“The One Best Way:” Marketing Breast Milk In the 1920s, despite the dramatic decline breastfeeding rates in Canada, Dr. Helen MacMurchy, the head of the Division of Child Welfare, attempted to establish breastfeeding as the “Canadian way.” In The Canadian Mother’s Book, MacMurchy promoted, under her governmental title, breastfeeding as “the one best way” to feed infants. Although this message had been ignored with the medicalization of infant birth and feeding practices in the mid-twentieth century, Canadian women, doctors, government officials, scientists and groups, like the La Leche League (LLL), began returning the importance of breastfeeding in marketing breast milk. Beginning in 1978, the Canadian government, in collaboration with LLL
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In The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, first published in 1958, the leaders of the LLL argued that breastfeeding was at the core of good mothering and that women are naturally adept to nurture their infants with breastfeeding. This book sold over one million copies before the third edition was published in 1981, showing the LLL’s impact within Canada and the United States. In 1972, La Leche League Canada (LLLC) held its first national conference at McMaster University in Ontario and in 1977, the La Leche League International Conference was held in Toronto, the first ever to be held outside the United States. Held from the 14 to the 16 of July, 1977, the Conference drew thousands of women, 2,657 adult delegates, approximately 900 infants from all over the world to promote and support the active promotion of …show more content…
In 1978, as part of the national action programme to support breastfeeding, a National Task Force to Promote Breastfeeding was established under the auspices of the CPS. This task force included individuals from LLLC, the Department of National Health and Welfare, and the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Canada. Together, this group of individuals, from a variety of backgrounds, promoted breastfeeding through education, the transformation of the health-care system, and the monitoring of breastfeeding patterns in Canada. The ultimate goal of this program was to successfully market breastfeeding to health-care professionals, government officials, and mothers to elicit a national change in the way Canadian infants were nourished. However, among these individuals, there is no mention of Aboriginals, let alone Inuit within the task force or as part of their
In The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, first published in 1958, the leaders of the LLL argued that breastfeeding was at the core of good mothering and that women are naturally adept to nurture their infants with breastfeeding. This book sold over one million copies before the third edition was published in 1981, showing the LLL’s impact within Canada and the United States. In 1972, La Leche League Canada (LLLC) held its first national conference at McMaster University in Ontario and in 1977, the La Leche League International Conference was held in Toronto, the first ever to be held outside the United States. Held from the 14 to the 16 of July, 1977, the Conference drew thousands of women, 2,657 adult delegates, approximately 900 infants from all over the world to promote and support the active promotion of …show more content…
In 1978, as part of the national action programme to support breastfeeding, a National Task Force to Promote Breastfeeding was established under the auspices of the CPS. This task force included individuals from LLLC, the Department of National Health and Welfare, and the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Canada. Together, this group of individuals, from a variety of backgrounds, promoted breastfeeding through education, the transformation of the health-care system, and the monitoring of breastfeeding patterns in Canada. The ultimate goal of this program was to successfully market breastfeeding to health-care professionals, government officials, and mothers to elicit a national change in the way Canadian infants were nourished. However, among these individuals, there is no mention of Aboriginals, let alone Inuit within the task force or as part of their