In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

ate nationwide dietary advice directed primarily at reducing infant mortality , the legacy from milk’s past was not so easy to jettison. The Division of Child Welfare and Canada’s First Dietary Guidelines The Division of Child Welfare was formed in 1919 within the federal Department of Health just one year after it was formed. The mandate of the division was to reduce the persistently high infant mortality rate in Canada.49 In 1921 the infant mortality rate was 102.1 deaths per 1,000 live births. By 1929 it was 92.9 per 1,000 live births, a reduction of approximately 10 per cent through the 1920s.50 The federal Department of Health was aware that these were the worst in the industrialized world, noting that in 1921 the infant mortality rate in Canada was more than double that in New Zealand, which had the lowest rate among developed nations.51 The gravity of this situation and the well-accepted links among malnutrition , artificial feeding with cow’s milk, and infant mortality, as well as the new information on the protective value of milk, figured strongly in the division’s first national dietary guidelines directed to expectant and new mothers. These guidelines were first published by the division in 1921 in the Canadian Mothers Book (CMB), in both English and French and disseminated widely across Canada through the 1920s.52 The CMB reflected an ambivalence about milk, because it gave general advice to pregnant women to use it as a protective food, but in its specific diets never actually instructed pregnant women to drink milk. And the CMB issued dire warnings to mothers against the feeding of cow’s milk to babies under nine months of age and strongly advocated breastfeeding for the mother, as “she knows her nursing is the greatest safeguard for the baby’s life. She knows that her milk will not only nourish him but protect him from many of the diseases of infancy. She does not want her baby to die. Nursing the baby is the easiest way. No formula with bottles and rubber nipples, and measuring spoons and milk-sugar and sterilizing, and no one knows what else, for the Canadian Mother. These things will get dirty and dirt in milk is death to the baby.”53 In fact the CMB advised mothers to drink cow’s milk only after their baby was born. The CMB advised women to “keep on the same diet that suited you before the baby came but drink a great deal more—say a pint or more of milk a day and plenty of water three or four times a day. You should have meat at one meal every day. Milk is our greatest protective food. You must have it.”54 Thus, new mothers were specifically advised to drink milk, but pregnant women were not. 200 ALECK OSTRY After clearly warning Canadian mothers away from feeding milk to babies under nine months of age, the CMB described the role of cow’s milk in the diet of children once they attained nine months as follows: Milk is the indispensable food for children. They cannot do without it. The cow has been well called the “the foster mother of the human race.” Little children must have milk to enable them to grow properly. No matter what it costs, milk is still the cheapest food for children. Children from nine months to two years should have about two pints of milk every day in addition to other food, and it is really a mistake to give them any less till they are about twelve years of age. Three large cups of milk a day is the very least they should have.55 The CMB graphically and repeatedly advised that milk for babies over nine months of age should be dirt free, pasteurized, and stored properly, reflecting the extreme unease that professionals in the Division of Child Welfare felt, in the early 1920s, about the safety of the milk supply. In speaking of the situation in the United States around the same time, historian Rima Apple stated that “it is likely that the rising standard of living, greater access to medical care, and improved food and water supplies in the United States in the first half of this century at least in part masked the negative effects of the growing utilization of artificial infant feeding.”56 Infants and children, particularly of poor women, were vulnerable at a time when their mothers...

Share