Black Breastfeeding | Breastfeeding...It's a Beautiful Thing

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Monday morning meanderings
Monday, July 9, 2007

I hope the morning is absolutely beautiful wherever you are in the world today. This morning the sun is shining brilliantly through my bedroom window and my fuchsia petunias look so beautiful situated on my window sill beside my yellow lantanas and purple verbena. Truly, it takes very little to make me happy in this life we're living.

Helen, a reader from London, pointed me to a few breastfeeding links that I'd like to share with you today. This painting was in an exhibit at Leicester's New Walk Museum last year that celebrated Ernst Neuschul’s Negermuter. It is a powerful image of an African mother seated outdoors breastfeeding her child in Berlin in the early 1930s. She also brought Breast Feeding Art to my attention. Great site!

Last month Roslyn Holcomb, an Alabama novelist, mentioned the following in response to my post, An Historic Look at Bottle-feeding.

I was born in 1964, my mama was a domestic and had to return to work immediately. She didn't nurse me or any of my 5 siblings. We weren't fed commercial formula--too expensive. They mixed up Carnation canned milk, Karo syrup and vitamins. I'm absolutely amazed any babies lived at all.

Roslyn's comment resonated with me when I ran across this picture from Puerto Rico, December 1937 this morning.

Title: Black milk. This baby is getting a mixture of coffee, sugar and water instead of milk, which is too expensive. San Juan, Puerto Rico. Photographer: Louise Rosskam. (Too expensive? Breast milk has and will always be free. I know some unfortunate event may or may not have allowed this baby to breastfeed. It's a sad picture any way you look at it.)

Also, Fat Lady, a frequent commenter and a reader I love hearing from, started a breastfeeding blog, Milk for Spice. Go visit her and travel with her this summer as she blogs about her breastfeeding adventures with her two-year-old.

Labels: breastfeeding history, just because

posted by Jennifer James @ 8:13 AM,

6 Comments:

At July 9, 2007 3:05 PM, Fat Lady said...: I LOVE that painting. It's beautiful and vibrant and the expressions on both mother and baby's faces are just incredible.

"Black Milk" is such a sad picture to me in so many ways. It's amazing the things that babies are fed.

I was born in 1963, and I'm pretty certain that I was fed a pretty similar infant diet to Roslyn's. At a family gathering when Spice was still an infant, some aunts and cousins were teasing me about nursing her. They started talking about what one particular cousin (born around 1955) was fed as an infant - it started with condensed milk, syrup, etc, and by the time she was a few weeks old she was being fed mashed up soft-boiled eggs and pureed meat amongst other things. Scary.

Thanks for the shout out. You, the images you find and share, and the things you write are really what inspired me to start this new blog, sharing my breastfeeding journey. I just hope I can keep it up.
At July 9, 2007 11:14 PM, Jennifer James said...: Eggs and meat for babies? Humans should be extinct :)
At July 10, 2007 10:59 AM, Cairo Mama said...: Jennifer, I really enjoy all of the historic pictures you've been putting up. Thanks for sharing.
At July 10, 2007 11:16 AM, Jennifer James said...: Hi Cairo Mama -- I'm so glad you've been enjoying them! Thanks for stopping by :) By the way, I've added you to my blog links.
At July 10, 2007 9:03 PM, Elizabeth F. said...: I love all of the historic pics as well! Thank you for doing what you are doing. You are awesome!

Also, the Black Milk pic was so sad to me. :-(
At July 11, 2007 10:00 AM, Jennifer James said...: Hi Elizabeth. Thank you for the kind words! I'm so glad you're also enjoying the pictures. I'll be adding your blog to my sidebar today. Have a great day today :)