Sleep : Bed, Part 2. Covering

The Young Mother: Management of Children in Regard to Health
by William A. Alcott

(Page 16 of 25)

I have no hostility to soft beds, especially for young children and feeble adults, could softness be secured without much heat and relaxation of the system. On the contrary, it is certainly desirable, in itself, to have the bed so soft that as large a proportion of the surface of the body may rest on it as possible. But I consider hardness as a much smaller evil than feathers.

It is worthy of remark how generally physicians, for the last hundred years, have recommended hard beds, especially straw beds or hair mattresses, to their more feeble and delicate patients. This fact might at least quiet our apprehensions in regard to their tendency on those who are accustomed to them in early infancy.

Some writers on these subjects appear to doubt whether, after all that they say, they shall have much influence on mothers in inducing them to give up feather beds for their infants. But they need not be so faithless. Multitudes have already been reformed by their writings; and multitudes larger still would be so, could they gain access to them. It is a most serious evil that they are often so written and published that comparatively few mothers will ever possess them.

The pillow, as well as the bed, should be rather hard; and its thickness should be much less than is usual, or we shall do mischief by bending the neck, and thus compressing the vessels, and obstructing the circulation of the blood. But on this subject I will say more, when I come to treat on "Posture."

The child's bed should not be placed near the wall, on account of dampness. There is also, during the summer, another reason. Should lightning strike the house, it will be much more apt to injure those who are near the wall than other persons; as it seldom leaves the wall to pass over the central part of the room.

Curtains are not only useless, but injurious. They prevent a free circulation of the air. Everything which has this tendency must be studiously guarded against, in the management of infants.

Nothing is more injurious to the old or the young than damp beds and damp covering. It behoves, especially, all those who have the care of infants, to see that everything about their beds is thoroughly dry. The walls and clothes should also be dry; and wet clothes should never be hung up in the room. By neglecting these precautions, colds, rheumatisms, inflammations, fevers, consumptions, and death, may ensue. Many a person loses his health, and not a few their lives, in this way. The author of this work was once thrown into a fever from such a cause.

Warming the bed is, in all cases, a bad practice. While in the nursery, if the air be kept at a proper temperature, there will be no need of it; after the child is assigned to a separate chamber, its enervating tendency would result in more evil than good. It is better to let the bed became gradually heated by the body, in a natural and healthy way.

No person, and above all, no infant, should be suffered to sleep in a bed that has been recently occupied by the sick. The bed and all the clothes should first be thoroughly aired. Could we see with our eyes at once, how rapidly these bodies of ours fill the air, and even the beds we sleep in, with carbonic acid and other hurtful gases and impurities, even while in health, but much more so in sickness, we should be cautious of exposing the lungs of the tender infant, in such an atmosphere, until everything had been properly cleansed, and the apartments properly ventilated.

5. The Covering

The covering of the bed should be sufficiently warm, but never any warmer than is absolutely necessary to protect the child from chilliness. The lightest covering which will secure this object is the best. Perhaps there is nothing in use that, with so little weight, secures so much heat as what are called "comfortables."

The clothes should not be "tucked up" at the sides and foot of the bed with too much care and exactness. For when the bed is once warmed thoroughly with the child's body, the admission of a little fresh air into it, when he elevates or otherwise moves his limbs, can do no harm, but may do much of good, in the way of ventilation. I deem it important, moreover, to inure children very early to little partial exposures of this kind.

Those mothers who, from over-tenderness, and want of correct information on the subject, pursue a contrary course, and consider it as almost certain death to have a particle of fresh air reach the bodies of their infants during their slumbers, are generally sure to outwit themselves, and defeat their very intentions. For by being thus tender of their children, it often turns out that whenever the mother is ill, or when on any other account she ceases to watch over them - and such times must, in general, sooner or later come - they are much more liable to take cold or sustain other injury, should they be exposed, than if they had been treated more rationally.

I knew a mother who would not trust her children to take care of their own beds on retiring to rest, as long as they remained in her house, even though they were twenty or thirty years old. But they had no better or firmer constitutions than the other children of the same neighborhood.

Hardly anything can be more injurious than covering the head with the bed clothes; and yet some mothers and nurses cover, in this way, not only their own heads, but those of their children. I have elsewhere shown how impure the air is, which is imprisoned under the bed clothes. I hope those mothers who are willing to destroy themselves by covering up their heads while they sleep, will at least have mercy on their unoffending infants.