Child hygiene / by S. Josephine Baker.

  • Sara Josephine Baker
Date:
[1925], ©1925
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Child hygiene / by S. Josephine Baker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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milk must be absolutely safe and pure. On the other hand, the safest milk supply in the world, used under the best conditions, will not alone reduce the baby death rate. Some years ago the Bureau of Child Hygiene of the New York City Department of Health made a study covering about 4,000 living children between three and four months of age to find out the method of feeding followed. It was found that 79 per cent of the babies were breast fed exclusively, 13 per cent were fed on bottle milk exclusively, and 8 per cent on breast milk and bottle milk combined. A similar study was made in 1,065 cases to determine the rela¬ tion of the character of feeding to deaths occurring from diarrhoeal diseases in infancy, and it was found that out of the total of 1,065 infant deaths from diarrhoeal diseases, 16.7 per cent of the babies were breast fed exclusively, 22.7 per cent were fed on cow’s milk and breast milk combined, while 60.6 per cent were exclusively artificially fed. Sum¬ ming this up more closely, we find that 17 per cent of the babies that died were exclusively breast fed and 83 per cent were artificially fed in whole or in part. Other investi¬ gations made by the same bureau gave similar results, and a long series of studies showed that approximately 90 per cent of the babies who die from diarrhoeal diseases are artificially fed while 10 per cent of these deaths occur in infants who have been exclusively breast fed. These figures are directly reversed, as far as feeding is concerned, by the record of babies who were alive at the end of their first year. Here numerous studies showed that of the babies who did survive through the first year, approximately 90 per cent were breast fed, at least up to six months of age, and 10 per cent bottle fed. From these conclusions we may draw two important inferences. The first is that universal breast feeding would reduce the death rate of babies from diarrhoeal diseases to a minimum. The second is that our main efforts at present to reduce the death rate from this cause must be directed toward that group of infants who are artificially fed, and
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