middle-class mothers as activists for change: the australian breastfeeding association

Australian Breastfeeding Association

Middle-class Mothers as Activists for Change: The AustralianBreastfeeding Association

Virginia Thorley

Introduction

The Nursing Mothers’ Association, now the Australian

Breastfeeding Association (ABA), was founded in Melbourne,

Australia, in February 1964 by Mary Paton (the Founder) and

five other mothers, each of whom had worked in a

professional area before marriage. The association has been

described both as an organization of conservative, middle-

class women and an activist organization. This chapter will

demonstrate the relevance of these images, simplistic on

their own, in the context of the organization’s history,

philosophy, purpose and challenges, and the ABA’s role as an

agent for change.

The organization’s philosophy is best described as

providing mother-to-mother support within a structure that

values motherhood and mothers, while engaging with society

and governments to create change. The ABA’s purpose is to

assist mothers who plan to breastfeed to meet their goals,

1


within the context of mothering generally; that is,

breastfeeding is not placed in isolation from the woman’s

life. The association’s statement of its vision

incorporates this purpose along with the desire to be the

foremost authority on breastfeeding in Australia and to have

society regard breastfeeding as normal. This chapter will

examine why this organization was founded, the training of

its volunteers, and efforts to outreach to minority groups

and professionals. Some of the obstacles and challenges the

association has faced were peculiar to the ABA, while others

were influenced by economic and societal change. Looking to

the future, the association has articulated its goals in the

2009-2012 strategic plan. This chapter will show that the

ABA had a role in the motherhood movement, while generally

its office-bearers did not perceive themselves as part of a

wider movement.

Philosophy, Purpose and Mission

The association’s philosophy is described on the ABA

website as espousing the values of mother-to-mother support

2


and “skilled and loving parenting” in the community, through

an organizational ideology of excellence that emphasizes

cooperation and teamwork, through communication that is

“honest, open and respectful” with transparent processes

(ABA, “Vision”). An underlying factor is the association’s

strong focus on its Code of Ethics, which spells out its

status as a lay organization which does not give medical

advice and whose office bearers do not criticize individual

health care professionals or encroach into professional

domains. Thus sessions on the Code of Ethics form part of

ongoing education for those holding volunteer positions.

Since its inception, the purpose of the ABA has been to

provide women who wish to breastfeed the accurate

information and personal support that many mothers need in

order to achieve this goal. The association’s latest

statement of its mission is:

As Australia’s leading authority on breastfeeding, [we]

educate and support mothers, using up-to-date research

findings and the practical experiences of many women.

[We work to] influence our society to acknowledge

3


breastfeeding as the norm for infant nutrition and as

important to skilled and loving parenting (ABA,

“Strategic Plan”).

History

The ABA had its genesis as the Nursing Mothers’

Association when suburban Melbourne mother, Mary Paton (the

Founder) had difficulty finding accurate information to help

her breastfeed her baby. Maternity hospital practices were

not conducive to a good start with breastfeeding and the

printed information available was inadequate (Reiger,

Disenchantment 143; Thorley, “Printed Advice” 77-89). She

read an article in a 1963 Reader’s Digest about the formation

of La Leche League as the world’s first organization

providing mother-to-mother support on breastfeeding.

Realizing this sort of assistance was lacking in Australia,

she drew together several other mothers and they devoured

printed materials from La Leche League. After considerable

reflection, they decided to found a separate organization

that would be based in Australia. The first official

4


meeting was held in February 1964. After consideration of

possible names for their group, and advice that the word

“breastfeeding” was unacceptable for the telephone

directory, they decided on the “Nursing Mothers’

Association”. “Of Australia” was added to the name in 1969,

when branches in other states were formed. A further name

change came in August 2001, after an overwhelming vote of

the membership to rename it the “Australian Breastfeeding

Association”.1

There was a tradition of involvement in maternal and

child health by middle-class women on a voluntary basis;

indeed, in most Australian states middle-class women had

been instrumental in fund-raising for well-baby clinics and

hiring trained staff for them (Gandevia 125; McCalman 50-51;

Davis 161-73). Even in Queensland, where the state

government discouraged volunteer involvement in welfare, the

Mothercraft Association of Queensland (MAQ) had, in the

years 1931-1961, found a role to play (Thorley, “Softly” 80-

92). When the ABA was founded, most Australian mothers were

1 In this chapter, the organization will henceforth be referred to as the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA).

