Call The Midwife - on breast feeding

[ChocolateWombat]

Did anyone see the 1st episode tonight?
I'm watching it now and it's like an NCT party political broadcast advocating breast feeding over bottles. Amazing that it is claiming to be historically accurate!
Funny isn't it, that we can't help imposing current values and trying to push an agenda, even in period dramas!

The clinic was showing that proper formula made correctly was better tgan carnation then one of the mums said 'Dr Spock says breast is best' to question the midwife. I thought the discussion was also to highlight the midwife character's discomfort as she had an adopted child so obviously didn't bf - the suggestion that bf was all about 'love' was clearly a sore point for her. I agree the whole scene was rather forced.

Ronald Illingworth (who wrote the hugely influential 'The Normal Child', and several other books both for HCPs and for parents from early 1950s onwards) was extremely pro-breastfeeding.

If you gave birth in a Sheffield hospital in those days, there was a lot of breastfeeding support. And as the Illingworth/Dewhurst double act were the 'stars' of maternal and baby care if their day, I expect if was fairly widely emulated.

I was very confused at the expressing mother who'd had a premature baby.

What a lot of milk she had! Took me 2 full hours to express a quarter of an ounce of milk when each of my DC were 2 weeks old (didn't get much out before then!) and they were full term.

I know it's not real life, but I just sat there with my mouth open.

The scene wasn't written as well as it could be but I always assumed the vast majority of Poplar women would have breastfed as it was free. The Carnation sidebar was interesting. Tiktok do you know why Carnation was used, why was it thought better than normal milk if a woman didn't bf or used formula?

Friend had carnation as a baby. She's 51 now.

Tiktok I'm also a pamphlet collector on general domestic history.

Carnation was in cans. No need for a fridge. Fridges were not common until well into the sixties.

The series is based in books. It's not pushing any agenda.

Thank you! I like a simple explanation.

frazzle-again i think it's individual-i had masses of milk and could express and have to swap bottle half way through right from very early on. having so much milk had it's own problems-leaking everywhere, baby finding it hard to latch on to this gushing stream of milk, sore breasts etc

Well that doesn't sound fun gymboy

I guess that scene was normal then.
I was just flabbergasted as I hadn't realised women were capable of producing so much, at any time, let alone so premature!

I am very happy to say that my response to the episode might have been wrong. I didn't ever say I thought an agenda was being pushed, just that it came across a bit like that to me. I'm also happy to accept breastfeeding was very widespread and seen as better than formula feeding,mid that is the case.
Perhaps it was the way it was filmed and the way the issue was presented that made me feel the way I did, and laugh several times. Perhaps it was just 'clonky' in the way those issues were raised, rather than seeming smooth and perhaps it was that which grated as I yet he'd and amused me.

In the book there were bits of false or bad information - Jenny said that a mother "had thin breasts so would produce weak milk" and they'd have liked her to formula feed but she knew the bottle wouldn't get washed or the formula made up correctly due to poverty - I haven't watched the episode yet but suspect it's the same story they've based it on - so I think that some of the "formula is better" myths were coming in but they tended to advocate BF because in their particular area the women they dealt with tended to have solid reasons for BF being preferable even in the face of this "wonder food".

I think there was something about the older ones having different views to the more recently trained jenny etc.

Frazzlerock 1-2oz per pumping session between both breasts is considered normal. MW now don't encourage expressing with a pump until your milk comes in because you have so little milk (a few mL) the first few days so I think either a few days had passed or there was some inaccuracy. DS was 36 weeks but that didn't seem to affect my supply, but I had BF 2 children previously for years which may have had an effect.

I had a very very prem baby (26w) and pumped huge amounts. By 3 or 4 weeks I could have filled a 16oz bottle pretty much every pumping session (30-40mins), no word of exaggeration!!!! Admittedly I had freakishly large supply, and expressed obsessively many times a day/night, but it is certainly possible.

My only criticism was at the new mother's breast milk (besides being rather more plentiful than one might reasonably expect) wasn't nearly yellow enough!

Mine was the colour of proper egg custard for about the first 10 days after my milk came in.

I thought it was historically accurate.
Breast feeding was recommended in the 50s - especially in poor areas where people couldn't afford powdered milk and hygiene was often poor.

I was born in the 50s and was breast fed. I remember the baby clinic and the NHS orange juice and rosehip syrup.

Op - I agree with you about the 'clunky' language used. Both dh and I winced at it especially the premie mum and young Tim. It was very modern sounding even if the message was of it's day so to speak.

I'm a HCP with an interest in history so maybe we are just pedantic buggers. I did cringe when they showed the modern "Royal London Hospital" sign in an earlier series as the Royal bit was only added in the 1980s. However I understand it's a drama and try to unclench