Mothers' Breast Milk Station in 20th Century Chicago.

Chicago Milk stations were established at the turn of the 20th century to help curb infant mortality rates. The poor could buy a container of milk for a penny. Critics argued that it undermined the benefits of breastmilk, but often these mothers were so malnourished that they could not feed their children properly. Most of these stations were gone by the 1950s. 

A Chicago milk station, circa 1917. This station was at the Chicago Hebrew Institute.

Gertrude Plotzke, RN and the Chicago Milk Station
Today, with the widespread availability of infant formula, it seems unfathomable that at one time, virtual armies of women would gather together, pump their breast milk and donate it to infants they never even knew. Yet that is precisely what Gertrude Plotzke organized for the Chicago Board of Health in 1938, creating a complete system for collecting, sterilizing, storing, and distributing milk to at-risk infants.

Preemie Care
Plotzke was one of 10 children and a lifelong resident of the greater Chicago area. After completing her nursing training at Jackson Park Hospital, she went to work as a public health nurse, caring for mothers and babies in their homes. While earlier breast milk stations were serving sickly infants in other parts of the country, the Mothers' Breast Milk Station organized by Plotzke was unique, targeting premature infants as part of a concerted effort to reduce the city's infant mortality rate.

Chicago was already a center of innovative preemie care under Evelyn Lundeen, RN, then the supervising nurse at Michael Reese Hospital's premature nursery. It was Lundeen's firm conviction that only human breast milk was suitable for her precious charges until they weighed at least 4½ pounds, which became the standard of care. The Breast Milk Station was developed to ensure that human milk would be available at all times.

Works Progress Administration (WPA) Poster, 1937.

Paid by the Ounce
Potential donors were identified by physicians or nurses, who noted when a recently delivered mother under their supervision had an abundance of milk. Almost all donor women were negro, both because the station was located in a predominantly black neighborhood and because negro women were more likely to breastfeed. Despite the bitter racial disharmony of this period, this program was colorblind.

Much like the wet nurses of an earlier era, donors gave milk to earn money. Each woman donated between 16 and 45 ounces per day for 5¢ per ounce, later increased to 13¢ per ounce. Mothers also received transportation and a free quart of dairy milk per day. Plotzke required donors to drink at least half of the milk before leaving the station to ensure that the milk was not distributed to others. The program also subjected donors to rigorous medical and dental health monitoring.

Plotzke implemented an unvarying procedure for donors: Each mother lined up at a sink to scrub her fingernails, hands, arms, and breasts. The donors then gowned, masked, and covered their hair. After placing disinfected towels under their breasts, the women hand-expressed the milk into sterile cups, usually for about an hour. So indoctrinated were the donors in this ritual that they often found fault with the habits of visiting nurses.

Lifesaving Milk
After the donors were finished, nurses measured each donor's milk, placed it in bottles, and put the bottles on ice. Later, the gowned and masked nurses pasteurized the donors' milk. Orders were filled as they arrived, but hospitals and families needing the milk had to transport it themselves.

At the program's height, 45 donors came to the station each day, all of them usually within six to nine months of giving birth to their own children. In 1943, the station collected 108,000 ounces (844 gallons), distributed to more than 1,100 infants.

Babies at home were carefully monitored for weight and care. In many instances, the supervising medical personnel credit saving an infant's life to the donated breast milk.

The station was a model throughout its existence, with nurses coming from around the country to learn how to run a milk station. The Board of Health later promoted Plotzke to the superintendent of nurses, responsible for supervising 'well-baby' clinics throughout Chicago and the Mothers' Breast Milk Station. 

By the 1960s, the breast milk stations had disappeared when commercial formulas become the standard for infant nutrition.

By Elizabeth Hanink, RN, BSN, PHN 

Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.