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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

#81

Post by jvm___ »

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…

Everyone on your street or apartment building cooks, cleans, washes and cares for, ONLY, their little cubicle of people. Even if you're 5 ft away physically our society doesn't allow for sharing of any of that repeated labor - unless money is involved.

We spend so much time solo doing activities that would have been communal or at least shared, which puts more pressure on people as well.

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

#82

Post by kneebonian »

_oghd wrote: post #65
this_user wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound like there is a difference between capitalism and human nature, but there really isn't. Capitalism is merely an institutionalised expression of the latter, hence its longevity. Humans by their very nature possess the instinct to outcompete their rivals as a result of millions of years of evolution. Anyone who was not like that, was removed from the gene pool by those who were either by taking their…

longevity? uh... no. capitalism is very young in human society. for clarity, feudalism lasted twice as long as capitalism has currently existed. and while competition has dominated the scientific and cultural narrative for a while, that's not the exclusive interpretation, or even necessarily the best or correct one.

I have to ask what do you mean by capitalism then?

Was the blacksmith selling the products of his labor to people in the community not capitalism?

What exactly do you mean by capitalism?

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

#83

Post by dsr_ »

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.

There's definitely one issue not mentioned here, and it even has a tie-in to software development.

You may recall the famous dictum "The only intuitive interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned." -- possibly Bruce Ediger. That turns out to be wrong. While human infants have an instinct to suckle on a nipple rubbed against their lower lip, human adults have no instincts about presenting the nipple, holding the infant, or anything else close by. All of that is learned behavior -- and bad positioning can be very painful.

If you don't have women breastfeeding around you to teach you, you're at a major disadvantage. It used to be the norm; now we have certified lactation consultants.

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

#84

Post by spoiler »

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 had a similar issue of always forcing myself to drink water, not liking it very much and ended up not drinking enough anyway. This lead me to have all sorts of "symptoms" (I was probably bordering being dehydrated). Then I bought a filter jug (Brita) and I love water now.

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

#86

Post by etrautmann »

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.

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

#87

Post by Dove »

my_usernam3 wrote: post #43
abfan1127 wrote: post #6

anecdotally, my wife struggled to breastfeed our first born. The hospital lactation consultant wasn't very helpful. Ultimately, we found another who's knowledge and bedside manner was very good. I'd hypothesize the lack of generational homes leads to lack of information for new moms. Add on stress about things like jobs, careers, family expectations, and it becomes very difficult.

Spread some of that tribal knowledge, what worked for her?

Two of my sons had problems with nasal congestion. They wanted to eat, but they needed to breathe even more. A baby who tries, screams, and tries again is the tell. Or who just can't seem to make up his mind as to whether he wants to or not. Or who just can't seem to form any sort of a secure latch. It's easy to blame a bad latch, but babies are good at sucking on things. I didn't find latching was any sort of problem when the noses were working right. They were letting go because they had to. The fridababy nose sucker, saline sprays, and sitting in steamed up bathrooms were life savers for us.

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

#88

Post by red-iron-pine »

LesZedCB wrote: post #12
willcipriano wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't have a newscaster to inform them of any of that. The only threats they knew of were ones they personally witnessed. People today worry about the climate of the planet, back them you'd worry about if you had enough firewood for the night.

indeed there was no machine-driven bombardment of (mis)information tailor made to provoke a fear/anger response

Clearly then, there were no rebellions, riots, or unrest.

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

#89

Post by garciasn »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #72
klyrs wrote: post #56

My mom breastfed me in the 80s, but didn't produce enough milk. So, she had a wet nurse. This practice was mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, and probably goes back even further. That women are taught that this is a biological imperative is astonishingly ignorant of human history. Humans are not solitary by nature. We evolved as a society. It should be no surprise that we have evolved to rely upon that. And, no surprise,…

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 this happened after the second one ended up in the NICU for four days even though we were working with Lactation Consultants, Pediatricians, and Nurses who assured us our children were getting enough to eat.

My wife, instead, had to spend 2+ years pumping and exclusively bottle feeding because we didn't want to go with the formula route and we had the means to have her stay at home--something most parents cannot do.

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

#90

Post by CrHn3 »

LesZedCB wrote: post #2

i was expecting to find something about society-wide chronic stress, lo and behold > And chronic stress has been found to deplete the body of the energy it needs to make milk. lets just say our profit and growth driven society is not structured to nurture humans, neither grown nor newborn.

The line from that article is a poor interpretation of that study.

The study says, "Psychosocial stress may affect the composition of breast milk via several pathways."

If I'm reading it correctly, a single sample was taken from 146 women. Breastmilk composition tends to be higher in fats and carbohydrates in the first few weeks of life and varies by time of day[1]. It's highly variable (even within a single feeding) in composition, depending on many factors, like if an infant is sick and their age.

Breastfeeding duration seemed like it may be negatively associated with cortisol in school age children in one study[2]. If that's the case, the best thing a mother in a stressful environment can do is breastfeed.

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33017792/ 2. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355137223_Breastfee...

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