Norma wrote;
 >babies were only brought out of the nursery for 30 mins every four hours, 
and
after being allowed to nurse for five minutes each side were *topped
up* by the nursery staff. No wonder she didn't have enough milk. <

Actually, 5 minutes per side wasn't allowed till after the first couple of days.  Mothers were ordered to give only 2 minutes each side on the first day that they got the baby to feed, and then they were allowed to increase to 3 minutes a side.  If the nervous new mother didn't let down immediately, the baby didn't get anything measurable, and then was carted off to the nursery to be topped up by bottle.  Or, in some hospitals, the compulsory bottle was brought to the bedside.  After the first 2-3 days, breastfeeds went up to 5 minutes a side.  Eventually mothers were permitted to breastfeed 10 + 10 minutes (10 minutes each side), regarded as the absolute maximum thereafter.  These restriction on feeds were the regimen, and recommended in midwives' textbooks and mother books, for several generations.

Night feeds were sternly forbidden - for breastfed babies.  Mothers were told that babies didn't need them as they got all their milk in the daytime.  This wasn't based on any research!  Now research done in Perth fairly recently has shown that babies obtain a significant percentagge of their nutrition from night feeds.  A booklet distributed to new mothers by a company, however, permitted night feeding for babies artificially fed on its products, while reiterating the health services' ban on night feeds for breastfed babies.  See:
Thorley V: Printed advice on initiating and maintaining breastfeeding in mid-twentieth century Queensland. J Hum Lact 2003;19(1):77-89. 



Is it any wonder that our evidence-based information is proving so hard to get through to the general public, who have family memories of the above. ( So have many of us, but we have learnt.)  



I'm "NOMAIL' at the moment.



Virginia



Virginia Thorley, OAM, PhD, IBCLC
Lactation Consultant (original cohort of 1985).
Cultural historian of the History of Medicine.
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
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