Looking Back - way back!

Part of my library of books includes a small collection of vintage pregnancy and parenting manuals, dating back over last century.

My greatest treasure is a two-volume set passed onto me from my husband's paternal grandmother, Mary.


SAFER MOTHERHOOD and the HYGIENE of LIFE a 1934 edition of special health problems of women...sex and love in woman's life..the expectant mother..medicines in common use..photographs in monochome

I dusted this off the other day, seeing that Mary's great-granddaughter, my daughter Kaitlyn, is now pregnant. I thought it would be interesting to see the contrast between what these two women would be told about preparing for motherhood.

Here are a few favourites I captured to share.

I imagine the depression-era definition of "light housework"would be quite different from today's

I am quite alarmed that I could have written this section almost word for word and could almost publish as-is today!

This advice about scrubbing nipples with brushes still pops up today , nearly a 100 years later, passed inappropriately from mothers to daughters still.

Just like our Breastfeeding Education Classes, only NOT!

The pride is evident but the reality is these babies would be shuffled out to their mothers for four-hourly feeds and then whisked back to the nursery to be topped up by bottle by the nurses, who enjoyed the bond they developed with the babies during the two weeks or so their mothers were confined to bed on the ward. And continued you so until rooming-in was conceived - still optional when I had my first baby in 1984!