One of the most common causes of childhood diseases is stomach and bowel disorders. All that is required is to avoid their derangement, and the child will be safe and thrive, and will not require the assistance of physic or physicians.
There are several factors that may result in these affections; many of them are related to the mother’s system, while others are related to the infant’s. To a large degree, they can all be avoided or remedied. As a result, it is critical that a mother not be ignorant or misinformed about this issue. However, it is the avoidance of these affections that will be emphasised here; for the mother must always remember and behave on the premise that disease prevention belongs solely to her, while cure belongs to the physician. For the sake of clarity and comparison, these disturbances will be discussed as they occur:
To the infant at the breast.
The infant’s stomach and bowels can become distorted as a result of unwholesome breast milk. This could result from the parent’s deterioration of health, which would be so obvious to herself and those more directly concerned with her well-being that it is only appropriate to mention it here. Suffice it to say, there are many general causes to which it can be attributed; but the most common is excessive lactation, and the consequences on both mother and child are thoroughly discussed.
Anxiety in the mother’s mind causes her milk to be unhealthy in character and inadequate in quantity, resulting in flatulence, griping, and, in some cases, convulsions in the child. A fit of rage in the nurse is often accompanied by a bowel complaint in the infant. These triggers, of course, are temporary, and once withdrawn, the milk returns to being stable and sufficient for the infant.
Sudden and severe mental disturbance, on the other hand, will sometimes drive away the milk entirely, and in a matter of hours. Mrs. S., aet. 29, was confined to a child. She was a fine healthy woman with a blonde complexion. She had a good time and an ample supply of milk for the infant, whom she continued to suckle until the following January, a three-month stretch when her milk mysteriously vanished. The medical attendant was perplexed by this circumstance, since he couldn’t attribute it to any physical ailment; however, the milk never returned, and a wet-nurse became mandatory. The husband of this lady failed the following spring, an adversity that had been looming since the date when the breast-milk vanished, on which day the deranged state of the husband’s affairs was made clear to the woman, a revelation that immediately clarified the mysterious absence of the milk.
Unhealthy foods can contaminate the mother’s milk and upset the infant’s bowels. I was once summoned to see a child with diarrhoea at the breast. The remedial steps had little effect as long as the infant was given breast-milk; however, when this was stopped and only arrow-root made with water was permitted, the complaint was soon put to rest. The baby was encouraged to breastfeed again, believing that the mother’s milk had been tainted by an unintentional trigger that had now been passed on. However, the diarrhoea returned in less than four and twenty hours. Since the mother was in good health, it was believed that an unwholesome item in her diet was to blame. When it was discovered that a porter from a nearby publican’s had been substituted for their own for some time, the regimen was thoroughly investigated. This proved to be a poor idea, as it produced a significant amount of sediment when left to stand for a few hours; it was discontinued; good sound ale was substituted; the infant was returned to the breast, where it thrived, and never had another attack.
Similarly, aperient medication taken by the mother can work on the child’s bowels through the impact it has on her milk. This is not the case for all types of purgative treatment, nor does the same purgative have the same effect on all children. It is therefore prudent for a parent to observe what aperient behaves thus through her system on that of her child, and when an aperient becomes appropriate for herself, to avoid the latter unless she desires that the infant’s bowels be moved; otherwise, she should take the former with good effect.
Again, the return of the monthly cycles when the mother is a nurse often has an effect on the properties of the milk, more or less derangement of the infant’s stomach and bowels. It is common for the infant to become fretful and uneasy a few days before the mother becomes ill; its stomach will throw up the milk, and its movements will be frequent, watery, and greenish. After that, when the time is over, the milk will stop purging. However, the infant appears to be most affected by this situation in the early months; for, though the milk is definitely harmed by it, being less plentiful and nutritious, it ceases to affect the infant after the third or fourth month. Is it then appropriate for a mother to discontinue breastfeeding because her monthly cycles have returned after her delivery? Certainly not, unless the infant’s wellbeing is severely harmed by it; for she may usually discover that, when the periods come around, by holding the infant away from the breast for the duration of its continuance, and feeding him on artificial food, she may prevent disorder of the child’s welfare, and be able to nurse her infant with benefit in the intervals. It should be noted, however, that a wet nurse should be used rather than taking the risk of endangering the child’s health; and that, in any case, partial feeding would be required at a much earlier stage than when a mother is not affected in this way.
