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Many women struggle to breastfeed. Scientists are starting to ask why

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Many women struggle to breastfeed. Scientists are starting to ask why

#111

Post by sandermvanvliet »

causi wrote: post #94
SQueeeeeL wrote: post #4

I think it's almost unfathomable for us to imagine how far we are from a "traditional" homosapien life. I read a book called "Hunt, Gather, Parent" where they describe the life of multiple 'less developed' societies, and how they spent a large portion of their life interacting with babies, adolescents, older children, pregnant relations. It's a miracle people are still able to reproduce at all given our isolation fro…

Think about how many millions of years were spent evolving the human brain, human instincts, and human child to adult development process to maximize the survival of children and hence our species. Now think about how psychotic it is, in light of that, to make small children sleep in a separate room from their parents. No wonder they have night terrors. Our society is utterly riddled with anti-natural facets like tha…

Having a baby around I can tell you that as far as human evolution goes it’s good we don’t have natural enemies because we’d all be eaten by now.

Baby is tired: I shall make lots of noise so the predators will go away… right.

Eaten I tell you!

Re: Many women struggle to breastfeed. Scientists are starting to ask why

#112

Post by xupybd »

etrautmann wrote: post #86
Dove wrote: post #71

I started aggressively filtering my water (Berkey black + white filters) during my last pregnancy, and I was amazed how much better I felt and how much more water I wanted to drink. I was trying very hard to drink lots of water to support the pregnancy, and found it difficult. When I started filtering it, it became really easy and I felt a lot better to boot. I still get pretty low key dehydrated if I try to subsist…

I'm with you until the fluoride bit. Do you have any medical evidence to suggest there's any issue with fluoride? Also why Berkey? They're extraordinarily expensive relative to alternatives, primarily for aesthetic gain.

My wife grew up in Vietnam. No fluoride in her water (she grew up on bottle water). The dental work is expensive and regular.

Re: Many women struggle to breastfeed. Scientists are starting to ask why

#113

Post by mensetmanusman »

unglaublich wrote: post #55
newsclues wrote: post #18

Has anyone considered that birth control is actually messing with humans?

Yes, birth control medication has been extensively research.

Certain aspects have, others have not. You can see by the downvotes that asking the question is seen as a political attack by many.

Re: Many women struggle to breastfeed. Scientists are starting to ask why

#114

Post by slenk »

Ancalagon wrote: post #105
falcolas wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, the poverty level for a 3 child household is $35k. ($44k in Alaska, $40k in Hawaii) Probably doesn't count the vehicle troubles, but more the added food, board, and transportation in general.

How is the poverty level lower in Hawaii than in Alaska???

Probably because you're not heating your home a lot of the year in Hawaii

Re: Many women struggle to breastfeed. Scientists are starting to ask why

#115

Post by KoftaBob »

colpabar wrote: post #53
moeris wrote: post #33

Most of the comments here are implying that there is some environmental change which has caused breastfeeding to become harder or less efficient. The article doesn't seem to say that, though. I didn't see any implication that breastfeeding was better back in prehistory. It's possible that it's always been hard. Being in a social group large enough that there are other mothers would solve the issue, largely.

It's against the rules to imply this but most of the comments here are written by people who don't read the articles.

To add onto that, for a discussion board that prides itself on being more intellectually minded, there's a disappointing number of clickbaity/misleading headlines posted here on any given day.

Re: Many women struggle to breastfeed. Scientists are starting to ask why

#116

Post by BlueTemplar »

MandieD wrote: post #54
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised we're more stressed now than humans from thousands of years ago who somehow managed to produce plenty of breast-milk. They didn't have as much safety from pillaging tribes, hungry animals, they didn't have antibiotics, anesthesia or life-saving surgeries. They didn't have access to a grocery store a short drive away, or a fire department. Can all of the advancements in human QoL above be undone by turni…

Infant mortality right before the 20th century, even in the UK and US, was staggeringly high - yes, a lot of that was childhood diseases that we now have vaccines and better sanitation against, but much of it was also “failure to thrive”. Expectant mothers not getting quite enough to eat? Nursing mothers not getting enough to eat, having to do other labor (paid and unpaid) to care for themselves and the rest of the f…

Sounds like a pretty poor example, wasn't "UK right before the 20th century" one of the worst places to live across all of human history ? (Read : median person : so poor Londoner.)

