Maureen Minchin is a medical historian who became a ground-breaking pioneer in the field of infant feeding, first with her book on food intolerances (Food for Thought, editions 1982-1992), then with the publication of Breastfeeding Matters in 1985 (4th edition in 1998) which galvanised many readers such as Professor Frank Oski, who reviewed it in the 1987 Yearbook of Pediatrics, although the annual Yearbooks had never contained reviews! She was the only Australian involved in the creation of the new international profession of lactation consultant, and through links with WHO Geneva and UNICEF New York was influential in the creation of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, which has led to major reform in maternity facilities. (She was sent to Nigeria to assess hospitals there in 1992, and worked as a BFHI educator and assessor until 2010.) She has worked in voluntary organisations for decades and educated literally thousands of health professionals, doctors, midwives, nurses and pharmacists, via courses and conferences she and others have organised. She has been a consultant or writer on many university-based educational modules for health professionals, including the NHS-funded e-learning for health modules. A mother of three, her interests and writing are based in huge knowledge of the science of breastfeeding, but are also plain-spoken and practical, arising from her own and other women's experience. Her work is radically different from most breastfeeding handbooks because it takes seriously the issues of infant formula feeding, exposing many realities about which even many health professionals remain ignorant. Milk Matters is her latest work, a massive tome with three different books under the one cover, which pulls together science, history and clinical practice. It can be read as two e-books available from Amazon and Apple and other outlets: Infant formula and Modern Epidemics; Crying Babies and Food in the Early Years. Look Inside at Amazon.
