Saving the Babies’ Lives
How many people know that last year in this country, of all the babies born, one out of every seven died before the year was out? And how many people know that half the little lives might have been saved, that they died for want of proper food and simply because their parents did not know how to take care of them?
This is the decision doctors have reached after studying the matter carefully in the different cities of the country, and watching the results of practical experiments. Many cities have taken up the work of saving the lives of infants by teaching the mothers how to care for them. Buffalo has opened its eyes to the needs of the case and a few devoted doctors and other workers are doing what they can to give the babies a chance. The society they have formed is officially known as the Babies' Milk Dispensary of Buffalo. For, strange as it may seem, the greatest factor in the babies' struggle for life is clean, wholesome milk.
And so the first step in the battle is to secure good milk and prepare it to suit the needs of each child. It is at the headquarters at Welcome Hall on Seneca street where this work is done. And it was here on a busy Monday that the work was seen in all its detail. Welcome Hall has given a room for the use of the babies, the District Nurses have given a nurse, and the doctors are giving long hours of patient work and cre for the cause. In fact, everybody has turned out to help, for the cause of the baby is a cause that appeals to all humanity.
A trim little room in the basement, all white paint and enamel; in the corner sizzles and steams a huge burnshed copper sterilizer - for the bottles only, be it remembered, the milk is not subjected to heat at all. At the white sink stands a young woman, fresh and immaculate in dark blue gown, white apron and cap, while a boy helps her wash and rewash the hundreds of little milk bottles, and all bottles used in handling the milk. The tables have zinc tops, the cupboard, with its array of foods, in boxes and tins, is Iined with white - everything is spotless.
It is in this room that the milk arrives every day from the farm where it is bought. And right here may be said something about the milk. People who have made a scientific study of babies and their feeding have come to the conclusion that to thrive properly the little ones must not be fed on pasteurized or sterilized milk, but, when it is necessary that they should have cows' milk at all, the milk should be given to then in the natural state - or uncooked. The heating may kill the germs, but it changes the nature of the milk. So the whole problem is to secure really good milk, free from germs and clean and fresh, and give it to the babes in the unpasteurized state. So the enthusiasts who have taken the matter in hand hunted the country round about for a farm where the cows were healthy and conditions clean. Having found one that promised well, they tested each Individual animal for tuberculosis, and found none in the herd. The difference between a healthy herd of cattle and the average kind may be appreciated when it is said that out of 421 herds tested, 302 had tuberculosis among them. One death in fifteen among babies, say medical men, is due to tuberculosis in milk. Then there are the typhoid germs, and other dirt and impurities that bring on intestinal and stomach diseases so widely fatal among babies.
The milk comes in to the white room in the basement of Welcome Hall in sterilized and sealed cans. Then comes the task of preparing it for the little ones. Dr. Ragone spends a great deal of his time at the station, and with the district nurse who has been detailed for that work plans the diet for each child. One baby, say, is thin and fragile and only a few weeks old. Another is several months old and weak, with plenty of flabby fat. Naturally the two would be fed on quite differently proportioned food. And so it comes that at least seven different formulas are followed out every day for the different constitutions they must nourish. Each baby's special prescription is numbered, and a certain number of bottles are prepared for it - a whole day's feeding. For a small baby there may be as many as nine bottles, with a small quantity in each, and the mother is instructed to give a bottle at regular intervals. Then for other children, who are older, the number of bottles included in a day's ration may be only five. And in each case the nurse makes ready the right number of the right mixture - milk, sugar and water, barley water, or whatever other constituents the physician may order.
And so it is morning. The busy mothers have had time to put their homes in order, to wash and dress their babies, and feed them the last of yesterday's ration. From ten to twelve o'clock they appear at the milk station or send an older child with the empty bottles, and to bring back the new supply. Right next the room where the milk is prepared, is the room where it is given out, and this constitutes one of the three milk stations of the city. The others are at the District Nurses' headquarters on Franklin street, and Watson House, and in each station the work of giving out the milk is exactly the same.
Every day the baby has its proper ration. Should the diet prove unsatisfactory a change is made by the physician. And any physician may send a patient to the dispensary for feeding, and be sure that his own orders will be carried out implicitly. Many of the mothers who bring their babies to the milk dispensary are busy women, with many other little ones about their skirts, with little time to give to the proper care of the youngest. And it often happens that the mother, seeing her child going along nicely, loses interest in the task of walking each day to the station for the milk supply, and falls back upon haphazard feeding of the baby. And it is for just this reason that the nurse must be a woman of tact and sympathy, to inspire confidence and maintain an influence over the mothers. Every once a week a delicate baby is visited by the doctor; and when it is ill there Is a visit every day. But there is still another and more direct way in which the interest of the mothers is kept up. It is a very unusual mother who is not intensely interested in her baby and its welfare. And it is the pride of her days to watch the satisfactory development of the child.
So, every Monday afternoon is a gala day at the milk dispensary. For it is then that mothers bring their babies for the weekly test. In the room where the milk is given out is a scale with a little box on the floor of it, and a white pillow and little sheet. When the doctor and nurse have assured themselves that the mothers and babies are all present, the weighing begins. Each babe in turn is placed on the pillow, and eager eyes and ears await the verdict of the dial as it points out the number of pounds of baby flesh basking below. It is a proud mother who sees the hand point to a pound more than last week, and many are the nods and congratulations exchanged as the mothers compare notes among themselves. So it is weighing day that insures the live interest of the mothers.
