The Expectant Mother and Baby’s First Month: for Parents and Nurses

1923

Truby King Collection TK Coll. WS 113 KH9 1923

Sydney: Angus & Robertson

The Plunket Society had ‘a cult of scientific motherhood at its core’ (Olssen) and disseminated its doctrines in regular, affordable publications. In 1913, the government commissioned King to write Baby’s First Month, a 46-page pamphlet, issued to all mothers. In 1916, the pamphlet was expanded and became The Expectant Mother and Baby’s First Month, which every marriage licence applicant received. This 1923 Australian edition highlights how far-reaching King’s Plunket philosophies had become. The breast-feeding mother (pictured), from London, is a Mothercraft success story brought about by ‘treatment on “Plunket lines”’.