Mother's Remedies, Thomas Jefferson Ritter [reading well .TXT] 📗

and hot soap suds and place them for twenty minutes in boiling water.

What kind of nipples are best? Straight ones which slip over the neck of the bottle, of black rubber, and the hole should only be large enough for the milk to drop rapidly when the bottle is held upside down.

How shall I care for the nipples? Boil new ones for five minutes at first. After using rinse them carefully in cold water and keep them covered in a glass containing a solution of borax or boric acid. Turn them inside out once a day and wash thoroughly with soap and water.

(There is a slight difference in the directions given by different authorities as to cleaning bottles and nipples, but the general way is the same.)

What kind of cotton shall I use for corking the bottles? Refined non-absorbent cotton is best, but the ordinary absorbent cotton will do.

Which is the best—an alcohol lamp, or the Bunsen burner? The Bunsen burner is the best, cheaper and simpler if there is gas in the house. Should you use the lamp, put it upon a table covered with a plate of zinc or tin, or upon a large tin tray. The French pattern is the best.

Give special directions now for preparing the food according to any of the given formulas? The hands must be clean, as well as everything else—food and utensils. First dissolve the milk sugar in boiling water, filtering, if necessary, then add to the boiled water and sugar the milk, cream, and lime-water, mixing all in the pitcher; a sufficient quantity for twenty-four hours is always prepared at one time. Divide this in equal quantities into the number of feedings for the twenty-four hours and cork the bottles with the cotton cork and cool the bottles rapidly, after having been pasteurized by standing first in tepid and then in cold water, and then place in an ice chest at 50 degrees F.

[592 MOTHERS' REMEDIES] FEEDING DIRECTIONS.

How shall I prepare the bottle at feeding time? Take one from the ice chest, warm it by placing it in warm water deep enough to cover the milk in the bottle. Then thoroughly shake it, remove the cotton cork, and adjust the nipple.

How shall I know that the temperature of the milk is correct? Pour a teaspoonful from the bottle before adjusting the nipple, and taste it, or pour a few drops through the nipple upon the inner surface of the wrist. It should feel quite warm, but not quite hot; or a baby thermometer may be placed in the water where the milk stands, and the temperature should be between 98 and 100 degrees F.

How can I keep the milk warm while the baby is feeding? Slip over the bottle a warm flannel bag with a draw-string.

What position should a child be in when feeding? During the first few months, except at night, it had better be held in the arms; later it can lie on its side in the crib, but the bottle must then be held by the nurse until it is emptied, or the baby will nurse and sleep, and nurse and sleep, etc.

How much time shall I give the baby for one feeding? Not longer than twenty minutes. Take the bottle away then and do not give it until the next feeding. Keep a sleepy baby awake, when well, until the food is taken, or remove the bottle.

Can I play with the baby after feeding? Never. It may cause vomiting and indigestion. Baby should lie quietly and sleep if possible, or at least not be disturbed.

FEEDING INTERVALS.

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. Quantity Quantity
                 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.

[ALL ABOUT BABY 593]

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 appetite 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 circumstances? 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.

[594 MOTHERS' REMEDIES]

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.

[ALL ABOUT BABY 595]

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