5


primarily homemakers, either by choice or because employment

was generally closed to women on marriage. Volunteerism

provided an outlet for their energy. For the more active

members volunteer work for the association involved similar

amounts of time and effort as a paid job would have, though

this was not perceived as “work”. Indeed, in the mid-1980s,

the appropriateness of the breastfeeding mother’s return to

paid employment was hotly debated in the association’s

newsletter for its counsellors, Talkabout. This debate

reflected community attitudes and was not unique to the ABA.

Training of lay counselors. The first breastfeeding

counsellors to qualify did so in particular roles, as Group

Leaders, Assistant Group Leaders, Telephone Counsellors or

Letter Counsellors. Trainees were encouraged to become Group

Leaders as the basic unit of the NMAA was, and still is, the

local group. Eventually, the term “breastfeeding

counsellor” was used generically for all of these

categories. In 1986 another category was established, that

of the “community educator”, who has become increasing

involved at group and local level.

6


Initially the training system was similar to that of La

Leche League during the same period, with trainees being

required to make written responses to a set of questions

based on real situations. The training system has been

updated a number of times to develop counseling skills as

well as the capacity to provide accurate information to

assist the mother in making decisions in her own situation.

The current training system involves completion of a

Certificate IV in Breastfeeding Education (Counseling),

which provides ABA counsellors with a recognized

qualification. ABA’s community educators now study for

their own Certificate IV in Breastfeeding Education

(Community).

Outreach programs. While a high level of training and

ongoing education has always been one of the ABA’s

strengths, the obverse of the coin is that the reading level

necessary makes it difficult to recruit minority women and

those from lower socio-economic backgrounds (Phillips,

Talkabout 24). Yet these are the sections of the community

least likely to breastfeed for long. The association has

7


conducted outreach programs, usually on short-term funding

from state governments, to train minority women to support

other women to breastfeed and to develop culturally

appropriate materials for some of Australia’s marginalized

groups. In 1983-1984 the Thallikool program in the Northern

Rivers District of New South Wales used a state government

grant to train two Aboriginal women from local communities

in breastfeeding and counseling, and to develop educational

materials (Mangleson 99-104). Related programs followed on

both sides of the New South Wales/Queensland border, again

with state government grants and employing ABA counselors as

project workers. Some in the association were initially

uneasy about counselors being paid for this work. While to

some extent this may have reflected old middle-class

attitudes that volunteering was laudable, but paid

employment was not a role for mothers, the underlying

concern appears to have been that this was unfair to others

who volunteered their time. In another outreach program,

ABA counselors worked with Punjabi mothers in a farming

community in northern New South Wales. One outcome of this

8


program was that the Indian mothers produced a hand-written

breastfeeding manual in Punjabi. Another outreach program,

in Victoria, targeted adolescent mothers.

Structure. Once the NMAA had spread from Victoria into

other states, state and territory branches were created. As

the branches developed they did not necessarily use state or

territory boundaries, for logistical reasons. The branches

occupied a level of structure between the local groups and

the national level. In the larger states these branches

were divided into regions, answerable to the branch

“representative” (later renamed the branch president). The

Founder has always considered the association’s structure as

one of its strengths, with the national hierarchy supporting

the grassroots groups Australia-wide. Kerreen Reiger has

termed the NMAA structure a “maternalist bureaucracy”, as

evidenced by the concept of the organization as a family,

which she believes has impacted on the decision-making

processes and information flow, as well as uneasiness about

factions or personal power (Reiger, Our Bodies 85-87).

