The Young Mother - William A. Alcott
"Since nature has furnished the mother with milk for a longer period
than custom demands, it is evident that some good purpose for the mother
and child was intended in this arrangement. Had it been otherwise, the
secretion of milk would stop at a definite time, in like manner as the
period of gestation is definite. That a child, in comparison with the
young of the lower animals, is so long unable to provide for itself,
strongly tends to corroborate the proofs already advanced--that nature
originally had in view a more protracted period for lactation than is
now allowed.
"Some writers, following the laws of nature, as they interpreted them,
fixed the period of weaning at fifteen months, when the infant has got
its eight incisors and four canine teeth. There are well-authenticated
instances of mothers having suckled their children for three, four,
five, and even seven consecutive years; we ourselves have known cases
of lactation being prolonged far three and for four years, with the
happiest results."
It appears to me better, therefore, that the child should be nursed, in
all ordinary cases, from twelve to fifteen months; and when there are no
special objections, about two years. As the change, whenever it is made,
and however gradual it may be, is an important one, in its effects on
the stomach and bowels, it is better to wean a little earlier or a
little later, than to do so just at the close of summer or beginning of
autumn, at which season bowel complaints are most common, most severe,
and most dangerous. It is sufficiently unfortunate that teething should
commence just at this period; but when we add another cause of irregular
action, which we can control, to one which we _cannot_, we act very
unwisely.
I have already observed that we may begin to feed children when the
teeth begin to appear. By this is not meant that we should do so while
the system is under the irritation to which teething usually, or at
least often, subjects it. But when this is over, and a few teeth have
appeared, it is usually a proper time to commence our operations.
The first food given should be precisely of the kind which has been
recommended for those children who are fed by the hand. The rules and
restrictions by which we are to be guided, are the same, except in one
point, which is, that in the case we are now considering, the child
should be fed _between nursing_.
Let not parents be anxious about their healthy children under two years,
who have a supply of good milk, either from the mother or from the cow.
For those that are feeble, a physician may and ought to prescribe--not
medicine, but appropriate food, drink, &c.
When the grinding teeth have cut through, if we have any doubts in
regard to the nutritive qualities of the food we are giving, we may
improve it by adding, instead of the one third of pure water, a similar
quantity of gum arabic water, barley water, or rice water. Some use a
little weak animal broth; but this is unnecessary, and I think, on the
whole, injurious, except for purposes strictly medicinal.
This course is so simple, and so far removed from that which is
generally adopted, that few mothers will probably be willing to pursue
it with perseverance, especially when the teeth appear very late. Those
who are, however, will be richly rewarded, in the end, in the
advantages; which will accrue to the child's health, and the vigor it
will ensure to his constitution.
SEC. 8. _During the process of Weaning._
It has already been shown that, in weaning, some regard should be had to
the season of the year; and that the end of summer and beginning of fall
are of all periods the most unfavorable. The best time, on every
account, is in the spring--in March, April, May, or June; and the next
best is during the months of October and November. But December, January
and February are better than July, August and September.
Weaning should never be sudden. We may safely and properly call upon
those who are addicted to snuff or opium taking, tobacco chewing, rum
drinking, and other habits which are purely artificial, to break
off--_to wean themselves_--suddenly; since _they_ can do so with
considerable safety, and will seldom have the courage or the
perseverance to do it otherwise. But with the child, in regard to his
food, such a course will not be advisable. If we regard his future
health or happiness, he must be weaned gradually.
The first proper step will be to give the child a little larger quantity
of the cow's milk and gum arabic mixture, between nursings, at the same
time increasing very gradually the intervals of nursing. When the
intervals become six hours distant from each other, it will be best to
add a little good bread to the milk with which it is fed, about two or
three times a day. Arrowroot jelly, if he can be made to relish it, will
be highly useful; but if not, some boiled rice, into which a little
arrowroot has been sprinkled while boiling, may be added to his milk.
It may be worth the attempt to excite an aversion in the child to
nursing his mother, so that be will refuse to nurse, if possible, of his
own accord. This aversion may be excited by such an application of
aloes, or some other offensive substance, as will cause him to withdraw
himself from the breast as soon as he tastes it.
