Perusing a flyer from another country, I came across this phrase:

". . . . . boasts about 2,000 childbirths per year, thus ranking among the largest obstetric clinics in . . . . . . ."

Here is today's history lesson: Maybe all of you will not think too poorly about the BF statistics and "routines" 65 years ago in the U.S. when I reminisce that one of the things I remember from the hospital where I trained was what pleasure the L&D nurses took in writing in the hand-written L & D "log" the particulars of each delivery, and the "excitement" toward the end of the month to see if the # of deliveries would "make it" to 300 births or beyond!!

300 x 12 = 3600 births a year in the smallest of the 3 community hospitals in our mid-size city, during the height of the WW II baby boom, done mostly by GP's, bovine pituitrin and ergotrate after birth, Pitocin just being perfected in the lab and receiving the Nobel chemistry prize in 1955, with very few and very "primitive" inductions, everyone was NPO for their entire labor, very seldom any IV's except in dire emergencies (rubber tubings rewashed, then autoclaved in L&D, as were needles, re-sharpened and re-used, gloves re-washed, patched, autoclaved and re-used.) "Twilight sleep" and gas anesthetics for most moms. We watched for the "full moon" when 8-10 mothers often came in on a single 8 hour shift, many with ruptured membranes. The postpartum stays for vaginal births were 4-5 days and for C. sections 7-10 days. (The few C. sections were done in surgery in another building, 2 blocks away, reached by wheeling mom on a stretcher through hospital tunnels and up the elevator 3 flights to reach surgery.)

We had one newborn nursery I can remember one particular night (because a friend delivered that night), when I was 7 months pregnant , one nurse's aide and I had 50 babies to care for, alone, plus the "premie nursery" recently had had large glass windows installed so the night nurse could see 8-12 of them through the wall of the newborn nursery. Every 3 hours, my job was also to go over and prop each one of them, changing diapers as I went, then come back around and burp each one, then re-prop them all for a few more minutes, then turn them on their tummies (!) before going back to the "normal nursery", occasionally glancing at the premies through the window. 

In the "big nursery" we diapered each normal newborn baby at the central sink area, ("jaundice" was a term we never heard), picked up a bottle of hospital made-and-sterilized formula out of the central bottle warmer (no doubt seeding it further with e.coli!), on the way back to the stationary crib, and propped them, about 10 babies at a time, burping them once and repropping, before finally swaddling and laying them on their tummies for the next 3 1/2 hours. (We had ultraviolet lights on the nursery walls to "kill the germs"  . . . . . . .) 

Also, we swaddled 7 or so of them up, loaded them in a wheeled cart for me to push on to the elevator to take them to the upper floor, once at 2 a.m. returning them after 20-30 minutes with mom, and again, at 6 a.m. for breastfeeding. (all babies were NPO for 12 hours, then fed 5% Glucose water every 4 hours. Breastfeeding mother were allowed to start breastfeeding their babies, starting when they were 24 hours old, instructed to use one side per feeding every 4 hours, starting at 3 minutes that second 24 hours of life, 5 minutes per one side the third postpartum day, and 7-10 minutes per one side from the 4th night on, so as to "prevent sore nipples". By the 3-4th night, many required breastbinders for comfort (or suppression if not breastfeeding, even though those mothers received stilbesterol pills 3 x daily in addition to binding.) Many glass-and-rubber nipple shields, "bicycle horn" hand breast pumps available but requiring a doctor's order to be able to use on a particular mom.

I was the first mother ever permitted to room in in 1952. However, I continued to follow the "rules" for breastfeeding. Fortunately, LLL gradually came into being halfway through that decade, and made it to our town by my 4th baby in 1959. In tears, I  was supported and "re-educated" at 5 days postpartum by a good friend on the local counseling committee, and I was finally able to "make it" past 10 days;-) (See WABF, vignette before Chapter 7)

From my mother's description, I think this is about how it was, with even more "primitive" rules in the 1930's as well, by which time more and more births had begun to occur in hospitals. 

This is how most of the U.S. "boomer" generation, those leaders and rank and file citizens now about to go on social security in the coming decade, got their start in life. (I read in an article written by Waller in Britain during the actual war years, that mothers and babies would often have to be evacuated to basement halls in other buildings at night when the London bombings occurred . . . . .)

Is it any wonder the breastfeeding rates went down during the mid-20th century??


K. Jean Cotterman RNC-E, IBCLC
WIC Volunteer LC     Dayton OH

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