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Infants are very susceptible of the impressions of cold; a proper regard, therefore, to a suitable clothing of the body, is imperative to their enjoyment of health. Unfortunately, an opinion is prevalent in society, that the tender child has naturally a great power of generating heat and resisting cold; and from this popular error has raised the most fatal results. The capability of generating heat in warm-blooded animals is at its minimum at birth, and increases successively to adult age; young mammals, instead of being warmer than adults, are generally a degree or two colder, and part with their heat more readily; facts which cannot be too generally known. They show how absurd must be the folly of that system of “hardening” the constitution (to which reference has been before made), which induces the parent to plunge the tender and delicate child into the cold bath at all seasons of the year, and freely expose it to the cold, cutting currents of an easterly wind, with the lightest clothing.
The principles which ought to guide a parent in clothing their infant are as follows:
The material and quantity of the clothes should be such as to preserve a sufficient proportion of warmth to the body, regulated therefore by the season of the year, and the delicacy or strength of the infant’s constitution. Parent should understand not to put to many layers of clothing on their infants which may cause infatns suffer from overheat and parents must also aware of the cold weather where they should put more clothing on their infants.
The fabric should be smooth enough to avoid restriction of the child’s movement; and so loose and easy as to permit the insensible perspiration to have a free exit, instead of being confined to and absorbed by the clothes, and held in contact with the skin, till it gives rise to irritation.
In infancy, therefore, flannel is rather too rough, but is desirable as the child grows older, as it gives a gentle stimulus to the skin, and maintains health.
The design of the clothes should be so simple as to admit of being quickly put on, since dressing is not always a pleasant experience to the infant, causing it to cry, and sometimes can cause a feeling of trauma. The children’s clothing must be changed daily.