To help me gain more energy and focus, I’ve enlisted the help of my good friend, Penny of BottlingHealth.com, to assist me with my food choices and meditation. There

is so much that I want to accomplish in my life, but at the moment, everything is really stagnant and I find myself with so little time to do the things I love, like write and research for this blog, for instance! With Penny’s help I plan to get back on track and blog here more often. And if all else fails you can always nudge me on Twitter or email me at jjames[at]themomsalon.com and tell me to post again!!

With all that said, Krista, a reader, sent me links to historic breastfeeding photographs that she found and I’d like to share them with you.

Both of the pictures are from the Life photo collection on Google. The first shows the common-law wife of farmer Pedro Pablo Caceres breast-feeding infant in 1964. Paraquay. The second photograph was also taken in 1964 and shows an Israeli mother breast feeding her baby.

Thank you, Krista, for taking the time to send me these photographs and for reading this blog. Thank you also for your patience. I was delighted by your email and am thrilled that you enjoy spending time reading what I dig up about historic breastfeeding. — Jennifer

Most of you have probably heard about the big Facebook virtual nurse-in that happened over the weekend. Tens of thousands of nursing moms are upset that Facebook bans nursing photos, but they have no qualms about showing pornographic ads to their users.

Well, this disdain for nursing — public or otherwise — is certainly not new. Check out this image from July 12, 1950. If you have been following my work for awhile now you have seen this photo before. I thought the imagery is especially potent now given that moms are still expected to hide behind partitions, so to speak, when they breastfeed.

The caption on the photo says: Hilda Kassell, E. 53rd St., New York City. Mother nursing baby.

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division: Gottscho-Schleisner Collection (Library of Congress), [reproduction number, LC-G613-T-57610 ] Photographer: Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc., photographer.

This morning I was fixated with a book called Don’t Kill Your Baby. Many of you probably know it very well. In fact, I have read it before, but it seems that every time I re-read I find a fact or a point that I’ve missed before.

I thought this quote was quite telling about how breastfeeding rates began to decline in the 1930s. It all started in the hospitals with their insistence that mothers did now instinctively know how to care for their own babies. This caused many of the mothers to be separated from their babies for up to 24 hours sometimes and in that period their babies had already been introduced to baby formula. Check out this quote about how milk companies got into the hospitals to stake their dominance over infant feeding.

The expectant mother may first hear about PET milk when learning about formula preparations in the hospital’s orientation class. She and her husband may select the baby’s name from a list supplied by a company medical relations representative. The name card on her baby’s crib in the hospital nursery may bear the PET insignia. Most important her baby’s first bottle of formula may very well be made with PET brand evaporated milk. The “little things” add up to a convincing acceptance of the PET brand.

Above is the nursery at the Cairns General Hospital at the FSA (Farm Security Administration) farm workers’ community in February 1942. Eleven Mile Corner, Arizona.

And here are the babies the bottles are intended for.

Wolf Jacqueline. Don’t Kill Your Baby. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2001.

One of these days I am going to correctly upload these photos. My apologies for the look of these posts. The photographs are big and they never stay centered for some reason. I’m definitely working on it.

Take a look at these two photographs from November 1947. They show a baby in a Skinner box. The caption reads:

And here is John Jr. sound asleep in the box with his bottle. Where’s his mama? It is fascinating to see childrearing through the years. By the way, by 1947 breastfeeding was truly a practice of the past.

Well, it certainly doesn’t help breastfeeding matters any when women’s breasts are seen as objects of gratification as opposed to means to feed one’s baby. This photograph was taken of a carnival at Shelby County Fair and Horse Show Shelbyville, Kentuckym August 1940 Aug. Baby formula had made a huge insurgence in baby-feeding by 1940.

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, [reproduction number, LC-USF33-031018-M1 DLC ]

Coal miner’s wife and child. Pursglove, West Virginia. 1938 Sept

Here’s the funny thing about these photos: During this time, it was the poor mothers who stayed fast to the natural art of breastfeeding, whereas metropolitan mothers and those who had better access to health care went to doctors who pushed formula and subsequently convinced them to feed their babies artificially.

Now in 2008, poor, rural mothers statistically do not want to have anything to do with breastfeeding and mothers who are better off economically breastfeed in higher numbers — what a flip-flop.

Nurse Aiko Hamaguchi, mother Frances Yokoyama, baby Fukomoto, Manzanar Relocation Center, California, 1943 / Ansel Adams

I found an interesting article from the Citizen newspaper (Berea, KY) dated July 28, 1910 about infant feeding. The article was entitled: Death Rate Among Children Our Shame and in it, the writer discusses ways to keep babies from dying from contaminated milk. To my surprise the first recommendation was to breastfeed:

In practically all cases the mother can and should nurse her own baby. Breast mllk Is the natural food for the newborn baby. No other food can compare with it. Ten bottlefed babies die to one that Is breastfed.

Immediately after birth do not use any kind of artificial food or teas for the baby while waiting for the breast milk to come. Put the baby to the breast every four hours and give nothing else but water that has been boiled.

The article also had important weaning advice and showed me once again that it was the 30s and 40s that witnessed a surge in bottlefeeding. In 1910, at least in Kentucky, breastfeeding was touted as the best nutrition for babies. If you would like to read the full article for yourself click here.

I guess there wasn’t much breastfeeding going on in this hospital!

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, [reproduction number, LC-USE6-D-006952 DLC]