9


In the early years members of the Executive Committee

(later the Board of Directors, after the association was

incorporated) stored their files under their beds and

elsewhere in their homes. Tasks such as the collating of

newsletters and the sewing of an early sale item, the meh tai

baby sling, were initially done at kitchen tables. As the

workload became greater, the need for a national office with

paid staff became pressing. The first NMAA National

Headquarters was established in a Melbourne suburb in 1970

and subsequent national offices have always been located in

Melbourne. “Working groups”, which are responsible for a

number of national administrative and policy areas, consist

of volunteer convenors and members across Australia.

Outreach to the health professions. In providing

support and information to mothers who wished to breastfeed

their babies, it became apparent very early that educating

health care professionals would be an advantage to mothers,

who depended on professional assistance in the maternity

hospitals where most Australian women gave birth. The first

issue of the association’s peer-reviewed journal for health

10


professionals, Breastfeeding Review, appeared in August 1982.

The old Research Department, later the Information Service,

was restructured in 1988 as the Lactation Resource Centre

(LRC) to provide the association’s counsellors and outside

subscribers with the most accurate information available on

breastfeeding and human lactation. LRC subscribers have

always included individual health care professionals and

hospitals. The LRC also sells a range of textbooks and

other education material on breastfeeding.

A home study kit for health care professionals was

planned from the mid-1980s and the first edition was

published in 1990 as Breastfeeding Management in Australia

(Brodribb). This first edition was printed in Mackay,

Queensland, where the editor, ABA counselor and medical

practitioner, Dr Wendy Brodribb, was then living, and

collated by local members. The third edition in 2004, for

an international readership, was retitled Breastfeeding

Management.

In addition to larger educational events with visiting

speakers, in recent years the LRC has conducted a “Research,

11


Ethics and Knowledge” course in Melbourne and Brisbane for

health care professionals and lay counselors. The target

group includes the increasing number of individuals

preparing for the examination of the International Board of

Lactation Consultant Examiners or seeking to upgrade their

knowledge base.

Activism. Although claiming to be apolitical, as a

young organization in the early-1970s the association

campaigned to ban the French atomic tests in the Pacific,

with an appeal in French addressed to the “mothers of

France”. The association has also, on a number of

occasions, been involved in representations about pesticide

use in relation to the safety of mothers and their babies.

After media reports in 1970 about increased pesticide levels

in mothers’ milk, the association produced a Research

Bulletin on the subject to provide non-sensationalist

information to members and the public. Spokeswomen became

involved in media interviews and liaised with other

concerned groups. Ten years later the pesticides issue

again appeared in the media and, once again, the ABA became

12


involved in providing information and reassurance to mothers

that there was no imperative to wean their babies. As

concerned consumers, in 1980 ABA formed a special committee,

based in Brisbane, to address the issue. The committee’s

submission to the Hazardous Chemicals Enquiry, a Federal

Parliamentary Standing Committee, recommended more research,

alternative methods of pest control and the monitoring of

pesticide use (“Herbicide” 4).

The ABA was involved in campaigning for the

implementation in Australia of the 1981 International Code of

Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes (World Health Organization),

known in Australia as the WHO Code. This code and

subsequent World Health Assembly resolutions to which

Australia is a signatory were designed to protect vulnerable

new mothers from unrestrained marketing of breastfeeding

substitutes. From the 1980s, the association educated

members about the issues the WHO Code covered, made

representations to the national Trade Practices Commission

about unethical marketing practices and continued to monitor

local breaches of the international marketing code.

13


Representatives of the association were invited to the

signing of the “Marketing in Australia of Infant Formula”

(MAIF) Agreement in 1992, an agreement which covers only

parts of the WHO Code and, unlike national legislation

restricting the advertising of medications, provides no

penalties for breaches.

In the 1980s the association developed the innovative

Mother Friendly Workplace Award to acknowledge workplaces

that met certain criteria for enabling women to continue

breastfeeding or providing their babies with their milk

after the return to work. To encourage workplaces to

maintain standards, this was reconceptualized in 2002 as an

accreditation process, and renamed the Breastfeeding

Friendly Workplace Accreditation.

The ABA at branch and national level has fostered

relations with departments of health and governments,

becoming influential in a number of ways. Examples are the

specific addition to state anti-discrimination legislation

to include the right to breastfeed anywhere a woman could

legally be and the 2007 House of Representatives Inquiry

14


into the Health Effects of Breastfeeding, the latter the

result of representations to the federal government by ABA.

