Jean, I have two books by Dr Harold Waller but I don't have the larger (and earlier) one here at home with me. Although a lot of women birthed in hospitals, planned home births were also common, often with midwives. The slim volume I have in front of me and which I've had for many years, is:

Waller, Harold. The Breasts and Breastfeeding (London: William Heinemann, 1957).

At the time he wrote the book, 43% of 13,000 women had ceased breastfeeding within 8 weeks of giving birth (p. 47).  Waller believed that skilled nursing and use of his methods could raise the percentage of mothers continuing breastfeeding by another 10%, or at most, 15%. Routine hand-expressing of colostrum or milk after feeds is the "keynote" of his method, with expressing starting antenatally.  Hand-expressing after feeds to "empty" the breasts seems to have been his way of providing stimulus (instead of feeding to the baby's hunger cues), as he was against giving the breast outside of set intervals (p. 46).  He was the developer of the Woolwrich breast shields intended for inverted nipples. They were named for the location of his hospital, in Woolwich. 

Waller was certainly earnest about breastfeeding, but there were gaps in his knowledge and hence his assumptions. He believed that, in cases of mastitis, breastfeeding should "always" be "withheld" and expressed concern about infecting the baby, citing three fatal cases, of which he provided insufficient details (p. 54). Our knoweldge has moved on since his time. However, he understood and described the "draught" reflex (MER) and described how to ascertain if a nipple were truly inverted, which others later cited. He had a number of journal articles published. Others who studied and described the MER in the 1950s were Dr F. Charlotte Naish (in England) and Dr Claire Isbister (in Australia).

Virginia

Dr Virginia Thorley, OAM, PhD, IBCLC, FILCA
Brisbane, QLD, Australia


Jean Cotterman wrote:
Writing project led me to looking through some old references, which led me on a search for it to share. 

I haven't come across it yet, but here is another that I found fascinating. It is by Harold Waller, British pediatrician practicing during the WW II. Of special interest is the descriptions of early postpartum breast changes, various types of prenatal breast care (or not) and especially the statistics which we are still trying to work toward 7 1/2 decades later. There is no mention of analgesia/anesthesia in labor and delivery, nor nursery practices on how soon breastfeeding was commenced, nor how often, but nevertheless, I think there are some valuable insights that prenatal caregivers, instructors and expectant mothers might find worthwhile and interesting to read. 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1987977/


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