Now! Then! Winifred Stansfield is born unable to suckle at Balby (Doncaster)

3 March 1913: Winifred Stansfield is born unable to suckle at Balby (Doncaster)

Winifred Mary Renshaw. 1984. An Ordinary Life. Doncaster: Doncaster Library Service. Delightful and informative account of a working class childhood in the late 1910s/early 1920s – should be reissued. . Reproduction by kind permission of Doncaster Libraries. Get it:

Excerpt

For the first few days of my life I would not suck from the breast, though my mother had plenty of milk, and in consequence I cried incessantly from hunger. Mum was in tears, and beginning to take a very dim view of motherhood, when the midwife discovered that I was tongue-tied and so could not suck properly. She cut the too-tight membrane under my tongue with the edge of a silver sixpence, and things improved rapidly, to the great relief of everyone. In those days it was taken for granted that mothers would breastfeed their babies. I don’t know whether there were any patent baby foods on the market, or whether mothers unable to breastfeed had to depend on modified cows’ milk for bottle-feeding. It was quite some years later that Glaxo burst upon the scene with its slogan, “Glaxo builds bonnie babies.” In any case, bottle-feeding was more difficult. Sterilisation methods were rudimentary and in hot summer weather summer diarrhoea was a constant scourge, and accounted for a large proportion of the infant mortality rate. More important to my parents, though, bottle-feeding was more expensive, and would make quite a hole in the family budget. So they were much happier when I was able to feed in the natural way.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Comment

Also:

I am the eldest surviving child of my parents. There was a girl born before me, but so premature (three months) that she survived only twelve hours. Just long enough to be washed, dressed, and christened Kathleen Annie. This last was very important to ensure a church burial. Later on we used to search for the pathetic little grave under a holly tree in the churchyard at Balby, but there was no headstone and it got harder to find as time went on. I expect it has disappeared by now.

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Original

I was born in Furnival Road, Balby, in the third hour of the third day of the third month of 1913, and christened Winifred Mary in St. John’s Church.

For the first few days of my life I would not suck from the breast, though my mother had plenty of milk, and in consequence I cried incessantly from hunger.

Mum was in tears, and beginning to take a very dim view of motherhood, when the mid-wife discovered that I was “tongue-tied” and so could not suck properly. She cut the too-tight membrane under my tongue with the edge of a silver sixpence, and things improved rapidly, to the great relief of everyone.

In those days it was taken for granted that mothers would breast feed their babies. I don’t know whether there were any patent baby foods on the market, or whether mothers unable to breast feed had to depend on modified cows milk for bottle feeding. It was quite some years later that Glaxo burst upon the scene with its slogan, “Glaxo builds bonnie babies.”

In any case, bottle-feeding was more difficult. Sterilisation methods were rudimentary and in hot summer weather “summer diarrhoea” was a constant scourge, and accounted for a large proportion of the infant mortality rate.

More important to my parents, though, bottle-feeding was more expensive, and would make quite a hole in the family budget. So they were much happier when I was able to feed in the natural way.

257 words.