The 479 submissions to the inquiry came from the public

health sector, numerous individual ABA members and other

individuals, as well as ABA at national and state level. An

ABA representative sits on the International Board of

Lactation Consultant Examiners, the body which certifies

lactation consultants globally.

Challenges

Financial sustainability. As with other voluntary

organizations, money and sustainability have always been a

concern. When the association began in Melbourne, members

were encouraged to bring items that could be sold for

recycling or an item to donate for sale at the meeting, to

raise money. The bring-and-buy method of raising modest

funds continued for some years. Other forms of fund-raising

at local and branch level that have endured across the years

include fashion parades, barbecues, cake stalls, and the

hire of equipment, including – latterly – breast pumps.

15


The rapid expansion of membership during the 1970s put

heavier financial demands on the organization. In May 1975

the 15,000th member joined and two months later, in July,

the 16,000th member joined (Talkabout 25). To meet the needs

of members and non-members who sought the support of the

association for information and advice, more breastfeeding

counsellors needed to be trained, and this cost money, more

than could be covered by membership subscriptions. So the

association’s volunteers began to write grant applications,

despite initial fears about government involvement.

Neither the old methods of raising money nor funding

from grants could ensure sustainability of income. Grant

money is, almost by definition, tied to a specific project

or purpose, invariably for a fixed term, with no guarantee

of a further grant at the end of the period. One of the

strategies to provide an income stream was to separate the

organizational arm from the trading arm, with a company

established to sell NMAA products and other merchandise.

Originally named “Merrily Merrily Enterprises” and later

renamed “Mothers Direct”, the trading arm had mixed success.

16


In 1986 the NMAA faced a challenge that threatened its

financial stability. Someone injured a finger while using

an ice-crushing machine hired from a local NMAA group and

she sued the NMAA for damages. When the High Court of

Queensland found against the NMAA, the company which

provided public liability insurance refused to pay the full

claim. The eventual cost exceeded $(AUD)75,000 (Paterson

11). A special appeal to members resulted in donations from

over 4,500 individuals, who rallied to the call to “save”

the association.

The association again faced a critical financial

situation at the turn of the twenty-first century. Income

had plunged and the ABA had an estimated budget loss of

$160,000 in the first half of the financial year, to

February 2002. Mothers Direct, established to provide

profits for ABA, instead lost money and had to be supported

from association funds. A management consultant was

employed as desperate times meant new strategies to reduce

costs and generate income. A “100-Day Challenge” was

implemented at all levels of the association to halt the

17


losses and reverse the financial plight (Croker). The

overall loss for the financial year ending at 30 June 2003

was $172,442, of which $147,735 was lost by the trading arm.

In the next financial year, to June 2004, the loss had been

reduced to $14,251 for the ABA and $15,979 for Mothers

Direct (ABA 2004 Annual Report). Both the association and

Mothers Direct were once again profitable by the 2004-2005

financial year (ABA 2005 Annual Report). Today the Mothers

Direct brand has profitable shops in Melbourne and (since

2007) in Brisbane, as well as a mail-order business.

[Figure 1 [photo]. Brisbane Mothers Direct shop and ABA

office ]

Grant money has come largely from the federal

government and state governments, but other funding has been

received from the gaming industry’s mandatory community

grants, from city or regional councils, and from commercial

entities. Policies were eventually developed to preclude

the acceptance of money from companies which manufacture

18


products used for artificial feeding, to avoid a conflict of

interest and adhere to the International Code of Marketing of Breast

Milk Substitutes.

National fund-raising initiatives have in recent years

included an annual lottery and regular appeal letters to the

membership, as well as conferences and lectures for the

further education of both the association’s counsellors and

health care professionals. These educational offerings make

a profit and also raise the association’s profile.

