Infants artificial diet

It should be like-like breast milk as possible. This is obtained from a mixture of cow's milk, water, sugar and, with the following analogy.

Fresh cow's milk, two thirds; Boiling water, barley water or thin, the third; Sugar Loaf, enough to sweeten.

This is the best diet that can be used for the first six months, after which some farinaceous food may be combined.

In infancy, mothers are too accustomed to giving thick gruel, wet bread, biscuit-powder, and these issues, thinking that a diet with a lighter kind will not nourish. This is wrong; For these preparations are very solid; Overloaded the stomach and cause indigestion, flatulence and griping. These create a need for medicines and carminatives laxative, which again weaken digestion, and, on the abnormal irritation, perpetuate the suffering that make them necessary. So many babies are kept in a continuous round of saturation, indigestion, and consolidation, with the administration of liquors and drugs, which, if the diet was in quantity and quality suited to their digestive powers, would not need help from medical or doctors.

In preparing this diet is particularly important to obtain pure milk, not previously skimmed or mixed with water; And with warm weather just taken from the cow. It should not be mixed with water or sugar until wanted, and no more than will be taken from the child at the time, why should be prepared at each meal fresh. It is best not to heat the milk over the fire, but leave the water is boiling situation, when mixed with this and to give the baby tepid or lukewarm.

As the baby progress of age, the percentage of milk can be increased gradually; This is necessary, after the second month, when three parts of milk in a water can be allowed. But there should be no change in the type of diet, whether the child health is good, and his appearance is a marked improvement. Nothing is more absurd than the idea that at the beginning of life of children requires a variety of foods; Only one type of food is prepared by nature, and it is impossible to go beyond what the law, without sign of injury.

There are two ways to spoon, and the nursing-bottle. The first should not be employed during that period, to the extent that the strength of digestion in infants is very weak, and their food is designed by nature to be taken too late in the stomach, produced by the breast by the Act sucking, which acts a large amount of saliva secreted is, and go into the mouth, mixes with milk, and is swallowed with it. This process of nature, then, should be emulated wherever possible; And food (for this purpose) should be imbibed by suction from nursing-bottle: it is thus slowly, and employed with suction ensures mixing a quantity of saliva, which is extremely important influence on digestion. Regardless of the type of breast or bottle nipple is used, however, we must never forget that cleanliness is absolutely essential to the success of this project rearing children.

Te quantity of food to be given at each meal ust be regulated by the age of the child, and the strength of the digestive system. A little experience will soon allow for the careful observation of the mother and to determine this point. As the child grows older, the physical quantity should be increased.

The main error in the rearing of young people are overfeeding? And one is more serious; But that can easily be avoided by the parent carries a systematic plan for hours of feeding, and then only to give indications of appetite, and management of food slowly, in small quantities at a time. This is the only way to prevent effectually indigestion, and bowel complaints, and irritable state of the nervous system, so common in childhood, and the baby to ensure healthy eating, and the resulting power of the Constitution. As correctly observed, "The Nature never intended for infants stomach must be converted into a container for laxatives, carminatives, antacids, stimulants, and astringents? And when they become necessary, you may be sure that there is something in our faulty management, However, this may seem perfect for ourselves. "

The frequency of food to be determined, as a rule allowing such a space between each meal that will insure the digestion of the previous quantity; And this can be set at approximately every three or four hours. If this rule be refused, and the child receives a new supply of food every hour or so, there will be time for the digestion of the previous volume, and as a consequence of this process interrupted, the transmission of undigested food in the gut, there will become sour and fermented, will inevitably lead cholic and cleaning products, and in no way contribute to the maintenance of the child.

The attitude of the child's body when fed: - It is important to participate in it. You should not receive meals located; The head should be increased nurse on the arm, the most natural position, and where there is no danger of the food will be wrong way, as it is called. After each small meal should be placed on the cradle or rest for the mother of the knee for at least half an hour. This is necessary for the process of digestion, as exercise is important and at other times for health promotion.

From the time the child has any teeth, and on this period one or two will make their appearance, solid farinaceous matter boiled in water, beaten through a sieve, and mixed with a small amount of milk, can be employed . Or tops and bottoms, steeped in hot water with the addition of fresh milk and loaf sugar to sweeten. And the child can now for the first time to eat with a spoon.

When one or two of the large grinding teeth have emerged, the same food can continue, but there is no need to pass a sieve. Beef tea and chicken broth may occasionally be added; And, as an introduction to the use of more complete nutrition of animals, some now and then, a soft-boiled egg; From a small and bread pudding, made with an egg in it, can be taken as the evening meal.

Nothing is more common than for their parents during this period to give their children animal food. This is a big mistake. "To feed an infant with animal food before they have teeth to properly masticating it shows complete disregard for the plain indications of nature, in that retention of teeth until the system requires their assistance to chew solid food. And method of grating and pounding meat, as a substitute for chewing, it may be proportionate to the teeth octogenarian, whose stomach may be to digest; but the stomach of a young child is not adapted to digest food, and will be disturbed by it.

It can reasonably be argued that a child without teeth, mouth, and adults, furnished with teeth and graminivorous carnivorous animals, are designed by the Creator for the same kind of food. If the chewed solid food, whether animal or plant and a contaminant due to the saliva, it is necessary for digestion, then solid food can not be good, there is no power when chewed. If it is swallowed in large masses can not be masticated at all, but will have a small chance to digest; And undigested to a situation which will prove harmful to the stomach and other concerned bodies to digest, which are by unnatural compounds. The practice of giving solid food in an inefficient child, is no less absurd than to expect corn to be ground, where there is no device for the milling. What could be regarded as evidence of idiotism or paranoia, ultimately, is defended and practiced in the former. If, on the other hand, to tackle this evil, the solid material, either animal or vegetable, previously analyzed in small masses, the baby will swallow immediately, but should be mixed with saliva. However, on each day of observation to be seen, that children are so fed with the most tender age; And is not that great show is bad, thus produced, and the foundation for the future that disease. "

The diet observed, then this will continue until the second year. Great attention, however, it is essential to management; For this period ushered in infancy is the process of teething, usually associated with more or less disturbance from the system. Any error, therefore, diet or regimen is now more carefully to avoid. 'Tis true that the baby, which is a good and healthy constitution, which, therefore, the powers of life are active, and who until now has nursed at the breast of the mother, and now begins an artificial diet for the first time, disorder is only perceived, unless the operation of the very effective. There is, however, the child from the first hour of birth has fed artificial food. Teething under these circumstances is always attended with more or less disturbance of the framework, and diseases of the most dangerous character, but too often occurs. It is at this age, too, that all explosive and infectious fevers are most prevalent; Worms often begin to form, and diarrhea, thrush, rickets, skin rash, etc. manifest, and the foundation of scrofulous disease originated or developed. A prudent management of the diet will prevent some of these complaints, violence and mitigate the other when they occur.