Remarks on the Subject of Lactation | Page 4

being increased by degrees, while the breast-milk is diminished in a corresponding ratio. Hence we shall produce a double advantage; the mother will be benefited as well as the child--the former, by giving suck less frequently, and in smaller quantities at a time than usual, will have the secretion of milk gradually lessened, and, therefore all likelihood of inconvenience, as far as regards herself when the child is entirely weaned, will be completely prevented; while, on the other hand, the child being insensibly estranged from the breast, will have become accustomed to his new food, so that there will be less chance of its disagreeing with him when it forms his sole support; and thus the danger which is generally apprehended from weaning will be either materially lessened or altogether avoided.
The difficulty of bringing up infants by hand, as it is termed, is well known; but I suspect that the great mortality which has been recorded as occurring from this source is not inseparable from the practice itself, but arises mainly from the improper manner in which it is usually conducted. When it is determined to bring up an infant by hand, the substitute offered for the mother's milk should as nearly as possible resemble that fluid; and the child should be constrained to imbibe it in the same manner as it would the milk from the maternal breast; that is, it should be sucked from a bottle contrived for that purpose, instead of the child being gorged with it, by means of a large spoon, or some other equally improper instrument, as is the usual custom. It is a fact too palpable to be questioned, that the food generally given to infants brought up by hand is not only administered in an improper manner, but is also of an improper quality; their tender stomachs are daily overloaded with solid instead of liquid aliment, and hence arises the numerous train of evils which, in my opinion, produce the great mortality just referred to.
CHAPTER II.
On Lactation, and the Disorders frequently produced in Women by that process.
There can be no doubt that, speaking generally, a mother is bound to suckle her children, and that the performance of this duty is no less conducive to her own health than to the moral and physical welfare of her offspring; yet there is not a more unfounded doctrine than that which presumes every woman who is willing to be also capable of advantageously discharging the important office of a nurse.
If the mother enjoy good health, and the process be not continued too long, it is likely to produce beneficial effects both in herself and her infant; but if she be of a very delicate habit--labour under any dangerous disease--be subject during the period of lactation to great affliction, or constant mental inquietude--or should the periodical appearance return, pregnancy occur, or suckling be continued too long, it may not only prove highly detrimental to herself, but may be the means of occasioning serious or fatal consequences to her child.
In cases of extreme delicacy of constitution, lactation will often produce the worst effects. Many young ladies, on becoming mothers, are incapable of supporting the constant drain to which the wants of their infants subject them--they lose their good looks, become gradually weaker, and as their strength declines, their milk is simultaneously lessened in quantity, and altered in its other properties.
If the suckling be still continued, their debility daily increases, distressing pains in the back and loins succeed; the patients become exceedingly nervous, as it is termed, and are unusually susceptible of ordinary impressions; pain in the head, often of great violence, follows, which, in some cases, is succeeded by delirium, in others, by absolute mania. Nor is this the whole catalogue of ills to which in such cases the unfortunate mother is subjected: the appetite fails, distressing languor is experienced by day, while copious perspirations deluge her by night, and dissipate the last remains of strength--producing a state which may easily be mistaken for, or terminate in, true pulmonary consumption;--finally, the sight becomes progressively weaker, until vision is almost destroyed; the eyelids exude a glutinous secretion, and ophthalmia itself is occasionally induced.
These are the symptoms too often caused by lactation in delicate or debilitated habits, even a few months after delivery; the same also are observed when suckling has been injudiciously protracted beyond the period to which it should be confined.
A few only of the foregoing symptoms may be noticed, or nearly the whole may present themselves, in the same patient; and when this happens, unless the cause which has given rise to them be at once detected, and appropriate treatment employed, the most serious consequences may be apprehended.
In these cases, the first step necessary is to discontinue the suckling altogether: half measures will never answer. Sometimes