Spread of Streptococcal Disease

milk is inadequate. Finally, in houses and hospitals each mother should have her own room. If this can be afforded for the inmates of prisons it should be possible to afford it for the mother of babies. In her own room she would be free not only from the contagion of bacterial disease but also the contagion of desire to bottle-feed which at times spreads from mother to mother in a big ward. Probably the most important cause of failure to breastfeed among those who desire to do so is the temporary inhibition of lactation which occurs shortly after the lyingin period when the mother returns to her household duties. This is interpreted as a final disappearance of the milk, with the result that she resorts to bottle-feeding. This could be overcome to a large extent by allowing the mother to be out of bed for-a few days in the hospital before returning home, and by warning her that the disappearance of the breast-milk will probably last only for a day or two and that it can be restored with perseverance. I shall quote one more example to illustrate the faults of the mechanization of breast-feeding. Some time ago I was summoned to the house of young parents to see a three-months-old infant. The father was a lecturer in science, the mother a recent graduate of a university. The bookcase in unstained oak, the bare off-white walls, and the weekly political journals denoted their type and tastes. She was an earnest woman, breast-feeding her infant and anxious to continue. The complaint was that the child had failed to gain weight for a month and was but little over its birth weight. It was much troubled by frequent green stools and restlessness. I suggested that the child had no disease, but was receiving too little nourishment. This was denied by the mother, who produced figures and charts to show that test weighing had been used for every feed since birth, and that the infant had received the exact physiological amounts of breast milk-so many ounces a day for each pound of its body weight. She quoted authorities at me to prove her point. I persuaded her to discard the test weighing and to feed the infant five or six times a day until he appeared satisfied. In ten days he gained a pound, and there was no more trouble and no more test weighing. This over-mechanization is again seen in the frequent appeal to know whether a baby should be fed at four-hourly or three-hourly intervals. I would submit that the reply to this should be that the mother should cultivate an instinctive recognition of her own baby's needs, that she should come to know when the baby is satisfied, and that she should then choose the times of feeding most suitable to herself and her child. Only in difficulties should professional advice be sought.