Pregnancy advice in 1979?

[catsofa]

I'm pregnant and my mum is no longer with us, so I'm going to miss out on hearing about her own pregnancy with me.

I'd like to read/hear about what advice was given to pregnant women at the time in the UK, 1978/79. Was anyone here pregnant then? Know anywhere I could find any old books or information?

My mum had a 70s Penelope leach mother and baby book which talked about making the formula up with the right amount of sugar! Have I made this up, does anyone know?

But there is sugar in formula, isn't there? It just comes ready-mixed these days, I believe.

Really enjoying reading this thread. I was born in '73. My mother was shaved to have me and probably my brother also. She was advised to drink Guinness for her milk, but to avoid grapes because they were bad for women's milk apparently. They thought I was premature as I was so small so clearly they weren't sure about my due date, and put me in a hot cot, viewable from a window in the corridor.

Born in 1977 and recognise a lot of the comments from things my mum has told me. She was an "elderly prim" at 25! 10 years younger than I was with my first....... Advised to eat eggs and drink milk daily and no comment passed on her smoking. Amnio to check for downs but can't have been ultrasound-guided. appointments with consultants and Drs even when low risk and healthy.

at birthDad waited outside the room, just like the other fathers to be whose wives were in labour and was called in after the birth. Shaving & enema was standard as was lying on your back. Breastfed for 6 weeks then at the growth spurt stage changed to formula as Mum interpreted the constant feeding as me not getting enough milk and wasn't advised this is normal. Not helped by midwife telling her that she was surprised she was producing any milk due to very small breast size (in proportion to a tiny size6-8 figure)! Weekly weigh ins at the clinic.

Yes there is milk sugar in formula but not normal granulated type sugar.

I was born in 1988 and my mum says that as I wasn't breathing, they pulled me away to do oxygen etc but didn't realise I was still attached

It's hard to believe that could happen but some of these stories are really sad.

Did I read that right, you were coerced into having your tubes tied 1944 whilst your H was away in the navy?

My Dsis was born in 82. I remember peaudouce nappies, mum breast feeding (my other Dsis and I were 70s babies, both FF. Think dm was advised BF in 80s and FF in 70s). Carrycot on backseat of car, gripe water with alcohol in I think.

The thing that makes me wince about my mum's 1978 labour with me is that you had to have your feet up in stirrups, obviously lying on your back. Can you imagine?

When i told dm about looking down and seeing ds' head poking out of me, she couldn't understand what it was talking about! This was while I tried to give birth to his huge shoulders... And for him to turn so that I could.

The great thing is that they took babies to the nursery over night so mums could sleep. This should never have been change IMO and I cannot imagine it would have been if men had babies. Just inhuman the way we expect new mums to start caring for baby 24/7 the moment they have given birth.

Obvs a lot of the advice given was crazy though!

My DC1 was born in 1986. Home pregnancy tests were available by then but not until about 2 weeks after a missed period and only first urine of the day. You had to collect the urine in a clean container and use a pipette to put so many drops into a test tube. A positive test formed a ring on the bottom.

GP didn't believe in home tests so insisted on doing an official one (same method) in the surgery.

Maternity leave started at 29 weeks but we weren't put on bed rest. Had to stay in hospital 5 days for the first one, 2 days for the others. Our hospital had just started leaving babies with their mothers. A friend who moved from another area of the UK had her baby taken to the nursery at night, so it clearly depended where you lived.

Midwives said baby should sleep on their side but my mum insisted they sleep on their fronts, as that was what she did with DB.

I was told to BF for 10 mins each side but to feed on demand. HV told me to start solids when DC1 was 12 weeks or 12lb, whichever came first. By the time I had DC2 18 mo later I was told no solids until 16 weeks or I'd damage his kidneys - by the same bloody HV!

We used disposable nappies from the word go. The earlier ones weren't very good and elasticated legs didn't come in until DC1 was a couple of months old. We tended to use Pampers or Huggies but you could buy cosifits as well, and peadouce.

The very first rear facing car seats came out when DC1 was 12 weeks old so we bought one. Most of my friends used a carrycot strapped onto the back seat of the car.

I was born1980. My mum said she wasn't encouraged to breastfeed and she had to be quite firm with the grumpy midwives about it who complained that they couldn't see how much I was drinking. I feel proud of her because she was 18 and on her own in hospital for 5 days fighting her corner for me .
Every morning the midwives would come round and call the ladies for exercise. This would be very light bed exercise for those who had no complications. My mum drank Guiness (sp?) daily on advice from midwives/gp throughout pregnancy. Good for iron levels apparently. DH's mum is West Indian and she drank Super- Malt throughout her pregnancy. He was born 75.

