POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

'Kaneson Expressing and Feeding Bottle' breast pump

Object No. 2007/57/3

Parents Centres Australia (PCA) was formed in 1968 in the Sydney suburb of Engadine by a group of five mothers who had difficulty finding information, advice and support in the care of their newborn babies. It grew into a large and almost entirely voluntary organisation that conducted ante-natal classes, provided support groups and breastfeeding counselling for new parents, and conducted annual surveys of obstetricians and maternity hospitals. By the 1990s membership was waning as professional organisations took over the role of providing services that had been lacking in the 1960s. Parents Centres Australia closed in 1993 and the Powerhouse Museum was offered a collection of breast pumps, which had been used in conjunction with PCA's support and counselling for breastfeeding mothers. They range from simple hand held expressors to an ingenious electric 'Breastmilker'. Breast expressors (or breast pumps) are used to collect a mother's milk when circumstances prevent her feeding her baby directly from the breast. Hand-held expressors, for example, can relieve a woman's engorged or infected breasts, or they might be used to collect a feed that a babysitter can give to the baby in a bottle In representing the work of Parents Centres Australia (PCA), the 'Breastmilker' and the collection of other types of breast expressor can be said to represent all voluntary service organisations that have been formed in response to a perceived need in the community. As well as providing direct advice and counselling for new parents, PCA acted as a consumer pressure group, lobbying hospitals to allow, for example, fathers to be present during labour, babies to room in with their mothers, and mothers to give 24-hour hour demand feeding. But despite the increase in advice and help that is provided for parents by governments and health organisations since the mid-1900s, there is currently a concern about the lack of parenting skills in the community. Reasons may include the isolation of nuclear and single-parent families from family and neighbourhood support networks that used to exist, and working parents' lack of time for seeking (and providing) help and support. It is interesting to note that the Australian Government has given support to a new website called Raising Children Network. The purpose of the website is to assist parents who are looking for reliable advice. Its launch took place at the Powerhouse Museum on 17 May 2006. Megan Hicks Curator 2006 References: The Whittlestone Breastmilker Model Havenwood Mk III Operating Manual, Havenwood Industries Ltd, Auckland, NZ, [1983]. Letter from Mr John Gibb, Trigon Industries Limited, Auckland, NZ, to Corinne Johnston, Gymea, NSW, 13 January 1986. Nurseaid breast milk expressor [instruction manual], HavenWood [sic] Industries Limited, Auckland, NZ, [1986]. Kaneson Expressing and Feeding Bottle [instruction manual], Yanase Waitch K.K., Osaka, Japan. Letter from Corinne Johnston, Parents Centres Australia, Gymea, NSW, to Megan Hicks, Powerhouse Museum, 20 January 1993. Letter from Corinne Johnston, Parents Centres Australia, Gymea, NSW, to Megan Hicks, Powerhouse Museum, 6 May 1994. Raising Children Network www.raisingchildren.net.au