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the duty of every mother to fit herself for the perfect

fulfillment of natural motherhood, both before and after

child-birth: and especially to advocate and promote breast­

feeding of infants.2

20 Interview with J.M. McCracken.

2 1 KK Interview; AW also mentioned the restrictions on husbands. 22 KB Interview . MS and DK said similar.

23 KK Interview.

24 The terms 'infant welfare', 'baby health', and 'mothercraft' were all used to describe both the sisters and their centres. As was noted earlier, they only dealt with well babies; all illnesses or irregularities were referred to doctors.

23 Buildings and vehicle maintenance were provided by the Department of the Intenor, however. 'Child Health Services in the ACT' Health vol4 #3 Sept 1954 p94.

2(1 For example, wives of high-ranking government officials, diplomats or men in the professions. CMS Annual Reports passim . 'People were invited on to the CMS committee - the sisters would look out for possible talent. They would recommend that so-and-so would be of value on a committee - then they had to be elected on to it.' Interview w ith CMS Council Member of that time, anonymity requested

2^ Objects of the Canberra Mothercraft Society, adopted at a special meeting of the Society 10 March 1935.

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To do this, the Society employed:

. . . qualified nurses, whose duty it shall be to give sound, reliable instructions, advice and assistance .. . with a view to conserving the health and strength of the rising generation: and rendering both mother and offspring hardy and resistive to disease.28

The relationship between the Council and its nurses, or sisters as they were more commonly termed, was close. The sisters were expected to take a similar approach to childraising and espouse the same beliefs as Council members, to whose monthly meetings they were invited to give reports and share in the decision-making process.29

The Society was keen to reach all Canberra mothers, and by 1954, was proud of its . . . seven fully equipped infan t health centres throughout

the city area. In addition eight sub-centres in public halls, etc. are run, together with home visiting services to mothers in outlying areas. Six fully trained infant welfare sisters are employed by the Service.30

The sisters often went to great lengths to ensure that all mothers were visited. One sister recalled some of the places in which clinics were held:

We had travelling scales in the car that we carried round... . I had a clinic in the Brickworks, and I went to Hall, where I had the clinic in what they called the Woolshed, you know, all the smelly carcasses, sheepskins. There was nothing else. [At the Causeway] it was a clinic in the Causeway Hall, it was just a room in the hall 31

Home visits were also routine, especially to women in outlying areas of the Territory, to women whose family circumstances were difficult and, most importantly, to mothers

28 Objects of the Canberra Mothercraft Society, 1935.

29 Interview with Sr Eileen Daer, an infant welfare sister who began work in Canberra in 1950. She has retained copies of infant welfare records from 1950 until 1967, w hen the infant welfare sen ice was transferred from the CMS to the Department of Health.

30 'Child Health Sen ices in the ACT' Health vol4 #3 Sept 1954 p94.

3 1 Inten tew w ith Sr Eileen Daer. The scales were used for monitonng the progress of babies according to w eight gained.

who had just arrived home w ith a new born baby.32 The sisters w ere:

. . . notified from the hospital when the babies were bom. . . . Everybody was paid a visit. And jin j cases where there were small babies, you weighed them in the home, to help the mother out. . . . (or) if she had three (children j under three, well they wouldn't be coming to the clinic, you'd be weighing those babies at home, you'd be offering the mother that service.33

However, while these home visits may have been presented as a 'service to mothers', the Mothercraft's Society's Annual Report for 1954/55 suggests that they had a wider application.

Newborn babies are visited as soon as practicable after arrival home from hospital, and follow up visits are paid where the baby, for various reasons, does not come to the clinic. Home Visiting gives to the sister the picture of the family environment and enables her to make her advice on various mothercraft problems much more practical and helpful.34

This monitoring of the family environment was reinforced by the School Medical Officer, a government official whose primary role was to monitor the health of Canberra's school children but who was also appointed to act as medical adviser to the CMS.

An important link in the chain of service is the school medical officer who works in close co-operation with staffs of the infant health and pre-school centres, and with the social worker and the vocational guidance officer of the Department of Interior. In this way it is possible, while the community is at its present size, to obtain a picture of family patterns and home environments which are so often the determining factor in a child's well-being. Thus over the years it is possible to maintain a continuing record and supervision of a child's health from infancy through to

32 JB; AW; KK; and BK Interviews.

33 Interview with Sr Eileen Daer. Also NR Interview. The term 'service' was used a lot by the interviewees who had been involved with the CMS.

34 Medical Officer’s Report, incorporated into CMS Annual Report 1954/55. In 1954/55, ten per cent of all checkups made by the clinic sisters were home visits, yet only 20-25 per cent of those were to new borns. CMS Annual Report 1954/55; Medical Officer's Report 1954/5.

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adolescence.* * 3'1

For much of the period under review here, the School Medical Officer was Dr Edith Clement, w hose beliefs were strongly in line with the Objects of the CMS. In 1955, she wrote:

The challenge still exists for us to bring more women under supervision during the ante-natal period. . . . We would like all women expecting babies to go along to their ow n clinic sister for an interview with her some time before the baby is due. On this occasion advice regarding layette, baby bathing, breast care etc. could be given as required. . . . It is highly desirable, particularly in the case of a first bom baby, that the mother should ask either her own Doctor or her Clinic Sister to give her advice about breast hygiene and breast preparation.36

The Medical Officer does not specify here for whom it was 'highly desirable' that mothers should seek advice, but one can assume she was speaking on behalf of the CMS, with an expectation that the mothers' views would coincide. As it was, her exhortations had little effect. Her report for the next year noted that:

In spite of the fact that births numbered 200 more than the previous year the expectant mothers attending clinics for ante-natal advice was slightly less than before. One feels that better coverage of this group is desirable in view of the fact that failure to breast feed is usually preventable if ante­ natal supervision is adequate.37

Overall, the Medical Officer's comments display a desire to control as well as to care for mothers. The term 'supervision' for example, implies less than full empowerment for mothers, and this attitude may go some way to explain why the women did not choose to seek the mothercraft sisters' pre-natal advice. Less than one in four pregnant women were seeing CMS sisters, and many of these might have come only because they were

bringing their other children for their regular checkup.38

33 'Child Health Services in the ACT" Health vol4 #3 Sept 1954 p93. 36 Medical Officer's Report, CMS Annual Report 1954/55.

37 Medical Officer's Report, CMS Annual Report 1955/6.

On the question of home visiting by the mothercraft sisters, I got a mixed reaction