A serious mistake is often made, in connection with weaning, in giving
the child not only too much food, but that which is too solid, or too
rich. This mistake has undoubtedly grown out of the belief that his
feeble condition _requires_ it; whereas the truth is, that he neither
needs food at this period, nor is capable of digesting it. For let us be
as judicious in the process of weaning as we may, the tone of the
child's stomach will be somewhat reduced, or in other words, its powers
of digestion will be weakened by it; and to give it strong food, or
overload it with that which is weaker, is not only unreasonable and
unphilosophical, but cruel. And if there should be a tendency in the
child's constitution to rickets, scrofula, consumption, and other
wasting diseases, such a course would be likely to bring them on, and
destroy life.
"When milk will agree," says Dr. Dewees, "there is no food so proper. It
may be employed in any of its combinations, with good wheaten bread,
rice, sago, &c., only remembering that when either of these articles is
found to agree, it should be continued perseveringly, until it may
become offensive. In this case, some new combination may be required." I
do not see the necessity of continuing one kind of food till it
_offends_. Besides, I do not believe that these simple articles of food
are apt to become offensive to stomachs that have not already been
spoiled. But whether a single dish should or should not come to be
offensive, I greatly prefer an occasional change.
Buchan, in his Advice to Mothers, has recommended it to them to boil
bread for their infants, in water. It should not, for this purpose--nor
indeed for any other--be new; it is best at one or two days, old. It may
be boiled in a small quantity of water, or what is still better, of
milk; or it may be steamed till it becomes soft and light, almost like
new bread, but without any of the objectionable properties of that which
is wholly new. To bread, thus prepared, is to be added a suitable
quantity of milk, fresh from the cow, and a little diluted with water,
but not boiled.
But as there may be, here and there, at any age, a stomach with which
milk, with bread, or rice, or sago, will not agree--though I think they
must be very rare cases--we may be allowed to substitute for it a
solution of "gum arabic, in the proportion of an ounce to a pint of
water," to which may be added a little sugar; and if the child is old
enough to observe the color, just milk enough to change the appearance.
Another preparation for the same purpose consists of rennet whey, a
little sweetened, and "disguised, if necessary, as just stated."
The health of the mother, too, during the period of weaning, often needs
great attention. Let her avoid medicine, however, if possible. A due
regard to food, drink, exercise, and rest of body and mind, &c., will
usually be found more effective, as well as more permanently
efficacious.
SEC. 9. _Food subsequently to Weaning._
You will allow me to introduce in this place, some of the sentiments of
Dr. Cadogan, an English physician, from a little work on the management
of children. [Footnote: Though Dr. C.'s remarks will apply more closely
to England in 1750, they are by no means inapplicable to the United
States in 1837.] I do it with the more pleasure because, though he wrote
almost a century ago, he urges the same general principles on which I
have all along been insisting: hence it will be seen that mine are no
new-fangled notions. His remarks refer to the young of every age, but
chiefly to early infancy and childhood. It will be found necessary, in
some instances, to abridge, but I shall endeavor not to misrepresent the
Doctor's views.
* * * * *
"Look over the bills of mortality. Almost half of those who fill up that
black list, die under five years of age; so that half the people that
come into the world go out of it again, before they become of the least
use to it or to themselves. To me, this seems to deserve serious
consideration.
"It is ridiculous to charge it upon nature, and to suppose that infants
are more subject to disease and death than grown persons; on the
contrary, they bear pain and disease much better--fevers especially; and
for the same reason that a twig is less hurt by a storm than an oak.
"In all the other productions of nature, we see the greatest vigor and
luxuriancy of health, the nearer they are to the egg or bud. When was
there a lamb, a bird, or a tree, that died because it was young? These
are under the immediate nursing of unerring nature; and they thrive
accordingly.
"Ought it not, therefore, to be the care of every nurse and every
parent, not only to protect their nurslings from injury, but to be well
assured that their own officious services be not the greatest evils the
helpless creatures can suffer?
"In the lower class of mankind, especially in the country, disease and
mortality are not so frequent, either among adults or their children.
Health and posterity are the portion of the poor--I mean the laborious.
