Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Part II. The Nursing. CHAPTER I. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. Writers on this subject are very prone to state that the ability of the mother, particularly among the well-to- do, to fulfil this most important function is decreasing. This may have been a true statement fifteen or twenty years ago. At the present time, however, we are sure it is erroneous. The young mother of to-day is better able to nurse her offspring than was her sister fifteen or twenty years ago. We attribute this to the fact that the youth of the present day are more vigorous, more nearly normal individuals, than were those of an earlier date. Breast-milk during the first two or three weeks of the infant’s life is produced under unfavorable conditions, which do not indicate the possibilities of the breast as a secreting organ. Early nursing, following as it does upon the stress of confinement, is not indicative of what may be possible later, when the customary life and daily habits are resumed. Repeatedly we have found, a very high fat or a high protein, or both, entirely corrected after the first week or two, without interference. This condition at the time was considered sufficiently serious to warrant the discontinuance of nursing on the part of a weakly infant, while in a vigorous infant it would be entirely ignored. A neurotic mother makes the poorest possible milk-producer. Proportionate to the population, there are fewer neurasthenics among the young women to-day than there were twenty years ago, andthere will be still fewer twenty years hence. At the. present time the timid, retiring young woman of the neurasthenic type is not popular in her set. Few functions with which we have to deal are so variable and uncertain as the production of breast milk. Breast milk is one of the most precious substanc…
