~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi Norma

 

No offence was intended.  As you acknowledged, I was quoting the 1921 report
showing the perceptions of the people on the committee, some of which
reflected their class perceptions.  I can imagine that your mother felt deep
hurt for years.

 

The sort of deleterious advice which your mother suffered was around for a
long time later, and not only in England.  As a very young, vulnerable
mother in 1965, I was told – with undisguised glee – by midwives and child
health nurses that I would be physically unable to breastfeed my first baby,
and only if I were very lucky would there be any chance of breastfeeding
subsequent babies.  I had told them I planned to breastfeed, and so another
frequent comment was, “Pride before a fall, dear, pride before a fall.”
What the problem actually was, of course, was iatrogenic lactation failure.
Not my body, but their faulty advice and their power to keep my baby and me
separated. The baby and I were transferred to an after-care facility
immediately after discharge from hospital at 10 days, so that we could be
kept separated and none of my foolishness in planning to breastfeed on
demand and offer night feeds could be allowed.  Bad mothers like me had to
be kept under surveillance.  I was told repeatedly that I “didn’t love” my
baby, because of wanting to try to breastfeed.  There was one other mother
there (and a number of babies without their mothers) and luckily her excess
milk was given to my baby till she and her baby went home.  One of the ideas
that the staff tried was to space out the breastfeeds in the mistaken belief
that reducing feeding frequency would result in more milk.  By the time I
left there, I was “dry”, though I put my baby to breast (where she promptly
slept) when she was brought to me exhausted from the usual ¾ hours of
screaming with hunger.  I was powerless to go to extract her from the
matron’s office where she was put so as not to disturb other babies.  She
was too sleepy to feed and my MER was inhibited by the negative attitudes at
feed times.

 

We arrived home to a rural area when she was 5 ½ weeks and fully
artificially-fed, and my copy of the LLLI manual was waiting for me after
being mailed from the USA.  Thanks to the book, just 4 ½ days later my baby
was receiving her full needs from me. There were a few more glitches,
because she had been trained out of demanding, but we did lots of
skin-to-skin before I started following Marian Tompson’s sage advice – that
some babies might need to be fed pre-demand.  Without the book, this
wouldn’t have happened.

 

My experiences in the first few weeks didn’t feel good at the time, but I
learnt more from it than if everything had gone smoothly, and the experience
left me wanting to help other mothers receiving poor advice.  So I trained
as a group leader with LLLI and then with NMAA (now ABA), and eventually
certified IBCLC in 1985.

 

On Tue, 5 Jan 2010 Norma Ritter < >

Subject: National Dried Milk

 

“Virginia, I know that you are only quoting the report (below) so please
don't take this personally :)

 

“My mother was one of the poor, uneducated (school till age 12) British
women who received National Dried Milk to feed me and my younger sister when
we were babies. She had intended to breastfeed both of us, but was prevented
from doing so by well-meaning but ignorant medical personnel…… ……I cannot
tell you how deeply it hurt to read that according to this report, my mother
was one of those considered to be out for what she could get for free, and
was one of "those kind of people who value or will benefit by the
educational work of the Centre" (breastfeeding education.) The sad thing is
that I hear this same kind of comment today, that *these people* are just
not interested in breastfeeding. While it is true that SOME people - from
ALL walks of life! - do not want to breastfeed, generalisations are both
incorrect and abhorrent.”

 

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