ACCESSORY MEANS. Warmth always favours the secretion of milk. The diet is important, and should be nutritious and digestible. Good cocoa is very useful, improving the quality and increasing the quantity of the mother’s milk, and we have known it to succeed after other means had failed. During the whole period of nursing this nourishment beverage will be found highly conductive to the health of both mother and child.. When the quantity of milk cannot be increased to meet the requirements to the child, mixed nursing must be adopted according to the directions given in the Section on hand-feeding. It is important that the mother should suckle her baby during the day, and have it fed by the bottle at night. This arrangement permits the mother to enjoy a good night’s sleep, which in itself favours the secretion of milk.
79. SUPPRESSED MILK
CAUSES. Exposure to cold, powerful emotions of the mind, or any circumstances which causes febrile symptoms.
MEDICAL TREATMENTS. Aconite, Bryonia, Calcarea C., Chamomilla, Coffea, Plus., Zincum met. M.
INDICATION FOR THE PRINCIPAL REMEDIES.
Aconitum. In all cases attended with feverish symptoms, especially if from cold.
Bryonia. Is useful where there are stitching pains in the chest or side.
Chamomilla. If the suppression has arisen from a sudden mental emotions, particularly anger.
Coffea. Where there is unusual restlessness or sleeplessness.
Pulsatilla. Partial or entire suppression, without febrile symptoms. This remedy exerts a healthy influence over the constitution in almost every departure from the normal course during the whole period of nursing.
ACCESSORY MEANS. When the distention and irritation have been relieved by medicine, the milk which has been arrested with generally flow quite freely. Should the discharge continue imperfect, the breast-pump may be used, or, which is better, a strong child may be applied.
METHOD FOR PROMOTING THE FLOW OF MILK. In all cases when the flow of milk is tardy, the following pain for accelerating it will be found to be available and safe; Take a decanter and fill it with boiling water, when it is thoroughly hot, suddenly empty it, and place it on the breast, with the nipple in the neck of the bottle. The gradual cooling of the decanter will create vacuum, the nipple will be gently pressed into it without pain, and the atmospheric pressure on the breast will, in almost every instance, cause the milk immediately to flow. The experiment may safely be repeated after a short interval if does not happen to be successful at first. Care must the taken and protect the breast, by covering the mouth of the decanter with leather or thick flannel. A hole made in the centre of this will keep the nipple in its proper place.
80. EXCESSIVE SECRETIONS OF MILK.
Occasionally the secretion of milk may be so abundant and continuous as to become a serious tax on the constitution, so that the mother’s health soon gives way. Loss of appetite, debility, dragging sensations, or pain in the back and chest, and if the symptoms continue unchecked, Hectic-fever and premature death from the so-called “Nurses” Consumption.”
INDICATIONS FOR THE REMEDIES.
Bryonia. Painful distention of the glands, oppression of the breasts, etc.
Calcarea Carb. Too abundant secretion of milk, with spontaneous emission of it and loss of flesh.
China. For the debility consequent upon the excessive flow.
Phosphoric. Acid. Is of great service for the ensuing weakness especially if there is much perspiration.
ACCESSORY MEANS. Weaning is the first remedy to be adopted. Generally the milk then soon ceases to form, and the patient gains flesh and strength. A change of air and good hygienic conditions greatly aid recovery.
81. INVOLUNTARY ESCAPE OF MILK.
CAUSE. Deficient tone in the milk ducts, which often co-exists with loss of tone in the general constitution.
MEDICINAL TREATMENT. Borax, Bryonia, Calcarea Carbonica, China, and Pulsatilla are the remedies mostly employed to moderate the involuntary escape of milk.
ACCESSORY MEANS. The breasts should be sponged with equal parts of cold vinegar and water for one part of strong acetic acid to twelve parts of cold water), morning and evening, and rapidly and carefully dried with a soft towel afterwards. To keep the dress from getting soiled nipple-glasses may be down; but they should never be used unless absolutely necessary, as they are apt to keep up, instead of to diminish, the flow of milk.
82. PROLONGED NURSING
The process of lactation forms a great drain on the constitution, and although healthy women, under favourable circumstances, suckle their children for a considerable time without sustaining injurious effects, still in delicate persons, or under unfavourable hygienic conditions, nursing, even within the otherwise healthy term, may be productive of permanently serious results.
