Painting, 'For the Baby's Sake, Nurse It'

This painting was exhibited at the Plunket Society stand at the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition, held in Dunedin in 1925-26. In the centre of the poster is an image of a woman lying in bed breastfeeding. Around the outside, in contrast, are images showing a supply chain for cow's milk, starting with the cow, then a milking shed, milk factory, train, cart of milk pails, warehouse, 'City Milk Co.' cart, milk pail, and finally a baby, all connected by a long rubber tube.

The Plunket Society

The Plunket Society, initially known as the Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Children, was established in Dunedin in 1907. It was set up to educate mothers on domestic hygiene and ‘mothercraft’ practices, and by 1914 there were over 50 branches nationwide. Lady Victoria Plunket lent her name to the Society and ‘Plunket’ quickly became a household word, touching the lives of generations of women and children (Giddings 1993).

At the start of the twentieth century New Zealand had the lowest recorded rates of infant mortality in the world, but although the rates were low, they were not decreasing, and the fertility rate was. This was a source of anxiety for some of the nation’s leaders, who felt that the population should be increased ‘from British stock’ in order to strengthen the Empire. The underlying belief, expressed by Richard John Seddon in 1904, was that it was ‘undesirable that the colonies should be populated by the inferior surplus of people of older and alien countries’. In this context child-rearing, previously a private concern, was elevated to a matter of national importance (Bryder 2003, 1-4).

Truby King

The Plunket Society espoused the methods of Dr Frederic Truby King, a leader of the infant welfare movement in New Zealand, and emphasised the importance of a regular routine of feeding, sleeping and excreting for babies. Breastfeeding was considered the most ‘natural’ form of infant feeding, and was strongly promoted. This painting depicts breastfeeding as ‘God’s way,’ and advises women that ‘for the baby’s sake,’ they should nurse it.

In the words of historian Philippa Mein Smith, ‘Truby King is one of New Zealand’s more problematical gifts to the world’ (1988, 28). He was a eugenist, favouring sterilisation of the ‘unfit’ marred by a ‘hereditary taint’, while advocating for the proper care of children born ‘healthy’ who might fall victim to bad feeding, insufficient attention or an unhygienic environment. His rules for mothercraft were rigid, unnatural, and complicated. Nevertheless he was extremely influential; the first private citizen to be honoured with a state funeral and the first New Zealander to be depicted on a postage stamp.

Infant mortality

The Society claimed credit for the fall of the infant mortality rate in the early twentieth century - from 75 babies per 1000 live births in 1900 to 38 per 1000 in 1930 - but the real impact of the movement is difficult to gauge. Factors such as improved sanitation probably also played a significant role.

That said, some of the risks associated with bottle feeding, as identified in this poster, were real and dangerous to babies. The use of feeding bottles attached to long rubber tubes was common in the late nineteenth century, but the rubber tubes were very difficult to clean and harboured bacteria.  Babies who were fed by one of these bottles faced a high risk of gastroenteritis (Clarke 2015, 100). By the 1890s there were safer alternatives available with the teat attached directly to the bottle, but in 1915 the New Zealand Herald reported that the Plunket nurses still had to ‘protect against the long-tube bottle, with its unclean length of bacilli-laden rubber’ (13 February 1915).

The safe supply of cow’s milk for those who could not breastfeed their babies was also considered a cornerstone of the infant welfare movement, as milk supply in cities was often haphazard, dairies insanitary and distribution faulty. Impure milk was a dangerous ingredient in any recipe for infants’ milk, although ultimately milk supply was irrelevant to infant mortality rates because the major decline occurred many decades before a clean milk supply was assured (Mein-Smith 1988, 41).

Although the Plunket Society over-stated their contributon to the declining infant mortality rate, ‘providing mothers with breast and formula feeding and hygiene advice probably contributed to this reduction’ (Pollack 2018). This painting was a means by which the Society could give advice to mothers, and it is an evocative representation of the Plunket Society’s work and message.

References

• Brookes, Barbara. 2011. King, Frederic Truby. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1993. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2k8/king-frederic-truby
• Bryder, Linda. 2003. A Voice for Mothers: The Plunket Society and Infant Welfare, 1907-2000. Auckland: Auckland University Press.
• Clarke, Alison. 2015. A photograph, a feeding bottle and the tragedies of colonial family life. In The Lives of Colonial Objects, edited by Annabel Cooper, Lachy Paterson and Angela Wanhalla, 98-103. Dunedin, Otago University Press.
• Giddings, Lynne. 1993. Royal New Zealand Plunket Society. First published in Women Together: A History of Women’s Organisations in New Zealand, edited by Anne Else. Wellington: D. Brasell and Historical Branch, Dept. of Internal Affairs. Online edition updated in 2018. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/women-together/royal-new-zealand-plunket-society
• Mein-Smith, Philippa. 1988. Truby King in Australia: A Revisionist View of Reduced Infant Mortality. New Zealand Journal of History no. 22: 23-43.
• Ministry for Culture and Heritage. 2020. Plunket Society formed. New Zealand History website. Updated 24 December 2020, https://nzhistory.govt.nz/foundation-of-the-plunket-society
• Pollock, Kerryn. 2018. Child and youth health - Health status of children and young people. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Reviewed and revised 29 November 2018, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/child-and-youth-health/page-1