I did not want to begin work setting up a new dietetic service in the local hospital only to have the effort lost if I became pregnant. I missed the professional stimulation I had left behind me in Victoria, so enjoyed meeting the only other dietitian in central Queensland at that time.
However I particularly remember the experience of allowing my ADHD brain to relax and wallow in the feeling of being able to think about wherever my mind wandered to. It felt like such a luxury after years of what I now realize was the great effort I had previously put into keeping my thinking on track as a student or lecturer.
I enjoyed housekeeping, such as working out ways of saving money with clever ways of cooking. This was very useful when writing educational material for mothers later. It was quite usual to make home-brewed ginger beer and home-made delicious plum and apricot jams. All the resident doctors worked long hours and on free days we enjoyed warm days at the beach in Yeppoon. I had a wonderful healthy pregnancy, very involved with the other doctors’ wives, and their new babies, while still playing tennis and continuing to try to learn to swim in the staff pool at the hospital.
I was lucky as I had no morning sickness, and enjoyed the lack of the bad period pain that I was used to having. This was the beginning of the hippy era with the back-to-nature movement. There was a gradual move towards not using the pancake makeup, dark eyeliner and mascara, and hairspray. Mini dresses were in fashion. In hindsight they did not suit pregnancy shapes, especially as it was fashionable to wear very voluminous dresses as if you were likely to have triplets!
I had my first beautiful baby, Noreen, at the end of 1970. She did not feed well until I realized I needed to go out of the central Queensland December heat into the air-conditioned nursery to breastfeed her.
I felt very modern taking my two week-old daughter on a plane to Melbourne when the paediatrician said she was ready to leave hospital. We stayed with family in Victoria until Cary began work as a GP. Fortunately I produced breast-milk well and Noreen tracked up the normal length and weight.
At that time everyone was changing old ways of looking after babies. Before that good mothers made sure babies were fed, warm and comfortable in a non-disturbed environment. Mothers did not presume they could or should actively stimulate their baby in the first six to nine months. Baby food was all bland before the 1970s.
Our post-war hippy generation changed all that. They introduced more talking to babies, music, bright coloured clothes, and delighted in earlier introduction of the highly flavoured foods that were becoming fashionable. As a dedicated dietitian I went to great trouble cooking all home-made baby food for my baby. I did not give her any added sugar in food in her first year, but remember in her second year adding drops of food dye into her milk ice-blocks to make them more interesting! It is hard to realize now that added colour and flavour in food was presumed then to be completely harmless with no effect on the body. In hind-sight I now know why she was so lively and awake in the evenings!
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