La Leche League International was formed in , in Franklin Park, IL by a group of seven mothers who wanted to provide breastfeeding help and support to interested women. Two mothers, Mary White and Marian Tompson, were breastfeeding their children at a church picnic and many other women expressed interest, or told them how they had wanted to breastfeed but failed. Breastfeeding was not encouraged by the medical establishment at the time and not practiced widely enough for women who wanted to breastfeed to have practical support.
Realizing there was a need for information and support, Mary and Marian enlisted the help of five of their friends and acquaintances and the seven began to hold meetings.
The basic format for the meetings and the local structure of LLLI was in place very early. A series of four meetings were held, once a month, dealing with topics from pre-natal issues to childbirth and breastfeeding. Some women just came for the series, but some began to attend on an ongoing basis. From its earliest days, LLLI was affiliated with some doctors who provided medical advice and support for trickier problems with breastfeeding.
LLLI developed a system whereby these letters would be circulated to the Medical Advisory Board, the answers collated, and a reply sent to the mother. In most cases, the doctors of the Board would recommend that breastfeeding should continue. The involvement of the physicians provided legitimacy for the advice that LLLI provided and enabled the women to be surer of their own judgment and instincts when it came to passing on mother-to-mother wisdom and intuition.
LLLI began to challenge the medical establishment on the question of breastfeeding. In addition to breastfeeding, LLLI meetings also focused on childbirth, and the practice of natural as opposed to heavily drugged childbirth which was also common in the s.
LLLI regarded an engaged birth process as part of the whole breastfeeding relationship, partly for the opportunity this afforded for early nursing of the baby and partly for the enhanced mother-baby bonding. The first Group which we can positively date opened in January of in Edmonton, Alberta. Larouche and Mrs.
Petre, I was attempting to nurse our fourth baby, Betty. I nursed our previous babies with a great deal of difficulty and little outside encouragement my husband, however, was always supportive. With the third baby I had somewhat more success in nursing than the first two, but far from what I felt it should be. The information from the League and the support I received from Mrs.
Petre made all the difference in the world, making it possible to have an extended and enjoyable nursing relationship with our fourth child, Betty. Apparently she was already phoning encouragement to other nursing mothers. She led her first meeting January 23 or 24th, after hearing from Edwina Froehlich that Mrs.
Brizzolara Director of New Groups had "approved her questionnaire. Lois retired from active leadership within a year due to poor health but continued doing phone helping and working with Leader Applicants for several more years. Pauline started two more Groups as her family moved around, and continued to be active as a Leader in Moncton, New Brunswick for an impressive 40 years of supporting breastfeeding mothers!
Times had changed as the newly appointed NGC, Anna McDade, was encouraging Leaders to let Leader Applicants know that, now that their applications did not have to be "processed" in the USA, applications should take from "one to four months. The enthusiasm we all felt then has never waned. As our meetings progressed, our library expanded. We were determined to read all we could on breastfeeding; to contact other groups and individuals who could help us.
Each of the officers had nursed one or more babies successfully and several had also had previous unsuccessful nursing experiences. It is conducted by Dr.
Herbert Ratner, Health Commissioner of Oak Park and nationally known speaker on marriage and the family. Ratner is one of the two area physicians who have acted as medical advisors for the group and to whom we are deeply indebted for the time they have spent helping us. After our first series of five meetings, we decided, because of the large number of women attending, to have two separate series each month, with three board members leading each one.
At this time letters were sent out to the physicians in the area telling them about the League and its purposes, and inviting them to attend some of the meetings, which some of them did. Margaret Gamper, R. And of course we shall never forget the night we had as guest speaker Dr. Grantly Dick-Read and had to turn away hundreds after admitting 1, people, from three states.
In December , an article on breastfeeding by Mary White appeared in Grail , a magazine for families.
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