When the Baby is Ill by Eulalia Sisley-Richards

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 21, 1916

When the Baby is Ill

By Eulalia Sisley-Richards

EULALIA SISLEY-RICHARDS, M. D.

DISEASES change with the seasons, somewhat as do the fashions. While digestive disorders are prevalent in the summer months, at this season of the year coughs and colds are much in vogue.

Remembering the value of prevention as compared with cure, mothers should take special care to protect their little ones from those prevalent disorders, not by coddling them, however, in front of a fire. Such treatment is no protection, but rather an invitation to disease.

That child will be truly fortified against cold who receives daily a cool bath. It may be only a dash of cold water, with a vigorous rubbing, but the warm glow which follows is the best possible training for the skin. The child whose skin reacts promptly to his daily bath is in little danger of taking cold, provided ordinary care is taken with regard to his clothing.

Those artistic mothers who so admire baby's chubby hands and feet (who does not admire them?) that they leave them quite exposed even in cold weather, are taking great risk. These same mothers would be most uncomfortable if equally unclothed. They forget that an infant has much less vitality with which to resist cold than has an adult.

Some little ones may appear to thrive fairly well in this abbreviated style of dress, but one often finds these same babies annoyed with a troublesome mucous discharge from the nose.

What to Do for a Cold

But what shall be done, if, because of carelessness or in spite of prevention, the young child catches cold?

First, be sure that the bowels are well opened. If necessary give a warm enema. Then give a short hot bath (about 104° F.), with a cold compress on the head. Dry the child quickly, wrap him in a warm blanket, and put him in bed. Allow plenty of water to drink, or weak, unsweetened lemonade, but give no food until morning. For several days the food should be unusually simple. Fresh ripe fruit may be given in abundance in almost every case except to young infants. On the morning following the hot bath, give the child his regular cool bath, being careful to secure a good reaction. This procedure will be sufficient to arrest an ordinary cold.

If the cold “settles on the lungs,” to use an expression understood by all mothers, fomentations over the chest twice a day, with the heating compress worn between times, will afford much relief.

To apply the heating compress, take a thin towel or suitable cloth, wring as dry as possible from cold water, and wrap quickly around the child's chest, bringing it well around the neck and shoulders. Then cover immediately with several thicknesses of dry flannel. Pin securely with safety pins, taking care that the wet compress is completely and thoroughly covered with the dry flannel. This compress quickly becomes warm, acting as a mild fomentation or poultice. It should be left on all night, or from one hot treatment to the next. After removing the compress, unless a hot treatment is to follow, always sponge the skin quickly with cold water, and dry thoroughly to prevent the child's taking more cold.

In Case of Croup

Although an uncomplicated spasmodic croup is never fatal, it is a condition that brings consternation to many a mother because of the suddenness and apparent severity of the attack.

The little one may retire at night in his usual health, to be awakened in the early morning hours with a hoarse, harsh cough and difficult breathing. The spasm of the vocal cords may be such that the child cannot speak or even cry, and in his fright he struggles, growing purple in the face.

Although suffocation may seem imminent, these symptoms usually yield promptly to very simple measures, and the mother who knows just what to do may have her little patient sound asleep again in a short time.

The full hot bath or the hot blanket pack usually gives speedy relief. The drinking of hot water is also helpful.

It requires only a few minutes to heat enough water for fomentations to the throat, and this measure alone, or hot and cold compresses in alternation, will often afford instant relief.

After this treatment a compress should be applied to the throat, and the child wrapped in a warm blanket, and put to bed in a warm room. This compress, like the one previously described, should consist of a soft cloth wrung very dry from cold water. Apply around the throat, and cover first with oiled silk or a piece of rubber sheeting, and then with several thicknesses of dry flannel.

As croup often recurs several nights in succession, this compress should be worn every night for a week or more. In the morning the neck should be bathed with cold water, after which a dry flannel may be worn during the daytime.

This treatment is also excellent for sore throat and tonsillitis.