Geographical isolation. Australia is an island

continent the size of the contiguous United States, with a

relatively small population predominantly situated on the

coast. Thus geographical distance has always been an issue

impacting upon how the ABA operates. With the goal of

providing consistent, up-to-date advice and support to

mothers wherever they may live, it was important for the

association to attempt to overcome as many of the

disadvantages of geographical isolation as possible. In the

late-1960s few members lived outside the main population

areas in the south-east, but by the 1970s numbers,

19


everywhere, were burgeoning. Residents of small towns then

paid a high price for telephone calls outside their

immediate area as long-distance telephone calls were billed

in three-minute increments. This put pressure on both the

caller and the counselor to restrict the time. The

alternative was letter counseling, at a time when mail

services were slow, even in towns and cities with daily mail

services. In the early-1970s letters from the association’s

national headquarters in Melbourne to the only Queensland

counsellor in a small town south-west of Townsville could

take up to two weeks. In remote areas and on farms, weekly

mail services were common.

Several correspondence groups were set up to serve

isolated mothers on cattle and sheep stations (ranches), in

mining camps and in small towns. Initially, the

correspondence group discussion took the form of a “round

robin”, that is, the group leader would write an

introduction to the topic and send it, with a list of names

and addresses, to the first member. Each member, in turn,

would add her comments and send the package to the next

20


member on the list, a process that could take many weeks.

The process became fine-tuned over time (Thorley 24-25).

The federal government later reformed telephone billing

to reflect the reality of life in rural areas. The ABA

established telephone counseling rosters in the major cities

to improve access by mothers, though the technical telephony

problems involved took up time at branch business meetings.

One of the recommendations of the 2007 House of

Representatives Inquiry into the Health Benefits of

Breastfeeding was for the federal government to provide

funding for a national telephone helpline for the ABA, which

mothers anywhere in Australia could access for the cost of a

local call. This was made possible by a federal government

grant of $(AUD)500,000 a year for five years in 2008.

As technology improved, new ways of communicating

across the country became available. The internet enabled

communication by email to begin and in the late-1990s the

association began an email counseling roster. This has

grown exponentially, with an increasing number of counselors

joining the email roster to meet demand. Once internet

21


access in country areas improved, women anywhere in

Australia could use this mode of counseling; rural

counselors could also increase their counseling experience.

Access details for the email roster are listed on the ABA

website. Because of insurance limitations, ABA cannot

provide counseling to mothers in North America, though

requests for help by email are accepted from other parts of

the world, as well as Australia.

Distance has also impacted upon counselor training and

ongoing education, and a large cost borne by distant groups

has always been sending their counselors to branch

conferences, or even trainee meetings in their own large

regions. Money for this necessary travel has been found

through innovative fund-raising such as the group which

undertook the contract to deliver telephone directories in

their city, or through partial grants (Thorley 56).

Isolated counselors and trainees were also given a special

section of counsellor newsletters to discuss issues specific

to them.

22


Conflicts. In any organization, conflicts will occur

and maternalist organizations are not immune. Local or

branch personality conflicts in ABA seem to have been

handled quietly, sometimes with mediation. However, at a

national level in the mid-1970s a conflict which in

retrospect appears to be related to differing views on

presidential style and accountability split the association

into two factions, with both sides campaigning by letter and

telephone, before it was resolved.

Shrinking availability of volunteers. Dependence on

volunteers has always been both a strength and a weakness

for the ABA. The whole concept of mother-to-mother support

for breastfeeding necessitates that experienced mothers be

recruited for training for counselor roles, to provide a

dimension of support and more time than professionals can

provide. In the early years of the association, when few

mothers had paid employment, the rapid growth in membership

led to a shortage of counselors and a heavy load for

existing ones. Since the latter part of the twentieth

century this demographic, mothers of young children, has had

23


fewer hours to devote to the association because of

employment commitments. The retention of long-serving

volunteers and developments in technology, such as the

internet, have enabled the association to continue to

provide services. Telephone and email counseling shifts for

counselors on roster gradually shrank to shorter blocks of

time, to suit employment commitments. Breastfeeding classes

for pregnant women and their partners are now commonly

scheduled for weekends or evenings to cater for women who

are working, whether they are prospective members or ABA’s

counselors and community educators themselves.