Random assortment of memories from my mum

• first baby born 1948 when mum was 28, considered ancient. She confessed she went into labour not 100% sure where the baby would come out (and she was a farmers wife by then!)
• routine shave and enema. Remembers midwife coming in, reaching for a razor, saying 'no that ones a bit rusty', selecting a clean one then asking mum to open her legs. Mum hysterical, had no idea about the shave. Remembers the stubble though.
• stirrups, flat on your back, gas and air if you were lucky
• all babies delivered by family GP in the nursing home. Home births the norm but already a bit of a class issue; if you could afford it you went to the nursing home
• mum struggled to feed dsis2 so midwife recommended feeding her with the skimmed milk left over from making cream, which normally went to the pigs. She thrived.
• two weeks in nursing home (posh!), screaming baby delivered every four hours for a feed and a very brief cuddle then whisked off to the nursery. All baths and nappy changes carried out by nurses. Mum had no idea what meconium was
• of course, could smoke on the ward
• I was 'early menopause' for first five months as obviously a woman of 38 couldn't possibly be pregnant again

I was born early 70's and i'm another one whose mum smoked and was advised to drink stout. I was born at home as she'd had such a bad experience in hospital having my brother. She was planning on breastfeeding (2nd baby) but the midwifes kept insisting that she needed to give a bottle. They give her tablets to help dry up her milk and when she questioned what they were and then refused them, they got really annoyed. How times have changed.

The shaving thing is shocking even though it's so small compared to other things! Just imagine how much worse that would have made recovery.
My gm found out she was having twins (my mum and her sis) when the doctor felt her bump at 8 months. That's a big shock!

My mum has always expressed surprise that my pregnancies started so early as she insists most women had no idea they were pg until 3 months, she got to 5 months with me before the dr confirmed the pregnancy, always thought this was v odd but reading about the two missed periods it makes more sense! Other than that, she had me in 1979 and smoked and drank through out, she thinks women should stay in hospital for longer these days post birth but no other firm views except childbirth is fairly awful and bf is hard for quite a few people and overly pushed.

My mother tells me the advice when my sister was born was to feed the baby on watered down condensed milk (69). Anyone else heard that?
I was born in 72 and that's what I was fed. My mum tried to breastfeed, but it didn't work. She was insistent for years that baby formula wasn't readily available in England at the time, so obviously her experience was different to a lot of people in this thread.

When my sister was born, in 78, she wasn't allowed to have a home birth due to her advanced age. She was 34.

Formula was readily available because, after all, until the seventies bottle feeding was encouraged. There was some stuff available from the baby clinic which came in big white tins with blue writing - might have been called National Dried Milk - can't remember. The tins were really handy for storages afterwards. Then there was Cow&Gate and Ostermilk from the chemist.

Also from the baby clinic was orange juice (nice) and cod liver oil (yuk).

I was born in 78 and it sounds as if I'm pretty much the same as everyone else! I wasn't breast fed either, because it wasn't as encouraged! Shocking really. My mum was an old mother too...at 32. Although she had already had my brothers.

It's funny reading about the elderly mother things. My great grandmother had my granny when she was 44 and my great uncle when she was 46 and that was waaaaay back in the 20s with no previous children! I think she was irish though, so fairy hardcore

A friend who had her babies in the late seventies / early eighties in London said the women were kept in for 10 days...... but there was a night out to the cinema organised for themwwhile the midwives babysat!

I knew I hadn't imagined it:
National Dried Milk

This link shows a wartime version, but it carried on for a good while after that, until the early 1960s I believe. I think you just added water to it. I think it was only once the baby was a few months old that you started it on diluted cows milk, (with the added white sugar).

While there was still rationing, which lasted some time into the 1950s, pregnant and nursing mothers themselves were entitled to extra milk in their ration.

All gone by the 1970s: the nineteen seventies were modern - none of this old fashioned post-war stuff.

Lots did use Carnation evaporated milk. There was a table on the back of the tin explaining how it was to be watered down for the age of the baby. I'm sure Carnation milk was still used by some into the 1970s. Formula milk was available in the large blue and white tins. I think it had a baby with a crown on the tin. I remember DMum using that for my younger siblings. The free orange juice from the clinic was lovely.

Purple in the 40s (and indeed before/after) pregnant women over 30 and indeed into early 40s were common according to records. FIRST babies over 30 weren't (they assumed you couldn't have kids).
How odd of that GP.
Honestly, that doesn't seem like a historic thing just incompetence - first babies varied but for obvious reasons last babies have historically been consistently possible 35+ for the last 100+ years (especially post war when baby 1 was had to newlyweds, dad went off and resumed family life later so they tried to catch up).

LaVolcan Yes there seem to be some elderly GPS of the 70S telling mums stuff from the 40s -60s. I do wonder how much was "peer" (ie MIL!) Pressure.

Like with my mum's friends at the same hospital insisting no DHS at the birth ... that was peer pressure, but has been remembered as a rule. My dad was there. Can't work out if Dm was being a birth warrior about it or thought if she was going to push out twins he would bloody well be there too! Also breastfeeding: she said most women were told to try, but zero support. Not quite the same as "formula is science".