A healthy baby has usually from one to four bowel movements daily. After the second or third month there are as a rule only two movements daily. In case the bowels fail to move at least once, the child should be watched to see that the steels are soft. Hard stools in a small child should be checked closely and the diet changed to promote good bowel movements. One or mere of the following remedies may be used:

1. Increase the amount of fat (oil) in the food.   

2. Give the child plenty of water to drink. The water should be warm and should have previously been boiled.

3. Give orange juice, tomato juice, prune juice or some other kind of fruit juice, mashed papaya or ripe bananas, or apple sauce.

4. Use a piece of hard, white soap, shaped like the tip of the finger. Every morning at a regular time, if there is no natural movement of the bowels, this piece of soap should be oiled with a little vaseline and inserted high into the anal opening; it will soon be expelled and a free movement of the bowels will follow in most cases. The same thing can be ac­complished by oiling the tip of a thermometer and inserting.

There is a custom among some people that both the mother and the baby should have caster oil regularly. Actually it should not be given at all. The baby's bowels can be regu­lated by fruit in the diet or, if that is not sufficiently effective, by ½ teaspoonful of milk of magnesia or a small enema. In some places calomel is used freely. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER use it. It is a violent poison and should never be used in any case. It is no longer considered a useful drug for treatment of constipation or anything else.