Nursing Mums: A History of the Australian Breastfeeding Association

In 1964 six Melbourne mothers began a quiet revolution. Frustrated at the invisibility of breastfeeding advice in a society where artificial feeding of infants was increasingly accepted as the norm, they formed an association to assist mothers like themselves to breastfeed. Nursing Mums tells the story of how a grass-roots association grew to national proportions as the Nursing Mothers' Association of Australia (later known as the Australian Breastfeeding Association). Establishing a model of mother-to-mother support that equipped women to offer breastfeeding assistance to tother women, it developed a network of local groups that stretched throughout Australia, and played an important role in transforming community attitudes to breastfeeding. Drawing on rich documentary, photographic and oral history sources, Nursing Mums also explores the friendship, camaraderie and personal growth of members through their involvement in the Association and the myriad ways in which those members' passions and concerns shaped the Association over its first five decades.