> Message to Mothers - 1952
>
> A co-worker found  instructions about breastfeeding from her own baby book
> that she had come upon.
>
> Included were the following:
>
> - The nurse would bring the baby to mom every four hours at 2AM, 6AM, 10AM,
> 2PM, 6PM and 10PM.
> - She should nurse 2 minutes the first day and increase a minute each day
> up
> to 10 minutes per breast
>
My first baby was born in 1983: same rules. The hospital I was in was
proud to be among the first in the area to offer rooming-in, but the
baby could not be in the same room if there were visitors present
(besides the father), if the mother was ill, or at night. I'm sure a
more assertive mother could have worked around the rules, but having
been told in prenatal classes that new mothers needed their rest, etc. I
didn't really think of it. In fact, after the last night there (the
fifth!) the nurse came in in the morning, and said, "Well, he didn't
wake up for the last feed, and I figured that when you are at home
tomorrow you wouldn't wake him up, so I let you both rest." (This was my
sleeper, and, statistically, 1 sleeper out of 7 sounds about right,
doesn't it?)  OTOH, natural birthing (albeit in a hospital) and
breastfeeding were the norm among my group of friends.

Jo-Anne Elder-Gomes
Fredericton, NB, Canada

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