SHELTON: CARE OF CHILDREN

[melvan]

Here's an interesting article Darrin found on breastfeeding, teething, weaning, etc.

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020110shelton/020110shelton03.html

[Sherrie]

This looks very old, I'll chuck it into a thread of its own, not sure if its suited in this thread and by the looks covers lots of things (reading it now).

[Sherrie]

Okay I don't agree with this for lots of reasons namely what he suggests usually cause a whole host of breastfeeding supply problems which then usually result in the mother losing her milk and giving up:


The chief cause of digestive disorders in infants and of all those other complaints that grow out of these is overfeeding. The habit of feeding babies every two hours during the day and every time it wakes up and cries at night is a ruinous one. Such feeding over works the baby's digestive organs and introduces an excess of food into the alimentary track to ferment and poison the child. It weakens and sickens the child producing diarrhea, colic, skin eruptions, and more serious disorders.

Feeding the baby at night prevents both mother and child from sleeping and teaches the child irregularity in sleep. When the mother's sleep is disturbed in this way, she is weakened and normal secretions are interfered with, resulting in an impairment of her milk. The impairment of the milk reacts unfavorably upon the child. Feeding at night is not only unnecessary, it overfeeds and sickens the child.

This method of feeding, which is also the popular one, is what really makes the problem of infant feeding a difficult one. There is no way to adapt even the most wholesome and easily digested food to an infant when it is fed in such quantities. With proper feeding it is but little trouble to find a food that will "agree" with the baby.

Real hunger seldom appears for two or three days after birth as is evidenced by the fact that the baby will be satisfied by a water diet. During this period nature does not provide real milk, but a secretion, called colostrum, which probably serves several needs of the child and does not behave merely as a laxative, as it is usually supposed to do.

We hear of a so-called "inanition fever" that is supposed to develop in rare cases during this period, when it becomes necessary to feed the baby artificially. This is a medical fallacy and need not be considered here.

Some ignorant and ill-advised nurses and mothers, thinking it necessary to feed the baby during this period, when nature has not supplied food, give it cows milk or sugar in water, or other "food." This is a needless and pernicious practice. The baby need not be put to the breast during the first twenty-four hours after birth.

Three to four feedings in twenty-four hours is enough for any baby. No feeding should be done at night. Babies fed in this way develop faster than those stuffed in the old way. Over nutrition actually inhibits function and retards growth and development. No feeding should ever be done between meals. Every time a child cries it is not hungry.

An infant is nourished in proportion to its power to digest and assimilate the food supplied to it, and not in proportion to the quantity of nutrition it may be induced to swallow. Not the large quantity swallowed, but the right quantity perfectly digested and perfectly assimilated can secure best results with infants as well as children and adults.

In spite of the obviousness of this principle, it is almost an article of faith with many parents, nurses and doctors, a dogma so firmly fixed in their minds that they cannot be persuaded to the contrary, that the infant that is fed most thrives best. If the infant is losing weight it always suggests the need for a larger supply of food while every cry means hunger and must be silenced with more food.

The cat, dog, cow, hog and, indeed, all other animals, do not permit their young to suck as often nor as long as they desire. The cat will often absent herself from her kittens for as long as six hours, while I have seen dogs deliberately get up from their resting places when their puppies attempted to nurse, and run away from them. On the plane of instinct there is no such folly as the stuff-them-to-kill-them practice, and the animals are more successful than we.

All around us are healthy-born children who are "starving to death under the eyes of parents who would pay a dollar a drop for food to restore them." Many of these children are surrounded with every requirement for a healthful life except one--namely, "the knowledge on the part of the attendants of the fact that the Creator did not design that a baby's stomach should be treated like a toy balloon!" They are famishing from too much feasting.

[Sherrie]

Taken from the above quote (in bold):


Three to four feedings in twenty-four hours is enough for any baby. No feeding should be done at night. Babies fed in this way develop faster than those stuffed in the old way. Over nutrition actually inhibits function and retards growth and development.

I say bull manure!

Not only that I think Maya makes a perfect example on why that is bull manure because her growth and development are far from retarded and she milks me dry! :p

I think babies feeding depends on their own needs, not all babies are meant to be big or small

[Sherrie]

:eek:



The best source of sugar for the infant is found in grapes. Take the required amount of fresh, ripe grapes and crush them in a vessel. Squeeze the juice out of these and strain it. Put it into a bottle and give it to the child just like it takes its milk. Do not dilute the grape juice. Small babies may have four ounces of this at a feeding; older babies, that is after six months, eight ounces. Never give bottled grape-juice. Never cook the grape juice.

When grapes are out of season unsulphured figs or prunes may be used instead. These should be soaked over night in the usual way, then crushed and the juice strained off. This juice should be fed in the bottle and may be given in the same amounts that the grape juice is given.

These sweet fruit juices should not be given with the milk but should be given three to four hours after the milk feeding.

ORANGE JUICE is one of the most delicious and attractive foods that can be fed to babies. It contains pre-digested food that is ready for absorption and utilization when taken. This, perhaps, explains why a glass of orange juice is so refreshing to the tired person or to the man who has been on a fast. The sweeter the orange, the more refreshing it is.

Oranges are rich in lime and other alkaline salts and prevent or overcome acidosis. Ignorant doctors who decry oranges because they "make the blood acid" need to be punished severely.

The regular eating of orange juice results in the retention of calcium and phosphorous in the body, and in the assimilation of nitrogen (protein), out of all proportion to the amounts of these elements contained in the juice. The juice actually enables the body to utilize the elements better than it could otherwise do.

Nothing can be more helpful to children, and particularly undernourished children than orange juice not two or three spoonsful a day, but from a glass-full to three glasses full. Don't be stingy with the orange juice; stop kidding yourself and the child with tea-spoons full of the juice.

Orange juice may be given to infants from birth as may grape-juice. The two weeks old infant should be given juice of one-half an orange, about two ounces, undiluted. By the time the child is three months old it should be taking four ounces at a feeding of undiluted orange juice. At six months it should be taking eight ounces. Never add sugar or other substance to the orange juice.

Lemon juice, lime juice, tomato juice, grape-fruit juice, melon juice or the juices of other fruits may also be used, but are not always to be had, as is orange juice. Most children will relish grapefruit juice although many of them refuse tomato juice.

Never give canned or cooked fruit juices to infants and childred. Never add sugar, oil or other substance to them.

The orange juice feeding should be given three to four hours after the milk feeding.

Baby's feeding schedule should be as follows:

6 A. M. Milk.

10 A. M. grape juice or other sweet fruit juice. (In the south fresh fig juice may be used in season.)

12 M. milk.

3 P. M. to 4 P. M. orange juice or tomato juice or grapefruit juice, or other juice.

6 P. M. Milk.

[Sherrie]

*chuckle*


Mothers who have had frequent intercourse during pregnancy will give birth to babies covered with a cheese-like substance called vernix caseosa.

[Sherrie]

After a baby is born:


As soon as the baby has been cleansed, it should be prepared for bed and permitted to sleep. No food should be given for the first twenty four hours.

:eek:

[Sherrie]

MEAT BROTHS have practically no value. They act as stimulants rather than as foods, and all such stimulation is decidedly injurious.

MEAT should never be fed to a child under six years of age, and better never at all.

EGGS are divided into yolk and white. The yolk is an alkaline food, the white is an acid-ash food. The white is difficult to digest and poorly assimilated, if at all, and contains poisonous properties that render it dangerous as food. Leave out all eggs.

:eek: