>In a recent post, Kathy Dettwyler  remarks on the lack of breastfeeding among
>British and other English-speaking women with young children who were  POWs
>during WWII in SE Asia.     I'm no historian, but my impression is that most
>Anglo women in Southeast Asia around the  onset of WWII were upper class, the
>wives of high-ranking military officers, government officials, and
>businessmen.   At that time, the military and civilian gov't drew their ranks
>from the highest echelons of society.  Most British officials were graduates
>of Sandringham, Eton, Oxford, Cambridge, which were then, even more than now,
>reserved for the privileged classes.

.....

>On the other hand, isn't there some data on Anglo women who were pregnant at
>the time they were imprisoned who were helped to breastfeed by missionary
>nurses when the babies were born?  and the good survival of those babies
>given the wretched conditions of the camps?

>
>Mary Cummins, M.Ed., IBCLC
>private practice, Scottsdale, AZ

Got it right, Mary.  Dame Dr Cicely Williams, author of the famous Milk and
Murder speech given in Singapore in 1939, was interned as a spy in WWII,
working as the women's camp doctor.  All twenty babies born in the camp
during this period were breastfed and all survived.

Lesley McBurney, Brisbane, Australia