G'day,  I am an Australian midwife and have been a lurker for some time
now.  I enjoy the list immensely.

There have been occasional references to Aussie breastfeeding practices
so I thought you might enjoy seeing the kind of sentiments the the women
of my mother's generation were exposed to ( I am 49 y.o.).   Following
are highlights from two rather long letters-to-the editor of a magazine
called The Nursery World, vol. 36,  No. 1065,  Thursday April 25th
1946,  price sixpence.  The writers are responding to a previously
published letter re twins.


Excerpt from letter 1.
... I determined to breast feed them both, which I did successfully
until they were five and half months old, then I started weaning them,
taking 10 weeks to complete it.  I used to breast feed them both
together taking no longer than doing a single baby  -  with a back rest
for me on a single bed and then two pillows for them to be on ;  the boy
always needed twice as much as the girl, so she was halfway through and
up having her wind brought up on my shoulder while her brother was still
pegging away.  The costs of these delightful twins was about fifty
pounds [this was an enormous sum in 1945 ].  I had my maternity nurse
for the month and a good woman three mornings a week...

Excerpt from letter 2
...  Twins have to share so many things that single babies have to
themselves that I myself believe that it is vitally important not to
deprive them of breast feeding during the first six months.  There is so
much "organisation" of their lives which cannot be avoided if one is to
get through the day that I feel that both for the babies and for the
mother it is essential that there should be a period each day when they
can be in intimate contact with each other :  and the obvious time for
this is at the breast feeds.  In my own case the periods of feeding were
the times in which I felt able to get to know the babies as individuals,
and to have eliminated the breast feeds at an early stage would, I think
have impoverished both their lives and mine...
... I am doubtful whether the time saved in cutting out the breast feeds
is not used up in preparing bottles, cleaning and sterilizing them...
... Although there are many compensations for being a twin later on, I
believe that the first two years are more trying for twins than for
single babies.  And I do not think that we make it any easier for them
by depriving them of their natural birth-right of breast feeding; and,
incidentally, the best chance of getting to know their mother as a
person, rather as the often overpressed and hurried organiser of their
daily lives...


     It is unsurprising then that I and my three siblings were breastfed
plus all my mother's grand and great-grand children (19 of them so
far).  Her influence must have been very subtle as I cannot recollect
ever discussing feeding methods with her.  However my daughters
'breastfed' their dolls whilst I breastfed their brothers, so perhaps I
did the same.  I might ask one day.

   If you have read this long thank you.

     Wende.

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