The milk can also become less nutritive and less plentiful if the mother becomes pregnant again. In this situation, though, the parent’s health will suffer the most if she continues to nurse; however, this will again be detrimental to the infant. If a pregnancy occurs and the milk disagrees with the baby, it is prudent to resign as a nurse and place the child on a suitable artificial diet.
The baby who is continually at the breast will suffer from flatulence, griping, looseness of the bowels, and vomiting. This is due to not allowing enough time between meals for digestion. As a result, the milk moves from the stomach into the bowels undigested, and the symptoms just described occur. Time must be provided not only for the proper digestion of the milk, but also for the stomach itself to rest. This bad, then, must be avoided with extreme caution by the mother strictly adhering to the nursing laws.
Teething usually affects the infant’s bowels at the breast as well as after weaning. And it’s a good thing that this is the case because it avoids more extreme affections. Indeed, unless it is aggressive, diarrhoea that occurs during dentition should not be suppressed; but, if this is the case, it must be addressed. It is usually followed by a swollen gum, which can often be lanced freely to stop the looseness; however, additional medical assistance may be needed.
During the weaning process.
At the time that weaning is normally performed, the child’s stomach and bowels are highly susceptible to derangements, so great caution and discretion must be exercised in accomplishing this goal. However, the bowels are usually disrupted during this process due to one of three factors: weaning too early, weaning too quickly and unexpectedly, or over-feeding and the use of inappropriate and unsuitable food. Another factor that may exacerbate diarrhoea at this time, irrespective of weaning, is the irritation caused by difficult teething.
The replacement of artificial food for the mother’s breast-milk at a time when the infant’s digestive organs are too fragile for this transition is a common cause of the current affections.
Attempting to wean a fragile infant, for example, when he or she is just six months old, would eventually result in stomach and bowel disorders. Unless a mother is forced to resort to this measure due to pregnancy or some other inevitable cause, she will not discontinue breastfeeding at this early age if she consults the health of her infant.
Depriving the child of the breast immediately and substituting artificial food, no matter how proper under the rules such food might be, would inevitably result in bowel complaints. To wean safely, certain rules and regulations must be followed, the specifics of which are given elsewhere.
If too much food is given at each meal, or the meals are repeated too often, the stomach may become oppressed, tired, and deranged; part of the food may be thrown up by vomiting, while the remainder, not having gone through the digestive process, will pass on into the bowels, irritate its delicate lining membrane, and produce flatulence, with griping, purging, and vomiting.
Then, again, improper and unsuitable food will have almost the same effects; and unless a prudent change is made soon, treatments will not only have no control over the disease, but the cause will be continued, and the disease will become more severely exacerbated.
It is therefore of the utmost importance for the child’s well-being that, at this time, when the mother is about to substitute an artificial food for that of her own breast, she first determines what kind of food fits the child best, and then the precise quantity which nature requires. Many cases may be cited where children have never had a prescription written for them simply because their diet has been handled with judgement and consideration after these points have been addressed; on the other hand, others may be referred to whose existence has been jeopardised, if not ruined, due to injudicious dietetic management. Overfeeding and insufficient food are more often responsible for stressful hours and distressing scenes for the parent, as well as danger and loss of life for the infant, than almost any other cause.
The irritation caused by difficult teething which cause diarrhoea during the weaning era, independent of the weaning itself. Such bowel disorder, if manifestly caused by this cause, is a favourable circumstance that should not be interfered with, unless the attack is serious and aggravated, in which case medical assistance is required. Slight diarrhoea during weaning is unimportant if it can be traced back to the cutting of a tooth (the heated and inflamed state of the gum would immediately point to this as the source of the derangement), but it should not be confused with condition caused by other factors. Lancing the gum will immediately eradicate the trigger and, in most cases, relieve the bowel complaint.
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