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[SOVIET PROTECTION OF MOTHERHOOD] Mat’ i ditia: Sbornik dlia materei [i.e. Mother and Child : Collection for Mothers]

Moscow: Izd. Moszdravotdela, 1929. Item #1093

40, [1] pp. 25,5x17,5 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. small tear of the spine, pale water stains on the outer edge, ink signature on t.p.
One of 5000 copies. Cover design features a photomontage dedicated to a healthy baby with a red socialist flag and female parent.
The collection on the first 10-year period of the Maternity and Child Protection System in the USSR. The MCP Department was established in 1918 under the People’s Commissariat of State Charity headed by Alexandra Kollontai. The first director of the department was revolutionary and physician Vera Lebedeva (1881-1968). In the pre-revolutionary period, she was arrested for illegal literature and captured in prison while she was heavily pregnant. After the jail, Lebedeva carried out medical enlightenment for the Russian province, then worked in an obstetric clinic in Geneva. In emigration, she met Kollontai and started to develop an idea of a maternity benefit program. She headed this department in 1918-1929.
In the early USSR, the Maternity and Child Protection System was considered as a necessary condition for realizing the de facto equality of women and men. Thanks to that, a chain of institutions for children’s care and education was organized: houses for newborn babies and homeless mothers, women’s consulting centers, dairy fkitchens, nurseries and maternity wards. Therefore, the political and social activity of Soviet women grew.
The collection includes 11 articles on relevant topics: diseases, nursing mother and children’s meals, child’s clothes, as well as physician’s pieces of advice. The book opens with a photograph of a large family and, according to the caption, all children were supervised in consulting center No. 2. It is followed by the second picture: pioneers who were the first visitors of the earliest Soviet consulting centers for women and grew up for these 10 years. Also, the text is complemented by photographs of children at nurseries. They are brushing their teeth, taking care of aquarium fish, drinking tea. The curious article is dedicated to contemporary designs of baby clothes and includes sewing patterns. Drawn head- and tailpieces are quite interesting and feature different babies.

Worldcat doesn’t track this edition.

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