Breast Feeding
By the United States Department of Labor
Summary: "No single factor exercises a more pronounced influence on the development of the baby and on his health during his entire life than nursing at his mother's breast." So wrote the U.S. Department of Labor in a series of booklets issued from the 1920s through the 1940s encouraging mothers to breast feed their infants. Though the government would later abandon its support of breast feeding, the Lee Foundation continued to print this collection of snippets from the various booklets released by the USDL, which includes diet recommendations for the breast-feeding mother. Fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, eggs, and lean meats are all emphasized—sound nutrition today just as it was then. Reprint 122.
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Maternal Malnutrition and Congenital Deformity
By Howard H. Hillemann, PhD
Summary: Dr. Hillemann breaks down, by cause, the number of birth defects occurring in the United States in 1955, noting in particular the increasing numbers of defects attributable to environmental chemicals, food additives, and prenatal malnutrition. The report includes a comprehensive discussion of the role of vitamins and minerals in prenatal nutrition, addressing each nutrient individually. Reprint 66B, circa 1956.
Maternal Malnutrition and Fetal Prenatal Developmental Malformations
By Howard H. Hillemann, PhD
Summary: A thoroughly researched report on the birth and developmental defects known to result from specific nutrient deficiencies in human and test-animal mothers during pregnancy. Dr. Hillemann covers deficiencies of vitamins A, C, and E, fats, carbohydrates, the B complex vitamers (including folate), protein, calcium, phosphorous, and manganese. Includes 61 references. Reprint 66A, 1956.
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Prenatal Nutrition and Birth Defects
By Mark R. Anderson
Summary: "The first words spoken by a woman upon learning she is pregnant should be, 'Am I well nourished?'" writes nutrition researcher and educator Mark Anderson. In this sweeping article, Anderson recounts the findings of some of the giants of early nutrition research—Sir Robert McCarrison, Dr. Weston Price, Dr. Royal Lee—to show that the key to being well nourished is a diet of whole, unprocessed foods prepared "in obedience to time-honored dietary traditions." Indeed, regardless of which of the many tribal societies these intrepid pioneers observed, it appeared that "isolation from Western civilization and its foods of commerce...afforded a diet that protected health." Unsurprisingly, birth defects among these societies were virtually non-existent. And how did these traditional diets compare with the current recommendations of our public health officials? "[They] looked nothing like our modern USDA Food Pyramid," Anderson writes, "unless, perhaps, if it is turned upside down and all the foodstuffs are consumed in their unrefined state." This is an incredibly important document about not just prenatal nutrition but the core of nutrition in general—what to eat. From Whole Food Nutrition Journal, circa 2000.
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