Feeding at work - 1820's style!

[sparkle12mar08]

here!

Long story as to how I came across this but it's exactly what you think it is . I don't know whether it's enlightened & before it's time, or sad that women had to return to work so quickly or what!

blardy hell. so you had to poke your boob through the hole in the wall while your aunt or whoever held your baby upto it? jeeez.

That is sooo sad. They could have brought them in for a cuddle too.

Unbelievable.
I recall my grandmother (who worked in a mill in 20s), telling me babies brought to their mothers for a feed, and the sound they made.

I have heard of this before.

I guess better that they got the breastmilk than some unsuitable alternative, but how awful for both mother and baby.

Sorry, I am sceptical. It's the wrong size and shape and would make bf unnecessarily awkward. I can believe that bf babies would be brought to the place of work, but why would the mothers not hold the babies? Life was hard in those days but I would want to see documented evidence, not guesswork, of this use of the 'hole'. It's more likely to have been a delivery hatch for supplies, IMO

Haha!
It does seem a tad odd on reflection.....
Maybe it was a delivery hole for emergeny supplies of barmcakes and extra clogs?

My great aunt used to have her babies brought to her for BF - she worked in a cafe in the 1930s.

They seemed more enlightened then than now.

I does seem a bit horrible but then probably no worse than my double electric pump and the bottles ds4 is given in the nursery.

The more I think of it, the less I believe it! A breast hole would mean only one person at a time could feed their baby - far easier for everyone, including the workshop owner, if women just fed their babies when they were brought.