This is so interesting - I think it helps us to look back and see what
cultural norms were in living memory, as it helps us work out in what ways,
if any, we are different.
From what I have learnt by speaking to older women, and what I have read,
as I said in my previous post, UK mothers predominantly breastfed in the
1920s, but early weaning from the breast was already the norm .
This process had begun in Victorian times among the urban working class,
who were forced to wean in order to leave their children while they worked,
but it was also common among the urban middle class, who were able to
afford servants to care for the children (something only the upper classes
had done before then). They would typically breastfeed for a few weeks and
then wean to diluted cows milk. This had been the pattern among the upper
classes for some time. This in itself would lead to early weaning, as the
Victorian nursery, by all accounts, was a regimented affair, and everything
was done to routine. I expect there was a lot of bf failure which would in
itself lead to early weaning.
Now, couple those social pressures and mores with the fact that 'science'
was giving mothers breast milk substitutes, and growing literacy meant that
women could read the advertisments for them, and you have a potent anti-bf
recipe.
My impression is, however, that women in *rural areas* still breastfed for
longer for some time. I have heard from Scottish friends that their rural
grandmothers breastfed according to a 9 month rule - this being the length
of pregnancy, and thought to be the 'right' time for bf. This was probably
exclusive, or mainly exclusive, bf.
Rural mothers are (or rather were in the 1920s) outside the influences
their town based counterparts were subject to.
I expect this is even more true in the US - rural to you means possibly a
hundred or more miles from any big town or city.
Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK
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