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This is What Life was Like in Communist East Germany

Tim Flight December 18, 2019 25 min

Berlin Wall - Checkpoint Charlie — A man peers over the newly-built Berlin Wall in August 1961. The Guardian

36. Lactating women could donate their breast milk to struggling mothers

A nurse bottle feeds a baby in Berlin, 1977. East Germany Images

One well-motivated GDR law saw women encouraged to donate their breast milk to special milk banks. This meant that mothers who couldn’t produce their own milk could feed their babies, and orphans got a supply. Every municipality – places with more than 50,000 inhabitants – had a milk bank. Donors received money for their milk, usually collected by bike. In 1989, East German women donated 200,000 liters of the stuff! However, although there are still milk banks worldwide today, the GDR’s didn’t have ways to check donated milk for disease. Many babies, inevitably, got infected, and some died.

Written by

Tim Flight

I am a freelance historical and literary writer based in West Yorkshire, UK. I read for a funded PhD in English at the University of Oxford (Magdalen College) and graduated in 2016. I am a former lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. My publications include peer-reviewed articles in academic publications, and pieces in mainstream magazines such as History Today and Fortean Times. For more information, please see www.drflight.co.uk