Food for Infants by Lauretta Kress

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 7, 1902

Food for Infants

By Lauretta Kress

LAURETTA KRESS, M. D.

IMPROPER feeding is the most active cause of infantile disease. A great deal of suffering and many premature deaths result from digestive derangements.

How many puny children, with shrunken, wasted frames, would quickly become happy, healthy, and well-nourished, if fed according to their requirements. There is rarely any lack of food, for mothers are only too willing to provide for their little ones; it is for want of food which they can digest and assimilate that so many suffer.

The pernicious habit of cramming something into the child’s mouth every time it is opened is responsible for endless mischief. Regularity is a necessity in infant-feeding, and the frequency of the meals must be determined by the physical condition of the child.

Few children cry from hunger; pain resulting from overfeeding is a much more likely cause, and a little warm water internally, or a warm application externally, will usually give speedy relief. Whatever is done, more food must not be crowded into the stomach merely to hush the child’s voice. Many a voice has been forever hushed in this way.

Milk obtained from the purveyors, dairymen, or milkmen, should not be relied upon, as it is often a carrier of various diseases, and is always adulterated with preservatives which are injurious, and especially dangerous to the structures of the feeble infants. As high as eleven grains of boracic acid have been discovered to the pint of milk. It has been acknowledged that the milk trade would have to be abandoned if the preservatives were not used, as the milk would spoil before it could be delivered at the homes of our cities.

The best food for babies is undoubtedly mother’s milk. Whenever possible, infants should be nursed for eight or ten months, but not longer. Children who have inherited good constitutions do not require more than five meals—four in the daytime and one at night—in each twenty-four hours, except during the first two months of infant life. Between the fourth and eighth months the interval should be prolonged to five hours, and at the end of the first year only three meals a day need be provided, the child being allowed to sleep soundly all night.

To break a child of night nursing, a little warm water may be administered in the bottle in place of the customary milk; the baby will drink freely, and then drop off to sleep again.

Feeble or premature children must be fed rather more frequently than those of sounder constitutions, and they require extra care.

Never allow an infant to sleep at the breast or with a feeding-bottle in its mouth; let it stop eating as soon as its hunger is appeased. Science rightly condemns the baby “comforters,” so commonly employed, because they cause a waste of saliva, and are conducive to the acquirement of bad habits. This constant suction is responsible for the frequency of posterior nasal growths and enlarged, inflamed tonsils. Nor is it advisable to give sugar teats, or sweets to soothe a crying child. Some mothers administer sugar and water the first few days of life, but this practice causes spasms and similar disturbances. Herb teas are unnecessary and often harmful. Plain water is by far the best drink for young children.

When the mother is unable to suckle her child, so that artificial feeding becomes a necessity, cow’s milk, properly sterilized and diluted, is the best substitute. Since it is hard to keep the nipples and tubes of feeding-bottles clean and free from germs, it is much better to teach the baby to eat from a spoon. Although more of the mother’s time is taken up by this method, the results justify its expenditure.

At the third or fourth month, sanitarium infant food, zwieback (twice baked bread), finely grated or powdered, or pulverized granose flakes, may be added to the milk. These products are much more easily digested than the majority of so-called “infant foods,” and are certain to be pure and unadulterated.

The present is an age of commercial fraud. Notwithstanding the stringent laws against food adulteration, this nefarious practice is on the increase. During the summer months milk is very subject to the addition of flavoring matter and preservatives. Hand-fed infants, dependent as they are upon milk and milk preparations for subsistence, are the chief sufferers. Milk unsterilized is quite unsafe, and should never be used.

The proper time for weaning is from the tenth to the twelfth months, the change of diet being made gradually. When the child reaches the age of nine months, begin to feed it on nicely toasted granose flakes, a small dish at the beginning of each meal. Occasionally simple soups, and ripe or stewed fruits, for the regular meal, may be substituted. Adopting this plan, when the infant is twelve months old, nursing may altogether cease without being missed greatly by the child.

Very gradually additional articles may be introduced into the daily bill of fare; but meats, cheese, coarse vegetables, tea, coffee, condiments, spices, pastry, rich puddings, and all other substances difficult of digestion must be studiously avoided.

Nearly all children crave fruit, and this is perfectly natural. Ripe fruit and all kinds of fruit juices may be provided abundantly, for they are well adapted to the digestive organs of the young. The scraped pulp of raw apples or pears, ripe peaches, and in fact any of the semi-tropical fruit products may be freely eaten at the regular mealtime; for the fruit pulp furnishes just the material needed for the plump little bodies so characteristic of early childhood.

The craving for sweets by the child is also a natural one, and should be satisfied with wholesome sweet fruits, as the fig, the date, the well-ripened banana, etc.

The free use of cane sugar and candies by children is undoubtedly largely responsible for the prevalence of decayed teeth among the young.—Australasian Good Health.