Composition Of Mother's Milk

It is often advisable to collect enough milk with the breast pump to permit of an analysis. Milk within normal limits should average fat, 4 per cent.; carbohydrates (milk sugar), 7 per cent., and protein, 1.5 per cent. Such an analysis is unnecessary when the infant keeps well and gains in weight. Maternal nursing is of such vital importance that artificial feeding should be looked upon as a last resort and necessary evil, and carefully guarded against. If the mother's milk is found to be poor in non-protein elements and over-rich in protein, attempts should be made to remedy the disproportion by proper treatment for the mother.

1 See table of feeding according to age.

The Hygiene Of Natural Feeding

As a nursing baby spends most of its time sleeping, during which state it grows and develops, there must be some relationship established between sleeping and feeding. When it wakes from normal causes, it needs nourishment. Everything possible should be done to keep it from being wakened unnecessarily. Hence it is best left alone, in a dark and quiet room, with clothing properly adjusted.

The baby should be weighed at birth and at regular intervals. It is natural for it to lose weight for the first week or so, but by the end of the second week it should have returned to its birth weight, and after that should gain steadily. Up to the fifth month, it should gain on an average from five to eight ounces a week and hence should then weigh double its birth weight. During the next ten months it should again gain its own weight, so that if it weighed eight pounds at birth it should weigh sixteen pounds at the end of five months and twenty-four pounds at the end of fifteen months. Teething, diarrhoea, hot summer weather, etc., tend to retard somewhat the natural gain. If it fail to gain from no apparent cause, the breast milk should be examined and a strict plan of feeding introduced. If there is too little breast milk, as very often happens, the mother should drink from one to two quarts of good milk daily, at regular intervals, during the night as well as the day hours.

Some attention should be paid to the capacity of the infant's stomach, in all plans of systematic feeding, as shown by the following table:

Capacity Of Baby's Stomach

Newly born ...................... about 1 ounce.

At 1 month ...................... about 2 ½ ounces.

At 2 months...................... about 3 1/5 ounces.

From then on, up to the first six months, the gain is only fractional, so that at that time it is barely four ounces.

One should bear in mind that the baby often craves water, rather than milk, and should always be offered it at intervals. It takes in this way one and one-half ounces or more each day, usually at the rate of two teaspoonfuls every four hours. This use of water tends to prevent overfeeding. It is a good plan to give the water in a nursing bottle, as in this way the child becomes accustomed to its use, and less difficulty is experienced at weaning time, or when breast feeding has to be partially or wholly discontinued for any reason.