stop breast-feeding, but these must be weighed carefully before such a step is taken. How often one hears the statement, ‘ I never could suckle my children ’ put forward as a reason for not attempting to suckle a subsequent infant. Undoubtedly there are many women who cannot suckle any of their children, but it would be well if medical men would impress upon mothers that failure in a previous effort to breast-feed is no reason whatever for assuming that there will necessarily be failure also in suckling a later child ; a mother whose milk has failed either in quantity or in quality in the feeding of earlier children, may yet suckle, and suckle successfully for several months, a subsequent infant. And here I would emphasize particularly the importance of breast-feeding during the first few weeks of life. It is in these early days when an infant has so feeble a hold on life that any disorder of digestion, such as is apt to occur with hand-feeding, is specially dangerous, and it is at this time that the digestion is most easily disturbed. Breast-feeding at this time, even if it can be continued only for six weeks or two months, seems to give the infant a start in life, which may be of vital importance when the difficulties and dangers of hand-feeding have to be faced. Examination of breast-milk. Breast-milk is often judged to be unsuitable on quite insufficient grounds. Perchance the baby has cried and seemed uncomfortable after the breast-feeds ; or he does not seem satisfied. The weight is rising, but perhaps not very regularly, 7 ounces one week and only 2 or 3 ounces the next week, and the over-anxious mother has appealed to the doctor. Now what happens ? The doctor very rightly says that he would like to see the milk and tells the mother to draw some off for him to examine. The mother, having no special directions given to her, naturally draws off some milk at the time when her breast is most full, just before she feeds her infant : and at his next visit the doctor sees a poor watery - looking specimen of milk, which he unhesitatingly condemns as unfit for the infant. Now this is no imaginary occurrence ; it has happened again and again in my own experience ; and it involves a serious mistake. The milk which is drawn first from the breast, the ‘ foremilk ’ as it is sometimes called, is normally much thinner and poorer than the later milk ; there is a gradual increase in the richness of the milk from the beginning of a feed until the end ; the last milk is much richer than the foremilk. The fact, therefore, that a woman’s milk, drawn off with no special