Infant, FEEDING OF. When the health and strength of the mother admit of it, there is no doubt that the food provided by nature is far the best suited for infant nourishment. In this case the child should be fed entirely on breast milk for the first six or eight months at least, and partially for the remainder of the first year of life. Beyond this period, nursing is usually injurious to mother and child, but is often continued because of the idea that it tends to prevent pregnancy. If from any cause the mother is unable to nurse her infant, a wet-nurse is the best substitute; though the improvement effected in the preparation of artificial foods has rendered this method of bringing up infants less common than it used to be. The selection of a suitable nurse should be entrusted to the medical adviser, and is a responsible and difficult duty. When neither of these methods is available, the milk of some animal has to be used. Goats' milk and asses' milk have both been recommended, as more nearly resembling human milk than cows' milk does; but, as they are almost always difficult to procure, while cows' milk is abundant and cheap, it is this which in the vast majority of cases must be employed. The differences between human milk and cows' milk must therefore be recognised and allowed for. They may be summed up as follows: Cows' milk contains much less sugar, rather less fat, and considerably more albuminoids than human milk; and under the action of acids a much larger proportion of albuminoids coagulate, and form a much firmer clot in the former than in the latter. To assimilate cows' milk as closely as possible to the natural food of the infant, it must be modified in some such way as the following: One tablespoonful of milk to be mixed with half a tablespoonful of cream, two tablespoonfuls of water (boiled), and a quarter of a teaspoonful of milk sugar for each meal during the first month. If the cows' milk still forms too firm a clot, a tablespoonful of lime water, or of barley water, may be substituted for one tablespoonful of plain water; or a little solution of gelatine, or of one of the prepared foods for infants, such as Mellin's, may be added. The quantity of milk, &c. must be gradually increased as the child grows, till at the sixth month it has nine tablespoonfuls of milk, one of cream, two of water, and a teaspoonful of milk sugar at each meal. It is sometimes, but not generally, necessary to secure a supply of milk from one cow. If ordinary milk disagrees, predigestion (by Benger's liquor pancreaticus or Fairchild's peptonising powder) may overcome the difficulty. If milk cannot be borne in any form, some substitute (prepared 'infants' food,' chicken broth, raw meat juice, &c.) must be used. But in all such difficult cases, medical advice should be sought.
There is no more fruitful source of illness in infants brought up on the bottle than imperfect attention to cleanliness, which leads to souring of the milk and severe indigestion. There should always be at least two bottles, tubes, &c. in use; and after a meal the apparatus should at once be taken to pieces, thoroughly cleansed with soda and water, and left steeping in fresh boiled water till it is required. No cork, wood, or other absorbent substance should be used in the construction of the fittings of the bottle, as this renders perfect cleanliness almost impossible.
Till after the sixth month at least the infant is unable to digest starchy foods, unless specially prepared as in the 'infants' food'; and the giving of risks, biscuit-crumbs, &c. before this period cannot be too strongly condemned.
It is no less important to the infant than to the adult, but rather more, that the meals should be taken regularly. During the first six weeks, whatever method of feeding is adopted, a meal should be given on the average every two hours from 5 A.M. to 11 P.M. From this period to the eighth month the interval should gradually be increased to three or four hours, and always as far as possible the time of the meals should be the same from day to day. Of course these are merely general statements; the contentedness and thriving of the infant are the true guides in each individual case. To give it a meal every time it cries merely overloads the stomach and provokes disorder of the digestion.
After the eighth month five meals a day should be enough, and two should consist of farinaceous food, well cooked (rusks, stale bread-crumbs, oat, barley, or wheat flour), as well as milk. About the tenth month the yolk of an egg may be given once or twice a day, or chicken-soup in its stead. After the first year the range of the diet may be gradually increased, bread, mashed potato, meat broth, fish, chicken, well-boiled vegetables being gradually added. But many children thrive well on milk and farinaceous food alone up to two or three years of age, and if so may be allowed to continue on that diet.