The want of superfluity confines them more within the limits of nature;
hence they enjoy the blessings they feel not, and are ignorant of their
cause.
"In the course of my practice, I have had frequent occasion to be fully
satisfied of this; and have often heard a mother anxiously say, 'the
child has not been well ever since it has done puking and crying.'
"These complaints, though not attended to, point very plainly to the
cause. Is it not very evident that when a child rids its stomach of its
contents several times a day, it has been overloaded? While the natural
strength lasts, (for every child is born with more health and strength
than is generally imagined,) it cries at or rejects the superfluous
load, and _thrives apace_; that is, grows very fat, bloated, and
distended beyond measure, like a house lamb.
"But in time, the same oppressive cause continuing, the natural powers
are overcome, being no longer able to throw off the unequal weight. The
child, now unable to cry any more, languishes and is quiet.
"The misfortune is, that these complaints are not understood. The child
is swaddled and crammed on, till, after gripes, purging, &c., it sinks
under both burdens into a convulsion fit, and escapes farther torture.
This would be the case with the lamb, were it not killed, when full fat.
"That the present mode of nursing is wrong, one would think needed no
other proof than the frequent miscarriages attending it, the death of
many, and the ill health of those that survive. But what I am going to
complain of is, that children, in general, are over-clothed and
over-fed, and fed and clothed improperly. To these causes I attribute
almost all their diseases.
"But the feeding of children is much more important to them than their
clothing. Let us consider what nature directs in the case. If we follow
nature, instead of leading or driving her, we cannot err. In the
business of nursing, as well as physic, art, if it do not exactly copy
this original, is ever destructive.
"If I could prevail, no child should ever be crammed with any unnatural
mixture, till the provision of nature was ready for it; nor afterwards
fed with any ungenial diet whatever, at least for the _first three
months_; for it is not well able to digest and assimilate other elements
sooner.
"I have seen very healthy children that never ate or drank anything
whatever but their mother's milk, for the first ten or twelve months.
Nature seems to direct to this, by giving them no teeth till about that
time. The call of nature should be waited for to feed them with anything
more substantial; and the appetite ought ever to precede the food--not
only with regard to the daily meals, but those changes of diet which
opening, increasing life requires. But this is never done, in either
case; which is one of the greatest mistakes of all nurses.
"When the child requires more solid sustenance, we are to inquire what
and how much is most proper to give it. We may be well assured there is
a great mistake either in the quantity or quality of children's food, or
both, as it is usually given them, because they are made sick by it; for
to this mistake I cannot help imputing nine in ten of all their
diseases.
"As to quantity, there is a most ridiculous error in the common
practice; for it is generally supposed that whenever a child cries, it
wants victuals: it is accordingly fed ten or twelve or more times in a
day and night. This is so obvious a misapprehension, that I am surprised
it should ever prevail.
"If a child's wants and motions be diligently and judiciously attended
to, it will be found that it never cries, but from pain. Now the first
sensations of hunger are not attended with pain; accordingly, a very
young child that is hungry will make a hundred other signs of its want,
before it will cry for food. If it be healthy, and quite easy in its
dress, it will hardly ever cry at all. Indeed, these signs and motions I
speak of are but rarely observed, because it seldom happens that
children are ever suffered to be hungry.[Footnote: That which we
commonly observe in them, in such cases, and call by the name of hunger,
the Doctor, I suppose would regard as morbid or unnatural feeling,
wholly unworthy of the name of HUNGER.]
"In a few, very few, whom I have had the pleasure to see reasonably
nursed, that were not fed above two or three times in twenty-four hours,
and yet were perfectly healthy, active, and happy, I have seen these
signals, which were as intelligible as if they had spoken.
"There are many faults in the quality of children's food.
"1. It is not simple enough. Their paps, panadas, gruels, &c. are
generally enriched with sugar, spices, and other nice things, and
sometimes a drop of wine--none of which they ought ever to take. Our
bodies never want them; they are what luxury only has introduced, to the
destruction of the health of mankind.
"2. It is not enough that their food should be simple; it should also be
light. Many people, I find, are mistaken in their notions of what is
light, and fancy that most kinds of pastry, puddings, custards, &c. are
light; that is, light of digestion. But there is nothing heavier, in
this sense, than unfermented flour and eggs, boiled hard, which are the
chief ingredients in some of these preparations.
