TIME FOR WEANING.
It is claimed, and no doubt rightfully, that it is the children of the
poorer classes who suffer most in large cities from bowel complaints. To
this too many are ready to say, “Amen.”
But there are duties involving upon each and all, rich or poor, from
which none can expect to be excused till the last known part has been
performed. As the chances now appear, there need be no lack of the
common comforts of life in most of our large cities and towns. This is a
land of opportunities; in it the laborer gets, or should get, his hire.
It therefore becomes his privilege to aid by prudence, industry, and
economy, in elevating his family to the discouragement of pauperism and
wilful neglect of the laws of health.
It very often happens that those very persons, who claim to be too poor
to obtain the necessary comforts of life for their little ones, will not
hesitate to purchase some extortionately high-priced article, for which
they must enslave themselves to pay by the week or month, and which is
of far less value than their own or their children’s health. I would
suggest here that an extra ten-cent piece be deposited in safe keeping
each day as a surety for a baby’s comforts for the first six months;
which should afterward be increased to twenty cents a day, and thus
continued during its childhood.
When a child is five or six months old, it is best to begin to feed once
or twice a day, so that the weaning may not be too suddenly enforced
upon it. Bread, crumbled in a small quantity of milk, corn-meal pudding,
mutton or chicken broth, Graham biscuit; very little salt added to the
porridges is healthy. But no disagreeable substances, such as aloes,
pepper or salt, should be applied to the nipples for the purpose of
weaning a child; a plaster of wool or fur is more safe for the health of
the child.
In this climate (Massachusetts) there are many families who fear to wean
their children at any season of the year; many of them migrating from a
climate less variable, and in which the customs of feeding infants are
altogether different. Such mothers are deserving of no small share of
sympathy. I am acquainted with hundreds of them; thank God there are
some good mothers, good enough to take the blame upon themselves should
their infants sicken and die after being weaned. But for all such there
may be found in this little cabinet a consoling word.
Weaning is advisable before June and before December. But if a child
does not thrive by reason of some constitutional weakness of the mother,
it could probably rally faster by being fed otherwise, at any season of
the year.
But whether a child is weakly or not it can gain nothing by continuing
to suck after the ninth month; therefore, weaning is recommended about
this period. If the mother breeds fast, a prolonged season of nursing
but keeps her unprepared, both in strength and household matters, for
the next. Then, too, it retards the healthy development of the new
being, should she become pregnant while nursing. Although the mother’s
milk is essential to the proper growth of the child, history records
evidences of noble-minded men and women who never nursed the breast, yet
lived to a great age.
A great deal depends upon circumstances; for instance, it may be that
even with apparently nutritive milk, the bones remain soft, the joints
weak, and the flesh wastes away or remains the same. Such cases are not
uncommon, especially among the very hard-working people or real
indigent. Hence the necessity of seeking medical advice as to the best
possible means of supplying the blood with those principles apparently
lacking.
From my experience as nurse, I can say that weaning from the breast may
be successfully accomplished if begun pleasantly, but decidedly, and
continued. The months of May and October in the New England States are
the most favorable; April and November in the Middle States, while in
almost all of the Southern States weaning is advisable in March and
November or December.
Waiting for a child to get all of its teeth is merely a matter of
choice. Beside the inconvenience of the differences in the periods of
time when the teeth get through, there is an unnecessary drain on the
system of the mother, with no benefit whatever to the child.
The efforts put forth by some women to retard child-bearing is not so
good as “Robbing Peter to pay Poll,” because in such cases Peter is
robbed, but Polly is never paid. So it seems to me that if these little
ones are given in quick succession, it is just as well to have them and
get through with it. Many are the women who have borne a dozen or more
children into the world, and afterwards filled positions of nobility and
trust.
By taking particular notice which course is best to pursue with a child
of seven or nine months, I sincerely believe the large number of
infantile deaths, under one year, would be much less.
Deferring weaning for the predominance of some certain sign in the
heavens, does not accord with our present progress in knowledge.