Events

March 31, 2010

Jessica Martucci, Doctoral Student, Departmentof History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania

A Woman Should Know:  The Role of Nurses in the History of Breastfeeding, 1950-1978

Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania | Visit site »

Time: 12:15 p.m.
Place: 2U Conference Room, Room 2019, Claire Fagin Hall
University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

Abstract. For most of the second-half of the 20th century, nurses and doctors were formally taught very little about how to successfully assist a mother with breastfeeding.  Despite their lack of education, however, nurses were routinely left in charge of overseeing the feeding of newborns – whether they were bottle-fed or breastfed.  In this talk, Martucci explores how nurses, as both women and healthcare professionals, positioned themselves as breastfeeding experts in the hospital and in the press.