Little Jim was 28 months old when they brought him to the tnflk station. He was sickly and weighed thirteen pounds and ten ounces. The most dlscouragIng part, said his mother, was that at three months he weighed 15 1/2 pounds. Now, seven weeks later, little Jim is a different child. He weighs seventeen pounds and ten ounces, and is still gaining Then there were the twins, Angelina and Anna, whose mother became ill and was no longer able to nurse them, so they were brought to the milk dispensary and put on modified milk with the result that both are thriving. Charley is another baby that probably owes his life to the proper food he has had. He was seven months old when he was admitted, and weighed twelve pounds and eleven ounces. He had what they call rickets, and was poorly nourished. He was fed on the modified milk prepared specially to fit his case and gained eight pounds and fifteen ounces in 4 1/2 months.
Some babies that are brought to the dispensary are fat and pudgy and yet without any strength. Often when put on a proper diet they grow thinner and then the parents are skeptical for awhile. But as the child gains strength and is able to use his arms and legs, and as the soft, flabby flesh stiffens up and becomes solid, they are won over to the right method.
The dispensing of modified milk to babies is most carefully and rigidly regulated. Those who are able to pay for it do so, or they pay part. To the needy it is free. When a parent applies for food for a child, the doctor first makes investigation of the case to be sure that the mother cannot supply the natural nourishment for her child. For it sometimes happens that a woman will give her child a bottle in order that she may herself go out to work within a few weeks of its coming into the world. In this case, another child often has the full care of the baby - one of the little mothers so much to be pitied - and its sanitary condition is often very shocking. It even happens that the child is given a banana, cake, even a drop of whiskey or beer to quiet it, when it cries.
The work of the babies' milk dispensary does not stop at simply giving out milk to babies and watching their development along diet lines. The system goes right to the root of things and aims to teach the mothers the essentials of the rearing of children in sanitary conditions. Classes are held for mothers who need instruction in cooking simple dishes, especially for the sick room, in making beds, and dressing their babies, as well as washing them and changing their clothes. Even where babies are not fed on bottles the mother is taught how and when to feed the child. And do these mothers appreciate the lessons and like them? They do, and more, they learn very quickly and seem anxious to do things right. It isn't a matter of shiftlessness or neglect, or want of affection, the shocking conditions that assail the life and health of the average baby that comes to the dispensary. It is a dire lack of knowledge.
The only thing to do is to teach them and meantime to provide the babies with food that will give them a chance. Babies appeal to most people, and the fact that hundreds of them die in Buffalo every year, that might be saved, was what first brought about the new move of the babies' milk dispensary. It was the Fresh Air Mission that first took up the task of supplyiing modified milk to babies. The mission kept it up until the burden of expense was more than the charity could stand. The work had wrought such wonders in other cities where it had been taken up and even in the few months in which the Fresh Air Mission had tried it the results had proved so satisfactory that the doctors who had watched its progress and become interested in it were unwilling to let it die out. So a new organization was formed, as already stated, under the name of the Babies' Milk Dispensary of Buffalo, with the following officers: President, Charles Van Bergen, M. D.; vice president., Nelson G. Russell, M. D.; treasurer, Jacob S. Otto, M. D.; secretary, Paul E. Illman. And the board of trustees consists of Mrs. Conger Goodyear, Mrs. Laurence O. Allen, Francis F. Baker, Mrs. Thomas Carpenter, J. G. Eppendorff, Paul E. Illman, Mrs. E. B. McKenna, the Reverend IV. H. McLennan, Dr. Jacob S. Otto, Mrs. R. W. Pomeroy, Dr. John A. Ragone, Dr. Nelson G.Russell, Daniel W. Streeter, Dr. Charles Van Bergen, Mrs. O. G. Warren, A. B. Wright, Mrs. C. R. Wyckoff.
Buffalo is merely following the lead of other cities in
thus taking up the work of scientifically caring for the lives and welfare of
its babies. New York City, through the Society for Improving the Condition of
the Poor, is doing a splendid work. Cleveland, Buffalo's rival in many ways,
has done great hings in saving the lives of its babies. That city maintains
a dispensary that annually spends $16,000 for the cause, and is now planning
a hospital for it. In Buffalo the work was only begun last summer and already
wonderful results have gratified the painstaking and unselfish efforts of the
doctors who have given freely of their time and skill, and the few men and women
of the laity whose interest has been awakened. Considering the small amount
needed to defray the expenses connected with the supplying of proper food to
the babies of Buffalo, there ought to be no difficulty in securlng it - a sum
of $5,000 would cover a year's expenses - simply because almost the whole corps
of workers are volunteers, and the whole sum would go, not to salaries, but
to actual beneflt of the babies. Of 84 babies cared for during the summer and
fall, only four have died, and two of those were hopeless when they were brought
to the dispensary. At all the stations in the city, between 150 and 160 babies
have already felt the benefit of the good work. Were the funds larger the number
might be greater.