Mother's Remedies Part 155

How often shall I nurse or feed baby during the first month? Ten times in twenty-four hours at intervals of two hours during the day and two times at night.

Why can I not feed baby oftener? Because it takes nearly two hours to digest a meal at two months, about two and one-half hours at five or six months, and if another meal is given before the former meal is digested, vomiting and indigestion will result. The following schedule is given by one authority on children for healthy infants for the first year:

Night No. Quant.i.ty Quant.i.ty Interval feedings of for for between 10 P. M. feedings one 24 meals to in 24 feeding, hours, by day. 7 A. M. hours. ounces. ounces.

2d to 7th day 2 hrs. 2 10 1 to 1-1/2 10 to 15 2d to 3rd week 2 hrs. 2 10 1-1/2 to 3 15 to 30 4th to 5th week 2 hrs. 1 10 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 25 to 35 6th to 8th week 2-1/2 hrs. 1 8 3 to 5 24 to 40 3d to 5th Month 3 hrs. 1 7 4 to 6 28 to 42 5th to 9th month 3 hrs. 0 6 5 to 7-1/2 30 to 45 9th to 12th month 4 hrs. 0 5 7 to 9 35 to 45

This schedule is for healthy children. The smaller amounts are required by smaller children with weak digestion; the larger amounts are required by large children with strong digestion. The interval is from the beginning of one feeding to the beginning of the next feeding.

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How soon can I make the intervals at two and one-half hours? Generally at five or six weeks.

When may I increase it to three hours? Usually at eight weeks or two months.

When should I lengthen the interval between feedings? When there is poor stomach digestion.

How is this shown? By habitual vomiting or regurgitation of food long after nursing is finished; also when the baby has a very poor appet.i.te so that it always leaves some of its food.

When can I shorten the intervals? It is not generally advisable to feed any baby oftener than given by this schedule.

REGULAR FEEDING.

How can I teach baby to take regular meals? By commencing at birth to feed at exactly regular hours every day.

Shall I awaken baby to feed it? Yes, for a few days. In a short time he will waken at the same hours himself.

Should this regularity extend through the night? Only up to nine or ten o'clock. After ten let him sleep as long as he will.

How soon can baby go without food from 10 p. m. to 7 a. m.? At four months usually and always at five or six months; night feeding causes restlessness and poor sleep.

STERILIZED MILK.

What do you mean by sterilizing milk? It means to heat milk so as to destroy the germs.

Does cows' milk contain germs? Yes, even if it is handled faultlessly; but when carelessly handled the number of germs is enormous.

Are all of the germs injurious? Most are harmless or cause only the souring of the milk.

What other germs are occasionally present? Typhoid fever, diphtheria, scarlet fever, cholera, tuberculosis and many forms of diarrhea germs.

Do I need to sterilize milk under all circ.u.mstances? When you cannot obtain it fresh in warm weather. Hence during warm weather in cities and towns; when you do not know that the cows are healthy or that the milk has been cleanly handled; when milk is kept over twenty-four hours, especially if there is no ice at hand. When there are epidemics of typhoid fever, scarlet fever, diphtheria, or any form of bowel disease accompanied by diarrhea.

How many methods of heating milk are there? First, sterilizing, in which the milk is heated to 212 degrees F., for one hour or one and one-half hours. Second, pasteurizing, when you heat the milk to 155 degrees or 170 degrees F. for thirty minutes.

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Will the temperature of 155 degrees F. for one-half hour be sufficient to kill the germs of the diseases mentioned above? Generally.

How long will milk so treated keep on ice? Heated to 212 degrees F. for an hour will keep for two or three weeks; that heated (pasteurized) to 155 degrees F. will keep for two or three days.

Is cows' milk as digestible when sterilized? No, and it should be modified for infant feeding the same as milk not heated.

When milk is heated for an hour to 212 degrees F. (sterilization), is it injured in any way? It is rendered harder to digest, and is more constipating; scurvy may be caused if it is used as the sole food for a long time. It is so objectionable that the method is not recommended for general use.

When should I heat it 212 degrees F.? For use on long journeys of days traveling. Then you should heat for one hour upon two successive days, leaving the cotton stoppers in the bottles.

Does heating milk to 155 degrees F. for one-half hour injure it in any way? It does not affect the taste or make it more constipating. The unfavorable effects, if any, are slight. Get clean and fresh milk and the effects will be really of no account.

What pasteurizer would you recommend. Freeman's or Walker-Gordon.

What shall I do with the milk after it has been pasteurized? Cool it quickly by placing the bottles in cold water--never leave them in the room where pasteurized, and never place them, when warm, in an ice chest.

Why this caution? Because it requires from two to four hours to cool them in the air, or in the ice box, and during that time a good many undeveloped germs may mature and injure the keeping properties of the milk. You can cool the bottles of milk in cool water in from ten to twenty minutes if you change the water frequently, or if ice is put into the water.

What is modified milk of the laboratories? It is milk containing fat, sugar, proteids, etc., in definite proportions put up, usually, according to a physician's directions.

PEPTONIZED MILK.

What is peptonized milk? Milk that has been partially digested.

What part of the milk has been digested? The proteids (curd).

Does this alter its taste? No, if it is peptonized for only ten minutes, but if it is fully peptonized the milk has a bitter taste.

How can the bitter taste be avoided in partly peptonized milk? At the end of ten or fifteen minutes place the milk in a sauce-pan and raise it quickly to the boiling point; this kills the ferment so that the milk will not become bitter when it is warmed for feeding; or the milk can be cooled rapidly by placing the bottles first in cool and then in ice water; but in this way the ferment is not destroyed, and the milk may become bitter when warmed for feeding.

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How is milk peptonized? By the action of a peptonizing powder composed of a digestive agent known as the extractum pancreatis and bicarbonate of soda. This is added to the plain or diluted milk. This agent can be bought in tubes or tablets, and is the active ingredient of the peptogenic powder.

Will you describe the process? Place the plain or modified milk in a clean gla.s.s jar or bottle, and then rub up the peptonizing powder or tablet with a tablespoonful of milk, and add it to the milk and shake the bottle.

Place the bottle in a large pitcher or basin of water of about 110 degrees F., or as warm as the hand can bear comfortably, and allow it to remain for ten to twenty minutes if you wish to peptonize the milk but partially; or if you wish it completely peptonized let it remain for two hours.

Is it better to peptonize the whole day's supply, or each bottle separately just before feeding? If you peptonize the whole day's supply at once raise the milk to the boiling point after it has been peptonized; if only the one feeding do not peptonize it more than ten minutes before feeding for the ferment will work while the child is feeding. It can be done either way.

Is not the completely peptonized milk distasteful? Not so in the case of young infants; older infants will take a few feedings without objection, but it cannot be used for children much older than five months.

How much of the agent should be used? For a single feeding of four ounces one may use one-eighth of a tube with a weak formula of milk or one-sixth with a stronger formula. For one pint of plain milk five grains of the extract and fifteen grains of bicarbonate of soda will be needed. This amount is usually put up in one tube or tablet. Less will be required in weaker formulas of modified milk.

What advantages has peptonized milk? Partially peptonized milk a.s.sists greatly in digesting the curd of milk. Young infants sometimes have trouble in digesting the curd. When completely peptonized it is good in attacks of acute indigestion.

How long may I give it? It may be used for a few days when completely peptonized; when partially peptonized it can be used for two or three months, and when you wish to give other food, leave off its use gradually by shortening the time of peptonizing and lessening the quant.i.ty of the powder used.