La Leche League founder from Glendale Hts. dies

Betty Wagner Spandikow was one of seven suburban mothers who began the international organization dedicated to supporting breast-feeding mothers around a kitchen table.

Mrs. Spandikow, raised her family in Franklin Park, where the Schaumburg-based La Leche League began, but lived most recently in Glendale Heights. She died Sunday at the age of 85.

It was in June that La Leche League members mourned the first of the founders to die - Edwina Froehlich, mother of State Rep. Paul Froehlich.

The nonprofit is in its 52nd year of serving mothers and has accredited 43,000 volunteer leaders over that time to work in 68 countries.

"What my mother and the other founders did, was revolutionary," says Mrs. Spandikow's youngest daughter, Helen Huntley of Wheaton. "They not only challenged the defined role models of the times, but also the medical community."

The Center for Disease Control puts the number of breast-feeding mothers in this country at 73 percent, up from 20 percent in 1956 when the group started.

Members of the organization say Mrs. Spandikow played a leading role in its growth. At the time of its founding, she already was an experienced mother, having breast-fed her four children, with a fifth on the way.

She also brought a business sense to the group, with her experience working in the accounting department at Montgomery Ward while her first husband, Robert Wagner, served in World War II.

She was the league's first treasurer and then business manager. When the organization moved into an office in 1963, Mrs. Spandikow served as executive director, a position she held for the next 19 years.

Under her leadership, the league published books and education materials for mothers and physicians, and mounted an international conference, a peer counselor program, a Center for Breastfeeding Information and an 800-line to take questions from mothers.

The group also undertook a capital campaign to establish the international headquarters in Schaumburg.

Mrs. Spandikow employed mostly mothers, initiating flex hours and a family-friendly workplace in the 1960s. Business hours were from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. so employees could return to their children after school.

In 1958, Mrs. Spandikow was a co-author of "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding," which now has more than 2 million copies in print, and has been translated into eight languages and Braille.

She also was a much sought-after speaker, discussing breast-feeding at parenting conferences around the world.

From the start, officials say, the cornerstone of their movement was the volunteers who shared information on how to successfully breast-feed babies.

"They knew that to change the world, they would have to create a peer to peer network," her daughter says, "of mothers working with other mothers."

Mrs. Spandikow is survived by four of her seven children, as well as 26 grandchildren and 22 great grandchildren.