Rowold Katharina
Med Hist. 2019 Jan;63(1):61-81. doi: 10.1017/mdh.2018.63.
In 1942, the British Minister of Health commissioned a report from the newly established Advisory Committee on Mothers and Young Children into 'What can be done to intensify the effort to secure more breast feeding of infants?'. To make their case, the members of the sub-committee put in charge of the report sought expert testimony on the benefits of breastfeeding. They consulted medical officers of health, maternity and child-welfare officers, health visitors, midwives, obstetricians, paediatricians and a physician in private practice. They also consulted five 'psychologists' (a contemporary umbrella term for psychologists, psychoanalysts and psychiatrists). It is not surprising that the committee turned to medical professionals, as infant feeding had long been an area of their expertise. However, seeking the views of 'psychologists' when establishing the benefits of breastfeeding marked a more innovative development, one which suggested that a shift in conceptualising the significance of breastfeeding was gathering pace. In the interwar period, psychoanalysts and psychoanalytically oriented psychiatrists showed growing interest in early infancy. It led to an extensive psychoanalytic engagement with contemporary feeding advice disseminated by the medical profession. This article will explore the divergences and intersections of medical and psychoanalytic theories on breastfeeding in the first half of the twentieth century, concluding with a consideration of how medical ideas on breastfeeding had absorbed some of the contentions of 'psy'-approaches to infant feeding by the post-war period.
1942年，英国卫生部长委托新成立的母婴咨询委员会撰写一份关于“如何加大力度确保更多婴儿进行母乳喂养？”的报告。为了论证他们的观点，负责该报告的小组委员会成员寻求了关于母乳喂养益处的专家证词。他们咨询了卫生医疗官员、母婴福利官员、健康访视员、助产士、产科医生、儿科医生以及一名私人执业医生。他们还咨询了五位“心理学家”（这是当时对心理学家、精神分析学家和精神病医生的统称）。委员会向医学专业人士寻求意见并不奇怪，因为婴儿喂养长期以来一直是他们的专业领域。然而，在确定母乳喂养的益处时征求“心理学家”的意见标志着一个更具创新性的发展，这表明在概念化母乳喂养重要性方面的转变正在加速。在两次世界大战之间的时期，精神分析学家和以精神分析为导向的精神病医生对婴儿早期表现出越来越浓厚的兴趣。这导致了精神分析与医学专业人士传播的当代喂养建议进行了广泛的接触。本文将探讨20世纪上半叶医学和精神分析关于母乳喂养理论的分歧与交集，并在结尾处思考到战后时期，医学上关于母乳喂养的观念是如何吸收了“心理”方法在婴儿喂养方面的一些论点的。