"What I mean by light food--to give the best idea I can of it--is, any
substance that is easily separated, and soluble in warm water. Good
bread is the lightest thing I know, and the fittest food for young
children. Cows' milk is also simple and light, and very good for them;
but it is often injudiciously prepared. It should never be boiled; for
boiling alters the taste and properties of it, destroys its sweetness,
and makes it thicker, heavier, and less fit to mix and assimilate with
the blood."
* * * * *
It is hardly necessary for me to repeat, that in these general views of
Dr. C., with a few exceptions, I entirely concur; indeed some of them
have already been presented. But I have expressed my doubts of the
soundness of his conclusion in regard to sugar. Used with food, in very
small quantity, by persons whose stomachs are already in a good
condition, both sugar and molasses, especially the former, appear to me
not only harmless, but wholesome and useful.
On the subject of simplicity in children's food, I should be glad to
enlarge. There is nothing more important in diet than simplicity, and
yet I think there is nothing more rare. To suit the fashion, everything
must be mixed and varied. I have no objection to variety at different
meals, both for children and adults; indeed I am disposed to recommend
it, as will be seen hereafter. But I am utterly opposed to any
considerable variety at the same meal; and above all, in a single dish.
The simpler a dish can be, the better.
But let us look, for a moment, at the dishes of food which are often
presented, even at what are called plain tables.
Meats cannot be eaten--so many persons think--without being covered
with mustard, or pepper, or gravy--or soaked in vinegar; and not a few
regard them as insipid, unless several of these are combined. Few people
think a piece of plain boiled or broiled muscle (lean flesh) with
nothing on it but a little salt, is fit to be eaten. Everything, it is
thought, must be rendered more stimulating, or acrid; or must be
swimming in gravy, or melted fat or butter.
Bread, though proverbially the staff of life, can scarcely be eaten in
its simple state. It must be buttered, or honied, or toasted, or soaked
in milk, or dipped in gravy. Puddings must have cherries or fruits of
some sort, or spices in them, and must be sweetened largely. Or
perhaps--more ridiculous still--they must have suet in them. And after
all this is done, who can eat them without the addition of sauce, or
butter, or molasses, or cream? Potatoes, boiled, steamed or roasted,
delightful as they are to an unperverted appetite, are yet thought by
many people hardly palatable till they are mashed, and buttered or
gravied; or perhaps soaked in vinegar. In short, the plainest and
simplest article for the table is deemed nearly unfit for the stomach,
till it has been buttered, and peppered, and spiced, and perhaps
_pearlashed_. Even bread and milk must be filled with berries or fruits.
Where can you find many adults who would relish a meal which should
consist entirely of plain bread, without any addition; of plain
potatoes, without anything on them except a little salt; of a plain rice
pudding, and nothing with it; or of plain baked or boiled apples or
pears? And _could_ such persons be found, how many of them would bring
up their children to live on such plain dishes?
It need not be wondered at, that a palate which has been so long tickled
by variety, and by so many stimulating mixtures of food, should come to
regard cold water for drink as insipid; and should feel dissatisfied
with it, and desirous of boiling some narcotic or poisonous herb in it,
or brewing it with something which will impart to it more or less of
alcohol. The wonder is, not that some of our epicures become drunkards,
but that all of them do not.
Dr. Cadogan alludes to a sad mistake everywhere made about _light_ food;
and condemns, very justly, hard-boiled custards, pastry, &c. It is very
strange that these substances--for these are among the injurious
articles which I call mixtures--should ever have obtained currency in
the world, to the exclusion of bread, which, as the same writer justly
says, is among the lightest articles of food which are known.
It is strange, in particular, what views people have about bread.
Judging from what I see, I am compelled to believe that there are few
who regard it in any other light than as a kind of necessary evil. They
appear to eat it, not because they are fond of it, by itself, but
because they _must_ eat it; or rather, because it is a fashionable
article; and not to make believe they eat it, at the least, would be
unfashionable. They will get rid of it, however, when they can. And when
they must eat it, they soak it, or cover it with butter or milk, or
something else which will render it tolerable--or toast it. And use it
as they may, it must be hot from the oven. After it is once cold, very
few will eat it. The idea, above all, of making a full meal of simple
cold bread, twenty-four hours old, would be rejected by ninety-nine
persons in a hundred; and by some with abhorrence.
