Customer Reviews

The Face of America: Training Session. Obviously it won't be long until these over-sized ladies will be bathing recalcitrant babies instead of these co-operative dolls. Here, in a Mother and Baby Care class at Sacramento, California, fourteen almost-parents are being briefed in everything from diapering baby to burping him. Nurse Wilma Zanze is the specially trained instructor. The course, in six two-hour sessions, is offered free by most of the 3700 chapters of the American Red Cross. Time was when nothing much was expected of a new father, after he had passed out the cigars. Today, however, modern maternity procedures allow many mothers to return home three days after the baby comes. This means that papa may have to do a stint in the nursery until mother is back on her feet. In such practical classes as this, the men learn that even seventy-two-hour-old babies will not break. The near-fathers also master such techniques as the "football carry" - a masculine method of holding the infant on one arm and bracing him against the waist. The course is open to expectant couples at any time, but most of them don't enroll until zero hour is imminent. Hence, just before this session, one husband phoned in that he and his wife couldn't make it. The reason: the missus was already on her way to the delivery room. Photograph by Jack Fields. ..... 1959 Saturday Evening Post Picture, A5233A. post19591226