Re: Many women struggle to breastfeed. Scientists are starting to ask why

#117

Post by jelliclesfarm »

garciasn wrote: post #89
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too don’t understand why wet nurses aren’t a thing in our modern times. I suspect being bipedal has been an impediment for motherhood. Most mammals raise their young together communally. Human beings did not evolve to be solitary creatures and in our times, for nuclear families. Large extended families and tribal cohesiveness is how humans survived.

1. Because 'stuff' can be transferred via breast milk and, in general, people cannot be trusted. 2. Because we now have formula, which was intended to allow society to move on in a way which allowed females more freedom after birth. 3. Because, to quote Lenina Huxley, "Eeewww, disgusting! You mean... fluid transfer ?" --- We ended up nearly unknowingly starving both of our children through breastfeeding. We only knew…

I am sorry that you had to undergo so much trouble. There should be better lactation consultants for sure. There are breast milk banks where donated breast milk saves scores of children everyday. I think today’s technology that freezes breast milk and allows women to bank the excess they express is the equivalent of wet nurses. It is the most noble form of charity and donation.

There are many organizations like La leche foundation and human milk banks. They usually direct their donations to premature and severely malnourished infants. Donation of human milk saves lives. Milk is pasteurized before consumption. It is also tested.

Web article link: https://www.forbes.com/health/family/donating-breast-milk-wh...

When it’s expired or when women don’t want to donate their excess milk, I have known some mothers turn it to cheese.

On a lighter note, there is a fetishized demand for breast milk soap. A lady on our Nextdoor forum sells them like hot cakes and I heard she bought herself a new car . We all had a laugh about it but I guess every dollar helps!

Re: Many women struggle to breastfeed. Scientists are starting to ask why

#118

Post by Spivak »

snapcaster wrote: post #97
etrautmann wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you until the fluoride bit. Do you have any medical evidence to suggest there's any issue with fluoride? Also why Berkey? They're extraordinarily expensive relative to alternatives, primarily for aesthetic gain.

I don't know why everyone just accepts uncritically the water fluoridation stuff. It seems like as a culture we're re-examining so many things we incorrectly thought was "safe" but water fluoridation seems to still be a "sacred cow". I'm guessing it's hangover from Birch Society people being against it, but seems weird to just assume it's fine (especially when looking into the somewhat shady origins of the program)

What shady origins? It was done because because of the horrible state of dental health in the US.

"To join the armed services, men had to have six opposing teeth in their upper and lower jaws; in 1941, almost 10% of recruits were rejected for this reason alone"

Like it doesn't even matter if army recruits is a skewed sample, young men not having 6 pairs of teeth that touch is insane.

"In the early 1950s, two public health researchers stated that on average young men between the ages of 20 and 35 years had already lost an average of 4.2 teeth and that 90% of them were in need of bridges or full or partial dentures."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4504307/

The authoritative source of water fluoridation is https://www.york.ac.uk/media/crd/crdreport18.pdf which, broadly concludes that there isn't any strong evidence of harm.

Re: Many women struggle to breastfeed. Scientists are starting to ask why

#119

Post by chiefalchemist »

etrautmann wrote: post #86
Dove wrote: post #71

I started aggressively filtering my water (Berkey black + white filters) during my last pregnancy, and I was amazed how much better I felt and how much more water I wanted to drink. I was trying very hard to drink lots of water to support the pregnancy, and found it difficult. When I started filtering it, it became really easy and I felt a lot better to boot. I still get pretty low key dehydrated if I try to subsist…

I'm with you until the fluoride bit. Do you have any medical evidence to suggest there's any issue with fluoride? Also why Berkey? They're extraordinarily expensive relative to alternatives, primarily for aesthetic gain.

What alternatives to Berkey do you suggest?

Re: Many women struggle to breastfeed. Scientists are starting to ask why

#120

Post by KoftaBob »

Dove wrote: post #107
etrautmann wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you until the fluoride bit. Do you have any medical evidence to suggest there's any issue with fluoride? Also why Berkey? They're extraordinarily expensive relative to alternatives, primarily for aesthetic gain.

Oh gosh. I didn't mean to touch off a controversy about fluoride. As I said, I suspect, but I don't claim to know. But if you want to know why I suspect, here is my reasoning: I can subjectively tell good and bad water apart in double blind tests over a period of several hours, so I know that what's happening to me isn't just in my head. So -- I don't know whether it's fluoride or not, but it's definitely something.…

> What I do know is that I drink a lot more water than is typical -- about two gallons a day when I am not nursing, and much more when I am

That's 3 times the recommended amount of water intake for pregnant women.

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