The relative influences of maternal and wet-nursing on mother and child / by Joseph Edcil Winters.

  • Winters, Joseph Edcil, -1922.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The relative influences of maternal and wet-nursing on mother and child / by Joseph Edcil Winters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Very few children nursed exclusively at the mother’s breast die during the first year—even in institutions and among the poor in tenements in New York. Very few children artificially fed, in institutions or among the poor, survive the first year. Children put out to dry-nurse by mothers who take the situation of wet-nurses almost in- variably die. In the upper classes, where there is intelligence and good care, with the feeding properly directed, a bottle- fed baby rarely dies during its infancy. It follows, there- fore, that the poor, but especially the ignorant poor, should be urged to raise their children at the breast. In institutions, breast- not bottle-feeding must be had, if attainable. Where intelligent, scrupulous care can be had, bottle-feeding may be undertaken with every pros- pect of success. We have, for consideration : I. Maternal Nursing ; 11. Wet-Nursing. I. Maternal Nursing, i. Importa7ice to child.— According to the last printed report (1882) of the In- fants’ Hospital on Randall’s Island, the death-rate among infants nourished at the breast was less than sixteen per cent., while among those that were bottle-fed it was more than seventy-five per cent.’ At the Country Home of the New York Infant Asy- lum (Flushing), during the year 1878, of 37 infants wholly nourished by mothers, none died ; while of 40 wholly hand-fed, 8 died.* “ Out of 37 infants under one year of age suffering with entero-colitis, but 6 nursed exclusively at the breast; only I of the 6 was seriously sick—20 of the 37 sick children had artificial food ; of the 20 thus fed, 16 were seriously sick.” * In Boston, out of 200 infants with diarrhoea, only 33 ^ These results apply only to artificial feeding, as it is ordinarily done in tene- ment-houses, in children “put out” to dry-nurse, and in institutions. 2 Seventh Annual Report New York Infant Asylum, January, 187^ ’ Fifth Annual Report of the Thomas Wilson Sanitarium for Children, pp. 12, 13. Baltimore, 1885,