Mothers and medicine: A social history of infant feeding, 1890-1950

by Rima D. Apple

    In the nineteenth century, infants were commonly breast-fed; by the middle of the twentieth century, women typically bottle-fed their babies on the advice of their doctors.  In this book, Rima D. Apple discloses and analyzes the complex interactions of science, medicine, economics, and culture that underlie this dramatic shift in infant-care practices and women’s lives.
    As infant feeding became the keystone of the emerging specialty of pediatrics in the twentieth century, the manufacture of infant food became a lucrative industry.  More and more mothers reported difficulty in nursing their babies.  While physicians were establishing themselves and the scientific experts and the infant-food industry was hawking the scientific bases of their products, women embraced "scientific motherhood," believing that science could shape child care practices.  The commercialization and medicalization of infant care established an environment that made bottle feeding not only less feared by many mothers, but indeed "natural" and "necessary."  Focusing on the history of infant feeding, this book clarifies the major elements involved in the complex and sometimes contradictory interaction between women and the medical profession, revealing much about the changing roles of mothers and physicians in American society.

Genres: Nonfiction

261 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[saizine]

Closer to a 3.75 stars than a true four - 3.8? 3.9? Either was, this is an interesting and well-supported look at the medical, popular, and commercial attitudes to infant feeding (both breastfeeding and the increase of bottle feeding over the 20th century). However, I do feel that the structure of the book could have been quite dramatically condensed, as I felt that there was a large amount of repetition between chapters, not only of concepts but sometimes of particular sentences/paragraphs. I certainly think that there could have been fewer sub-chapters in each section, guided less by a split in time delineation (for most repetition could be found between the two sub-chapters, separated by time and under the same conceptual heading) than by approach (infant feeding theories, medical/physicians' attitudes, scientific motherhood, mothers' attitudes). Nevertheless, the argument made here is strong and convincing, and the work is certainly one that anyone interested in the history of infant feeding should read.