Norma, I would confirm Virginia's comment that your mother's 
experience was typical of the time.

Mothers in post-war UK did sometimes give birth in maternity homes. 
The one my own mother remembers as being the choice of her friends 
used to give a guarentee that the baby would be 'sleeping through the 
night' by the end of the postnatal stay (usually 10-14 days in those 
days).

Formula supplementation was very, very common from the 1950s on, 
though mothers would normally start to bf, with all the restrictions 
on time and frequency you describe.

In fact, when I had my first baby in 1980 in a large London hospital, 
timing and scheduling was still the rule, though no one really 
enforced it, and rooming in was the norm anyway.  A few people (eg 
me) already knew it was ridiculous to time and schedule babies and we 
did not do it...no one came and told us to follow the rules.
>
>
>The *formula* on which my sister and I were fed came in a tall, cylindrical
>cardboard container labelled *National Dried Milk.* If was given out -
>free, I believe

Correct.

>  - at the local well-baby clinics, which mothers attended
>every week to get their babies weighed.


Correct!

>I remember that it is was a blue
>package which pronounced the contents to contain dried milk powder, 4% fat.
>The instructions said to mix it with water and sugar. Both orange juice and
>cod liver oil were also given to babies to make up for any vitamin
>deficiencies.


Yes - I can remember both. The orange juice was a syrup, which was diluted.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK

-- 

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome