Alia quotes a 1924 book on care of sore nipples:
<The mother's nipples should be washed with boric acid solution or =
sterile water before and after each nursing. If the mother has any =
discomfort at the time of nursing, the nipple should be inspected =
carefully to see if there are any cracks. A cracked nipple frequently =
leads to a sore breast which may result in an abscess. If a nipple is =
cracked, it should be washed with seventy per cent alcohol and painted =
with compound tincture of benzoin, applied with a camel's-hair brush =
twice a day. >

While we're waxing historical, when I entered nurse's training in 1948
during the baby boom, we sometimes had as many as 50 babies in our OB
nursery. The practices mentioned in that book were then in use, and still
continuing on up into the mid 1950's. When we took out our several huge
rolling carts (each with 7 bins, and a temporary identifying card on each
bin), there were always two 1000 cc. shiny monel metal cans with covers,
one containing cotton balls saturated with "sterile" water, the other
with cotton balls saturated with boric acid solution (which we now know
can be poisonous, especially in powder form to cockroaches, I heard;-). 



With the same hands that we had probably just used to diaper all seven of
the babies in that cart in sequence, we then picked up the formula
bottles out of the communal warmer to put into the bins of the cart, most
likely with only the most perfunctory washing of our hands now and then. 
Next, we then moved the carts from the second floor nursery, punched the
button to the public elevator, pulled the door handle to open and close
the elevator door, to deliver two cartfuls of babies to the their mothers
on the third floor! If the babies were less than 24 hours old, they were
taken out only at the 10 a.m. feeding time to "allow" their mothers just
to hold them tightly swaddled. 



We dutifully took the tops off the cans, picked up the first bundled-up
baby, checked the arm band with that of the mother, instructed her to
pull up her top sheet to lay the baby on, and if she was a breastfeeding
mother, handed her one boric acid saturated cotton ball for each nipple,
watched her swab them off, then handed her the two "sterile water"
saturated cotton balls to finish the "routine", sternly advised her
against unwrapping the baby to "limit the amount of germs the baby was
exposed to", instructed her over our shoulder as we left the room, to "be
sure to get the whole circle in the baby's mouth". We then returned to
the giant cart and proceeded to either pick up the covered, warmed,
sterilized formula bottle or dip our hand again into the cans, depending
on whether the next mother was bottle feeding or breastfeeding, We
repeated the process for the next baby and mother, etc. till they were
all distributed. I don't remember giving the mothers anything to clean
their nipples off with afterward, but we then had to pick the babies all
up again 30-45 minutes later and return them, via the carts, to the
nursery, to be rediapered and go back into their cribs, and perhaps be
propped with p.c. bottles if they were still hungry. This was repeated
every 4 hours on the day and evening shifts, while on the night shift,
just a few breastfeeding babies were taken out the third night and
thereafter to those mothers whose milk had come in. 

 

Any washing of cracked nipples with 70% alcohol would probably have been
done on the day shift by the postpartum head nurse. I don't remember
seeing such torture. But I do distinctly remember seeing mothers with
nipples tanned and "protected" with tincture (meaning dissolved in
alcohol) of benzoin!



It's not such ancient history as it might at first seem. Many of us
Medicare Mamas are still around to tell the tale!


Jean
**********************
K. Jean Cotterman RNC, IBCLC
Dayton, OH USA

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html