Читать книгу The Mother and Her Child - Lena K. Sadler - Страница 60

Within reason, a pregnant mother should follow her natural appetite and satisfy her dietetic longings. Should she desire unusual articles of food, as far as possible she should have them. The idea has long prevailed that if the mother does not get what her longing soul supremely desires, that the on-coming baby is going to cry and cry until it is given what the mother wanted with all her heart and did not get. Such an idea is the very quintessence of folly and the personification of foolishness and superstition.

Many a precious babe has suffered as a victim of this notion of "craving" and "marking." One mother gave her baby a huge mouthful of under-ripe banana because "she knew that was just what he wanted, because, when pregnant, she had craved and craved bananas and for some reason or another she did not get them." The soft, smooth piece of banana slipped down the baby's throat—on into the stomach and intestines—caused intestinal obstruction and finally the end came; and we registered one more victim to the fallacies of fear and the superstitious belief in "cravings" and "markings." Occasionally some cravings are unusual and freakish, for instance, egg shells, leather, candles, chalk, and other abnormal tastes are developed. Of these we have only to say, "Rise above them, become mistress of the situation and change your longings." If such abnormal cravings come to you in the kitchen, don your bonnet and go at once out of doors and take a walk. Don't be foolish just because somebody told you foolish stories about these things.