People not only dislike bread, but regard it as unnutritious. I have
heard many a fond parent say to the child who ate no meat, and seemed to
depend almost wholly on bread--"Why, my dear child, you will starve if
you eat no meat. Do at least put some butter on your bread or your
potatoes." A thousand times have I been admonished, when eating my
vegetable dinner during the hot and fatiguing days of summer--for I was
bred to the farm, and ate little or no meat till I was fourteen years
of age--to eat more butter, or cheese, or something that would give me
strength; for I could not work, they said, without something more
nourishing than bread and the other vegetables. And yet few if any boys
of my age did more work, or performed it better, or with more ease, than
myself. And I early observed the same thing in other vegetable eaters.
The truth is, there is nothing in the world better adapted to the daily
wants of the human stomach than good bread; and few things more
nutritious. There may be a little more nutriment in eggs or jelly; but
if the former are hard-boiled, the stomach cannot digest them; and fat
meat of any kind is digested with great difficulty. Indeed it is
doubtful whether stomachs in temperate climates digest fat at all. They
may dissolve it, but that is not making good chyle of it. They may even
reduce it to chyle; _but chyle is not blood_. Fat may slip through the
system without much of it _adhering_; and I think it pretty evident that
it usually does so.
The muscle--the lean part of animals--may be nearly as nutritious as
good bread, and is more easily digested. But it is very far from being
proved that, for the healthy, those things are always best which are
most easily digested. Nobody will pretend that potatoes are better for
us than bread; and yet the experiments of Dr. Beaumont seem to prove
that boiled or roasted potatoes are much more quick and easy of
digestion than bread of the first and best quality. Even over-boiled
eggs and raw cabbage, bad as they are, are dissolved in the stomach, and
appear to be digested as quick, if not quicker, than good wheat bread.
But nobody in the world will pretend they form more wholesome food.
Neither is meat--even _lean_ meat--necessarily more wholesome, or better
calculated to give strength than bread, simply be cause it is more
quickly and easily digested. It would be nearer the truth to say, that
those substances which digest slowest (provided they do not irritate)
are best adapted to the wants of the human stomach.
The philosopher LOCKE--perhaps from his knowledge of medicine--gives
some excellent directions on this subject. "Great care should be used,"
be says, that the child "eat bread plentifully, both alone and with
everything else; and whatever he eats that is solid, make him chew it
well." This writer, by the way, supposed that the teeth were made to be
used in beating our food; and that we ought neither to swallow it
without chewing, as is customary in our busy New England, nor to mash or
soak it in order to save the labor of mastication--a practice almost
equally universal. But let us hear his own words.
"As for his diet, it ought to be very plain and simple; and if I might
advise, flesh should be forborne, at least till he is two or three years
old. But of whatever advantage this may be to his future health and
strength, I fear it will hardly be consented to by parents, misled by
the custom of eating too much flesh themselves, who will be apt to think
their children--as they do themselves--in danger to be starved; if they
have not flesh at least twice a day. This I am sure, children would
breed their teeth with much less danger, be freer from diseases while
they were little, and lay the foundations of a healthy and strong
constitution much surer, if they were not crammed so much as they are,
by fond mothers and foolish servants, and were kept wholly from flesh
the first three or four years of their lives."
Were Locke still living, I should like to interrogate him at this
place. He first speaks of giving children no meat till they are two or
three years old; and then afterwards extends the period to three or
four. The question I would put is this: If the child is healthier
without meat till he is three or four years old, why not till he is
thirteen or fourteen; or even till thirty, or forty, or seventy? And is
not Professor Stuart, of Andover--a meat eater himself, and an advocate
for its moderate use by those who have already been trained to the use
of it--is not the Professor, I say, more than half right when he
asserts, as I have heard him, that it may be well to train all children,
from the first, to the exclusive use of vegetable food?