Some mothers derive the greatest pleasure from nursing their children, and never seem quite ready or willing to wean them. In addition to the pressure of suckling, there is often another powerful motive to postpone weaning as long as possible. Generally, the function of menstruation is suspended, and it is well known that the nursing mother who does not menstruate is not likely to conceive. Hence we often find lactation continued for twelve or eighteen months, with the view of avoiding pregnancy. This expedient we have frequently found to be adopted, especially by poor dispensary patients. But inasmuch as nursing does not always shield from pregnancy, and as the health is generally injured by prolonged nursing, weaning should always take place at about the ninth month.
The period when nursing becomes hurtful varies considerably in different cases, from a few weeks after the birth of the child of the child to nine or ten months.
When to Wean. The symptoms which indicate that lactation is injuriously affecting the mother are aching pain in the back or a dragging sensation when the child is in the act of nursing, accompanied or followed by a feeling of exhaustion, sinking, and emptiness; general weariness and fatigue; want of, unrefreshing or disturbed sleep; headache as the top of the head, the painful spot being often perceptibly hotter to the touch than other parts; dimness of vision; noises in the ear; loss of appetite; dyspnoea and palpitation after exertion or ascending stairs. If the nursing is persisted in, the patient becomes pale, thin, and weak; other indications of debility follow-night-sweats; swelling of the ankles; nervousness; and extreme depression of spirits, the melancholy being often of a religious character. If short, we may have the early symptoms of Puerperal Mania, and it is important that these symptoms should be quickly detected, and when they are amenable to treatment.
The symptoms of excessive lactation may occur in delicate women who have had several children in quick accession; also as the consequence of inherent deficiency of that vital powers, imperfect nutrition, haemorrhage, abortion, or exhausting leucorrhoea, or any other accidental cause of debility, involving most injurious-often lasting consequences to the mind and body.
MEDICINAL TREATMENT. Bryonia, Calcarea phos., Causticum, China, Cim., Lycopodium, Phosphorus Ac., Pulsatilla, Rhus.
INDICATIONS FOR THE PRINCIPAL REMEDIES.
Calcarea phos. Scrofulous or chlorotic symptoms, with loss of appetite, emaciation, dry cough, short breathing, with predisposition to Consumption.
Causticum. Excessive appetite, followed by a sense of emptiness soon after eating, or loss of appetite; irritable or easily vexed disposition; impaired memory; nervous anxiety, with despondency; throbbing headache, with pulsations and noises in the ears; threatened Amaurosis; twitchings of the muscles, etc.
China. Much weakness, noises in the ears, palpitation, swelling of the legs, etc.; especially if there have been night-sweats, excessive menstruation, Haemorrhages, or leucorrhoea.
Cimicifuga. Mental dullness of heaviness; melancholy; alternate depression and exaltation (also (Ignatia). Especially valuable in melancholy from prolonged lactation; and when this symptom occurs during menstruation or pregnancy.
ADMINISTRATION. A dose every four or six hours.
ACCESSORY MEANS. Weaning is the first indication, and should be commenced immediately; nothing short of this will in general be of any real utility. An attempt to force the supply of milk by large and frequent quantities of beer, wine, or spirits will be unsuccessful and injurious. Should the infant be four or six weeks old, it may be weaned with a fair chance of doing tolerably well. Indeed, ones now and then occur in which the function of lactation cannot be continued even so long as a month. In slight cases, however, and when the infant is but a few weeks old, the mother should have a good supply of plain nourishing food, with cocoa, and good milk to the exclusion of tea, coffee, etc. The us of cocoa is often productive of the best results by augmenting the secretion of milk. If, notwithstanding the use of these means, a proper supply of milk is not yielded, and the health and strength of the patient do not improve, all attempts at nursing should be at once abandoned.
LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS; LICENTIATE IN MIDWIFERY, LONDON AND EDINBURGH, ETC. PHYSICIAN TO THE READING AND BERKSHIRE HOMOEOPATHIC DISPENSARY.
Author of "The Stepping Stone to Homeopathy and Health,"
"Manual of Homoeopathic Treatment". Editor of "The Homoeopathic World."