My local PBS station said that "The Midwives* was set in 1957 in Poplar, in
the East End of London. I was brought up in that area, about 2 miles away
in Stepney Green, and would have been about 12 years old at that time.

My own mother gave birth to both me and my younger sister in a maternity
home, the equivalent of a birthing center in the USA. When I asked about
our births, she would only say that she was grateful for the twilight sleep
and that when my turn came, I would forget the pain when I held my baby in
my arms. Apparently, she never did forget the pain :(

I remember my mother going into the bedroom to nurse my sister, but that
only lasted for a couple of weeks at most before she was switched to
formula. I know that my mother tried to nurse me, but she was only allowed
to do so for a few minutes on one side only every four hours (except at
night,) and them instructed to *top me off* with formula. No wonder that
when she was released after the usual 10 day stay, she was told she did not
have enough milk. She told me that during her entire hospital stay the
nurses watched her vigilantly to make sure she never took off any of the
swaddling in which I was wrapped. Hmmm...

The *formula* on which my sister and I were fed came in a tall, cylindrical
cardboard container labelled *National Dried Milk.* If was given out -
free, I believe - at the local well-baby clinics, which mothers attended
every week to get their babies weighed. I remember that it is was a blue
package which pronounced the contents to contain dried milk powder, 4% fat.
The instructions said to mix it with water and sugar. Both orange juice and
cod liver oil were also given to babies to make up for any vitamin
deficiencies. Those cylindrical were used and reused, so they were always
in evidence in our apartment, even years after the original contents had
been consumed.

I still have the baby book my mother was given after my birth, with
instructions for breastfeeding. Funnily enough, artificial feeding is
barely mentioned, but the expectation was that all babies would be
completely weaned from breast or bottle by 9 months of age.

Norma Ritter, IBCLC, RLC
Breastfeeding Matters in the Capital Region
www.NormaRitter.com
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