Infant feeding practices and infant mortality in England, 1900–1919

In: Continuity and change: a journal of social structure, law and demography in past societies, Band 13, Heft 2, S. 251-280

Abstract

Studies of infant mortality in both historical and modern populations
from around the world have shown that the most important single factor
affecting the infant mortality rate (IMR) is the way in which babies are
fed. When methods of infant feeding are unsatisfactory or dangerous,
mortality is high; when improvements are made in feeding practices,
mortality falls, often dramatically, in a short period of time. The degree
to which changes in infant feeding alone can affect IMRs depends on
other factors in the population concerned, primarily the health and
nutritional status of the mother; sanitary conditions both within the
household and in the surrounding environment; levels of endemic and
epidemic diseases; the degree of wealth, education and sophistication of
the population; and, if women are employed outside the home, the
provision made for infant feeding and care by the child's family and
by
society.This article examines infant feeding practices in England during the
first
two decades of the twentieth century, arguably the most important 20
years in the fall in that nation's IMR between 1870 and 1920. The
1900s
and 1910s saw many major changes in the ways in which infants were fed
in all sections of society. Instigated by government, local Medical Officers
of Health and their staff and voluntary organizations, the effect of the
infant welfare movement in England in this period was that infants and
their mothers were significantly better fed, cared for and able to resist
disease in 1919 than in 1900.