"The diet and drinks of
mothers and wet-nurses are matters of the very first importance; because errors in these
particulars must ultimately impair the health of the mother or nurse, resulting in those
diseases and physical disabilities of which we have before spoken; and even when there is
no immediate and manifest symptom of disease in the nurse, it is a well-known fact that
certain articles of food and drink, when taken by nurses, will cause colic and other
disagreeable effects in a child at breast."
"The diet of nurses should consist of
wholesome, nutritious food, plainly cooked, and eaten in moderate quantity. To be a little
more specific-- it should be composed mainly of nourishing animal soups, milk, rice,
bread, ripe fruits, boiled or baked mutton and beef, &c., to the exclusion of all
highly seasoned dishes, rich gravies, fat pork, salt bacon, pastries, acid and unripe
fruits, pickles, and such like."
"Mothers and wet-nurses are very much given
to indulgence in the free use of meat, and the strongest kind of food, because, as they
say, "they have to eat for two." Hence, nurses who have, as a general rule,
never enjoyed the luxuries of life in too great abundance, are very apt to take advantage
of this idea, and to make it a license for the gratification of a gluttonous appetite, and
for a troublesome fastidiousness with regard to their diet. Such a course, either on the
part of mothers or nurses, is highly injurious to their own health, a destructive in its
effects on the infant. It is only the food that is digested and taken up into the blood
that goes to nourish the nurse or the child; and all that is not digested and taken into
the circulation must oppress the stomach, causing colic, diarrhea, headache, and general
derangement of health, with consequent impairment of the secretion of milk, either in
quantity or quality, and oftener than otherwise in both. Once, or at most twice a day, is
often enough for any woman who does not lead quite an active life, to take meat; and this,
together with everything else, should be eaten in moderate quantity--just enough to
satisfy a natural, reasonable, healthful appetite--such an appetite as nature will give to
all nursery women who live aright, and who are guided by the plain teachings of physiology
and common sense, instead of the absurd notion of "eating for two," and
"the more we eat, the fatter we get," etc. etc."
 "As
a general rule, the vegetables should be the principal diet of nursery women, as of all
others who do not take active exercise. But there are some vegetables, such as potatoes,
turnips, peas, &c., that give rise to flatulency in nurses and children, and when it
is found from experience (our only safe guide in such things) that such is the case, all
articles of diet so offending should be left off."
"The only drinks of nursing women should be
water, pure simple water; chocolate, if it agrees; hot-water tea; and milk, which may be
regarded both as food and drink. The habit of resorting to tea, coffee, wines, cordials,
and various stimulating drinks, under the mistaken notion that they increase the milk and
impart strength, is most pernicious, and is ruinous to the health of nurse and child.
Stimulants can never give or increase strength; and though some of them may cause a
temporary increase in the milk and other secretions, the excitement caused by them is
unhealthful, the effects are transient and unnatural, and the consequences of their
use--except in some cases of disease--are evil, evil only, and that continually."
"We could say much more on this subject, and
more particularly on the apparent necessity for tea and coffee, which seems to exist with
some who have long indulged in these drinks; but for further information, we must refer to
our "Woman's Home Book of Health," which we trust will prove highly useful to
those for whom it is intended."
DRUGGING NURSING WOMEN
"Of the pernicious effects of drugs in
excess, and particularly of opiates, when administered directly to infants, we have
already spoken. The effects of drugs when taken through the nurse's milk are perhaps no
less disastrous; and certain it is that such effects are almost wholly unknown to, or
disregarded by, mothers. Many, perhaps most drugs, pass unchanged into the blood, and from
the blood through the various glands out of the body. In this way, opiates, purgatives,
stimulants, and almost every medicine may pass through the milk gland, producing all the
specific effects on the child that would ensue from pouring them into his mouth from a
spoon."
"The inference is plain and obvious--mothers
and nurses should use drugs very sparingly, and as a general rule only by the advice of a
physician. Much the best and safest plan is to so live as to render drugging unnecessary:
better throw physic to the dogs than to be continually saturating your blood with it, and
dosing your infant through your milk, when you could get along without it, by obedience to
the laws of health, and when it is not only useless, but killing to your babe."
AIR,
EXERCISE, ETC. OF NURSING WOMEN
"Pure air and exercise are absolutely
essential for nurses. Without these, no function of the body can be properly performed--
the blood will become corrupt-- the general health will become deranged-- the vital
processes will be suspended, or improperly carried on, and every secretion will be
impaired. Without exercise to re-invigorate the body, and drive the blood through the
sluggish vessels, these will become clogged up with gross and irritating impurities; and
without the vitalizing, vivifying, and purifying effects of free air, the blandest and
most wholesome of fluids, such as milk itself, will be converted into an acrid disease,
generating poison. In view of these facts, mothers should exercise, and be much in the
open air themselves; or, if they have a wet-nurse, they should see to it that she does not
become too fat and lazy, which she is very likely to do, if she is employed by a wealthy
family, and has nothing to do but to attend to her little charge. At the same time,
mothers and nurses should avoid over-heating, and excessive worrying:--the exercise should
be moderate, reasonable, healthful, and not exhausting, depressing, and over-fatiguing. In
short, all nursing women should, above all others, live naturally, physiologically, and
common sensely, disregarding alike the rebellious movings of a misguided appetite, the
fanciful whims of the ignorant, the baseless traditions of grandmothers, and many of the
time-honored customs of the nursery-room. If nursing women would rear healthy, sweet
tempered children, they must be healthy and sweet tempered themselves; and to be thus,
requires obedience to the laws of health, not only in eating, and drinking, and moral
influences, and all things mentioned in this article of Nursing Women; but also in
sleeping, in cleanliness, in temperature, in the regulation of the excretions, an in
everything else that is pure, healthful, and of "good report." One of the great
secrets of babyism is a healthy nurse; and the great secret of health is correct living.
This is worth more to mothers, to the rising generation, to all womanhood, and "the
rest of mankind," than an army of physicking doctors, or a ship-load of drugs." |