Future Goals

The ABA’s Strategic Plan for 2009-2012 sets out six

“key result areas”. These are: 1) breastfeeding support; 2)

financial viability; 3) training, education and resources;

4) advocacy, policy and research; 5) public awareness,

profile and marketing; and 6) governance and organizational

development (ABA “Strategic Plan”). These six areas bring

the goals that have driven the organization for most of its

24


life into the future. They include some of the ABA’s

strengths, as already discussed, and one of the

association’s continual challenges, financial

sustainability.

The first key area is the underpinning reason for ABA’s

existence. Whether through the local mother-support group,

the national 1800 telephone helpline, email contact,

breastfeeding classes for couples or the website,

breastfeeding support is how most mothers experience ABA.

The second key result area is an ongoing concern for most

voluntary organizations, the ABA included. Memories of the

organization’s parlous financial state in the early 2000s,

and the strategies used to pull it out of this pit, are

still fresh in the collective mind of ABA volunteers in

national and state administrative roles. So there is an

emphasis on the wise use of existing financial assets to

increase them, and on fiscal responsibility. The training

and ongoing education of counselors, including building on

resources they can use, is at the forefront of the third key

result area and specifically linked to the provision of

25


“skilled, knowledgeable and practical” support to

breastfeeding mothers (ABA Strategic Plan).

The seemingly diverse areas of advocacy, policy and

research are grouped together in the fourth key result area.

The rationale for this is that these factors, together, are

elements in improving breastfeeding outcomes. The

“marketing” in the fifth key result area, means promoting

the ABA “brand” to raise the association’s profile and

increase public awareness of breastfeeding. Earlier, the

old NMAA Newsletter was reborn as a magazine under a new

title, Essence, all the better to reflect the ABA brand.

Finally, the sixth key result area, governance and

organizational development, pulls the other key areas

together by making the association strong and effective.

[Figure 2. The ABA’s magazine, Essence, covers news,

information and issues]

The Organization’s Importance in the Motherhood Movement.

26


The genesis of the ABA occurred at a time when

maternalist organizations promoting and campaigning for

women’s rights in reproductive areas of life were being

established in Australia. Some, such as childbirth groups

and the ABA, focused on women as mothers, while other

organizations, such as the Women’s Electoral Lobby,

concentrated on other aspects of women’s fertility and on

women’s rights generally. ABA women viewed the organization

in the context of other mother-to-mother breastfeeding

support groups overseas. Other social influences at the

time, which may have had a bearing on the increased interest

in breastfeeding among mothers, included the growth of the

consumer movement and nostalgia for an idealized, more

natural past.

In its early years the ABA appears not to have

conceptualized itself as a self-help organization, as

described by Alfred H. Katz and Eugene I. Bender (1976):

Self-help groups are voluntary, small group structures

for mutual aid and the accomplishment of a special

purpose. They are usually formed by peers who have

27


come together for mutual assistance in satisfying a

common need . . . and bringing about desired social

and/or personal change. The initiators and members of

such groups perceive that their needs are not, or

cannot be, met by or through existing social

institutions. Self-help groups emphasize social

interactions and the assumption of personal

responsibility by members. They often provide material

assistance, as well as emotional support; thus they are

frequently “cause”-oriented, and promulgate any

ideology or values through which members may attain an

enhanced sense of personal identity.

This is a remarkably close description of the ABA in its

early years (Phillips 37-39). Furthermore, the organization

is non-governmental, though today it is willing to apply for

and use government funding of specific projects. As with

other self-help and mutual aid groups, advances in

technology have subsequently widened the means of

communication and interaction beyond the face-to-face group

model.

28


The rapid growth of membership among mothers, the

association’s willingness from its earliest years to engage

with health care professional groups, and the credit given

to the organization for the reversal of the decline in

breastfeeding rates by medical writers (Wilmot 15; Smibert

499-503), increased its respectability.

