Remarks on the Subject of Lactation | Page 5

it is proposed by the patient, or her friends (more usually the latter), to compromise the affair by feeding the child partly on spoon meat, and allowing him still to take the breast, though less frequently than before.
This plan I uniformly object to, for the following reasons:--
1st. Because the mother will not be likely to recover so long as she continues to suckle at all.
2nd. Because her milk being necessarily of a bad quality, it cannot be expected that the child will derive benefit from it; but, on the contrary, there is every probability that his health will suffer by using diet of such an improper description.
The obvious dependence of the foregoing symptoms upon debility will, of course, at once suggest to practitioners the nature of the treatment to be adopted: which should be such as is calculated to invigorate the system generally--namely, the administration of tonics, &c.
Bark and its various preparations, especially the sulphate of quinine, with the occasional use of warm aperients (sedulously avoiding the more violent purgatives), will be found eminently successful; whereas, cupping at the nape of the neck (which I have seen prescribed for the headache), and other depletory measures, have proved as manifestly injurious.
'Every disease productive of great weakness is increased by the state of the system which follows child-bearing. Of this description are consumption, dropsy,' &c. In these cases it is evident that the process of lactation, by adding to the debility already present, must prove highly injurious, and consequently should be always avoided.
I have already noticed the effects which are produced upon the milk by the influence of mental emotions on the part of the mother, as well as by the recurrence of the periodical appearance; and since these are chiefly injurious to the child, by depraving its sustenance, their further consideration will be deferred till the next chapter.
With respect to the remaining topic--namely, the occurrence of miscarriage from suckling--I am convinced that it is by no means an unfrequent accident, though its real cause is perhaps rarely suspected, having only met with one patient who considered the mishap in question to have arisen from keeping her child too long at the breast. Having already, I trust satisfactorily, explained the manner in which abortion is produced by the act of suckling, I shall conclude this part of my subject with the relation of a case that occurred in private practice, which so strongly corroborates many of the observations in the preceding and following pages, that I shall offer no apology for its introduction: more particularly, since the lady herself to whom it refers has benevolently expressed a wish for its publication, in order that those who become acquainted with the facts there detailed may be prevented from undergoing similar unnecessary sufferings:--
CASE.
Mrs. A----, a lady of delicate constitution, about twenty years of age, three or four months subsequent to the birth of her first child, began to find her milk gradually lessen in quantity; it had also much changed from its previous appearance, resembling at the time just stated, a yellowish, turbid serum. Her child became emaciated; and diarrh[oe]a supervening, my professional services were required. My advice was, that the child should be at once weaned, and a suitable wet-nurse, if possible, procured--neither of which suggestions, as will shortly appear, were followed. I urged the necessity of this measure more particularly, because Mrs. A---- was daily getting thinner and weaker; she also complained of great pain in the head and back, and of an increasing dimness of sight, which made her fear she should become blind; but the mother-in-law of my patient being, unfortunately, of opinion that pregnancy in the latter would not again occur during the continuance of lactation, recommended that the child, although chiefly supported upon spoon-meat, should occasionally be allowed to take the breast; and this plan, notwithstanding the wish of Mrs. A---- to the contrary, and my own remonstrances on the subject, was adopted--the effects of which were to increase the mother's ailments, as well as those of her infant. Things went on thus for some time longer, when I once more endeavoured to persuade Mrs. A---- to follow my advice, observing, that by an opposite line of conduct she was not only injuring her own health, but that of her child, neither of which, I assured her, in my opinion, would be re-established till the latter had been weaned. I expressed also my complete incredulity as to the non-recurrence of pregnancy in consequence of her infant remaining at the breast; and I added--'It is my firm conviction that if you be pregnant, or should happen shortly to become so, you will miscarry.' About a week after this conversation she was suddenly seized with flooding, and what I had predicted took place. She now left off suckling, and in