History

Parents Centre's Origins

In 1920, most New Zealand women (65%) had their babies at home or in small, unlicensed one-bed homes. Their care-givers were midwives or maternity nurses, with medical practitioners only being called in the event of difficulties. By 1936 however, 78% of births were in maternity hospitals with doctors in attendance. This dramatic change had come about with the increasing concern for the maternal and infant mortality rate.

But the imagined benefits of hospital birth proved to be illusory. Care was impersonal and hospitals were run on rigid, authoritarian lines. Birth was a nightmare for many women and their time in hospital following the birth was disastrous in terms of either establishing breastfeeding or nurturing any bonds between mother and baby. In terms of baby care, the undisputed authority was the Plunket Society and by the late 1940's, it was staffed mainly by older, unmarried women who had trained in the old, rigid nursing system. They carried this rigidity with them into Plunket-strict four-hourly feeding, early toilet training, strict nursery routines, no night feeding-and while many mothers appreciated the support they received from Plunket, they found it difficult to measure up to the strict Plunket nurse's instructions and expectations of how their baby should develop and behave.

A Better Way

This unhappy picture horrified Dr Maurice Bevan-Brown, a New Zealand-born psychiatrist. Fortunately, he found and soon joined forces with a kindred spirit, Dr Enid Cook. Dr Bevan-Brown advocated much more relaxed styles of parenting which were responsive to the needs of the individual child rather than adhering to strict routines and Dr Cook informed parents-to-be about natural childbirth.

Their ideas were viewed with great scepticism by the medical profession but they made a profound impression on the people who were to become the founders of the Parents Centre movement. Helen and Quentin Brew were amongst these. Helen Brew was a woman who possessed enormous drive and determination and from her belief in natural childbirth and the need for more loving and enlightened parenting, emerged a group called the Natural Childbirth Group, to become in June 1952, Wellington Parents Centre.

An extract from Helen's first report as President of Wellington Parents Centre in March 1953 sums up the goals of the first Parents Centre and what was to become the Parents Centre movement.

Our concern for the improved care of mothers in pregnancy and labour is not directed solely towards a more satisfying birth experience as an end in itself, but also towards providing the mother and child with the best beginning for their mutual relationship, upon which is based so much of the child's later emotional health. For the same reason the Parents' Centre is interested in "rooming-in", breastfeeding, the permissive approach to early child care, and any other practices which are likely, by improving parent-child relationships, to improve the happiness and mental health of the next generation.

Further Reading

"The Trouble with Women" - Mary Dobbie
"Minding Children - Managing Men" - Helen May 
"Mum's the Word" - Sue Kedgley