~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *********************************************** 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