[Figure 3 (graph) to go here]

Conclusion

As an organization founded and run by volunteer

mothers, assisted by a small paid staff, the ABA has often

placed a heavy load on its volunteers. Nevertheless, held

together by a consistent vision and a strong and evolving

organizational structure, the ABA is still providing mother-

to-mother support to women who wish to breastfeed and

continuing its activism. Challenges such as rapid growth,

geographical spread, financial difficulties and internal

conflict have been turned into opportunities to strengthen

the organizational structure and to involve members in

holding the association together. The current strategic

plan looks positively towards the future.

29


Website

The Australian Breastfeeding Association website provides

information about the association, articles of interest to

breastfeeding mothers, contact details for breastfeeding

counselling by telephone and email, an online forum, and

links to other sites.

URL: http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au

30

http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/


Works Cited

Australian Breastfeeding Association. 2004 Annual Report.

At http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/aboutaba/annual.html

Accessed 10 July 2010.

Australian Breastfeeding Association. 2005 Annual Report. At

http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/aboutaba/annual.html


Australian Breastfeeding Association. “ABA Vision, Mission,

Values and Objectives.” (2009) At

http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/aboutaba/purpose.html


Australian Breastfeeding Association. “Strategic Plan.”

Available online at http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au


Brodribb, Wendy, ed. Breastfeeding Management in Australia.

Nunawading, Victoria: Nursing Mothers’ Association of

Australia, 1st ed., 1990.

Croker, Anne. “100-day Challenge Final Update”, 18 June

2002. [ABA Listserv]

31

http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/

http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/aboutaba/purpose.html




Davis, Annette. “Infant Mortality and Child Saving: The

Campaign of Women’s Organisations in Western Australia,

1900-1922.” In Penelope Hetherington, ed., Childhood and

Society in Western Australia. Nedlands: University of Western

Australia Press, 1988.

Gandevia, Bryan. Tears Often Shed: Child Health and Welfare in Australia

from 1788. Rushcutters Bay, New South Wales, Pergamon

Press, 1978.

“Herbicide and Pesticide Levels in Breastmilk.” Talkabout

11.6 (1980): 4.

Katz, Alfred H., Bender, Eugene I. The Strength in Us: Self-Help

Groups in the Modern World. New York: New Viewpoints, 1976.

Mangleson, Jan. “Thallikool.” Breastfeeding Review 1.13 (1988):

99-104.

McCalman, Janet. Struggletown: Public and Private Life in Richmond 1900-

1965. Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 1985.

Paterson, Helen. “Special Appeal Closed – Affirmation of

NMAA. An End to Court Case and Public Liability

Insurance Saga.” NMAA Newsletter 22.9 (Nov 1986): 11.

32


Phillips, Virginia [Thorley, Virginia]. “NMAA As a Self-Help

Organisation.” Breastfeeding Review 1.2 (1983): 37-39.

---. Talkabout 8.4 (July 1977): 24.

Reiger, Kerreen M. The Disenchantment of the Home: Modernizing the

Australian Family 1880-1940. Melbourne: Oxford University

Press, 1985.

---. Our Bodies Our Babies: The Forgotten Women’s Movement. Carlton

South, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 2001.

Smibert, James. “Postnatal Care in the 20th Century.”

Australian Family Physician 18.5: 499-503.

Talkabout 6.3 (August 1975): 25.

Thorley, Virginia. Mother to Mother: The History of the Queensland

Branch of the Australian Breastfeeding Association (Coorparoo,

Queensland: Queensland Branch of ABA, 2009).

---. “Printed Advice on Initiating and Maintaining

Breastfeeding in Mid-Twentieth Century Queensland.”

Journal of Human Lactation 19.1 (2003): 77-89.

---. “Softly, Softly: How the Mothercraft Association of

Queensland Co-existed with Government Policy, 1931-

1961.” Health and History 3.2 (2001): 80-93.

33


Wilmot, Elizabeth. “Annual Report for the Calendar Year 1972

of the Director of Maternal Infant and Pre-School

Welfare.” Melbourne: Government Printer, 1973.

World Health Organization. International Code of Marketing of Breast-

Milk Substitutes. World Health Assembly, WHA 34.22, May

1981.

34

Australian Breastfeeding Association 35

middle-class mothers as activists for change: the australian breastfeeding association

Documents