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69 I n the 1930s, paediatric services provided by the state, particularly well baby clinics, continued to grow and expand. But these did not spread evenly or have an equal impact on women and children. In some cases, women had to be convinced to adopt new infant care practices. Women were alsoincreasinglyexposedtoaburgeoningcommercialinfantfeedingculture, of which science and medicine were an intimate part. This is exemplified by the Dionne quintuplets—the face of Carnation Milk. The mid-1930s also represent a turning point in the conceptualization of breastfeeding: breast milk and breastfeeding were two concepts that had been silently diverging. With the advent of the first milk banks, the decline of the need for wet nurses, and the increasing safety of milk formulas made from canned evaporated milk, new images of breastfeeding began to dominate. Women increasingly chose to bottle-feed, influenced in part both by changing ideas about their role in society and by formula advertising. An emphasis on weight gain and ambiguous messages about the value of breastfeeding led to the complicity of scientific experts and professionals in the promotion of bottle-feeding. The Well Baby Clinic The1920smarkedaperiodwherethefederalgovernmentbecameincreasingly involved in matters of infant feeding, particularly through the production and dissemination of advice literature for mothers. In parallel, governments at the local and provincial levels reinforced new scientific infant feeding norms through the provision of services such as child welfare clinics and home visits for mothers. In the 1930s, the distribution of federal child welfare publications proliferated, and the medical supervision of mothers and babies through both public and private services became increasingly routine. Medical services, such as the well baby clinic, checkups in paediatric offices, child development tests, and preventive care, were celebrated in magazines, on the radio, and in government publications. However, services were not Chapter 5 Marketing Infant Feeding, 1930–40 70 Chapter 5 equally available to all women across the country, and their reasons for using these services varied enormously. The expansion and popularity of medical services had a dubious effect on breastfeeding practices. The Canadian Mother’s Book remained enormously popular throughout the 1930s, even though the Division of Child Welfare closed down between 1933 and 1937. Helen MacMurchy, in a 1933 radio address, spoke to mothers as follows: If any of you has a copy of The Canadian Mother’s Book that that you are not using, will you please mail it back tonight, or tomorrow at the latest, to the Division of Child Welfare, Elgin Building, Ottawa … We have a great many requests every day from mothers for The Canadian Mother’s Book—more than we can answer—and if you are not using your copy, perhaps you would mail it back to us and we will send it to some mother who needs it. (Lewis and Watson 1991/92, 13) In 1934, the Canadian Council on Child and Family Welfare took over the division’s work and, among other activities, printed a revised edition of MacMurchy’s The Canadian Mother’s Book. The book continued to be distributed for free and was translated into many languages other than French and English, including Cree, Ukrainian, Japanese, and Chinese (Lewis and Watson 1991/92). By the end of the 1930s, federal child welfare publications were primarily distributed through provincial and local departments of health and other health agencies. Most of these organizations were based in urban areas, and they accounted for 90 percent of the total consumption of these publications. Some of these publications did reach rural areas, as they were often distributed from urban centres by nurses and doctors (Comacchio 1993). The relative lack of availability of federal government advice literature for mothers in rural areas mirrored the relative lack of availability of medical services in these areas. By the mid-1930s, 28 percent of Canadians were living in the twenty cities that had a population of 30,000 or more. These urban dwellers were served by 45 percent of the nation’s physicians, 48 percent of its nurses, and 49 percent of its dentists (Abeele 1988). In Ontario, in 1936, only ten municipalities had a full-time medical officer of health. Out of a population of 3.6 million, only one-third lived in places where public health services were available (Abeele 1988). In rural areas, public health nurses were often the only medical professionals available to provide support and education for mothers. While mothers had unequal access to public health services, depending on their geographical location, services were found in some surprising...

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