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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

#91

Post by klyrs »

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.

Technically, the rule is against accusing an individual of not reading the article. It's widely known that most of us smash reply before reading the third word of the headline -- that's why the site automatically strips words like "why" and "how" from titles; it really improves the chances that comments will be at least topical.

Note, snark like the above is explicitly forbidden.

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

#92

Post by Eumenes »

Fauntleroy wrote: post #31
NoRagrets wrote: post #21

[flagged]

I wish I lived in your fantasy land where a single income household could still work.

Works for me. Remote work + low cost of living area + cooking meals at home + 10+ year old vehicles + only 1-2 vacations per year.

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

#93

Post by red-iron-pine »

newsclues wrote: post #18

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

Lots of folks. Endocrine disruption is a common discussion here and other places. It's debatable how much is related to plastics, hormones in the water, air pollution, or other factors.

To paraphrase one bankrupt demagogue: "it's makin the frogs gay"

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

#94

Post by causi »

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 that which cause no end of problems.

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

#95

Post by zpeti »

falcolas wrote: post #60
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…

Forget the isolation; western civilization all but requires two income earners to have a "median" life. There's remarkably little time or money to raise a child. Median individual income: $40,000, poverty level for "replacement" families (two adults, two children): $30,000.

Children living with both biological parents

Affluent families in 1960: 95% Working class families in 1960: 95%

Affluent families in 2005: 85% Working class families in 2005: 30%

https://twitter.com/robkhenderson/status/1178310819332984832

I don't know if these stats are due to income levels needed for children, I suspect that's only a small part of the issue. But every statistic out there points to the fact that 1 parent children do far worse than 2 parent children. It's like a terrible self perpetuating cycle has taken off in many ways.

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

#97

Post by snapcaster »

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.

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)

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

#98

Post by nerdponx »

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.

Indeed, I'd sooner ask about chorine/chloramine or any number of dissolved contaminants from pipes and whatever environmental stuff doesn't get filtered out in the water supply. We probably shouldn't be adding fluoride to our water either (questionable medical benefit at best), but as far as things go that my body really doesn't want in it, fluoride is probably not the worst thing in my tap water: https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=MA3035000

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

#99

Post by mensetmanusman »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #7
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.

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…

Physical activity reduces stress and we have never been less active and more obese as a society.

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

#100

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

tbonesteaks wrote: post #78
ye-olde-sysrq wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

worth noting that 2 children is below replacement rate, so someone needs to be having 3 kids too. which is becoming increasingly uncommon especially because of how many things change between 2 and 3 kids. (Notably: 2 carseats fit in ~any vehicle. 3 fit in very few vehicles unless you rush the oldest into a booster seat.)

just want to say that we have had four kids over 6 years in one of the most expensive states in the us, and went from $30k to over $100k in that time frame. It is a huge jump in salary and feel very blessed regardless of the hard work, but just know most of the time was spent below the top end. If you are emotionally stable enough to have a good marriage (and therefore have kids), go for it! You will afford it, and l…

Did you have a minivan to start with? Lots of support from family? Just wondering how you made it work.
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