Breastfeeding, Biology and Behaviourists

I recently read this post by Janet Lansbury in which she outlined a debate, between Annie from PhD in Parenting and herself, that was about breastfeeding as comfort for infants. Janet agrues that breastfeeding an upset infant for comfort is akin to just filling their mouth to shut them up; that it is creating unhealthy assosications between food, comfort, and emotions; and that it can be better to just hold the infant while they cry (she also believes that children's thumbs are a preferable, and more natural comfort source).
Annie counters that breastfeeding is not always about eating; is the naturally intended source of comfort for infants; and also that research suggests it encourages healthier eating and greater independence later on for children.
I could see the value that both women brought to the debate, although I tended to agree with Annie more often because of my own experiences with my WildChild.
Then I forgot about it.

Until...This semester I started a class called 'Positive Behaviour Support' in which my tutor, Margie, said that she also does some work managing infant behaviours, especially around weaning (following a question asked by my classmate about her two year old daughter's trantrums - caused by weaning from the dummy).
Margie holds the view that behaviour, no matter who or how old you are, is to get or avoid something, and that the something is either activity, sensory stimulation, or social attention. She also believes that infants and young children are simply trying to get sensory stimulation when they turn to their mother's breast or the dummy for comfort, and that it is simply a matter of replacing the stimulation when weaning. She also believes that relieving a baby's cries is silencing their emotions.

Both Janet Lansbury and Margie (and my Positive Behaviour Support textbook) are right on board with what is called "Behaviourism", made famous by men such as Skinner, Pavlov and Bandura. They believe that the best way to alter behaviour is to manipulate the preceding events (antecedents) and the consequences. I absolutely see the usefullness of this, and the neccessity of it, in the classroom environment especially.
My problem is this. We are talking about infants, and very young children; and we are talking about breastfeeding and suckling.

I don't believe that breastfeeding (and breastfeeding replacements like dummies and bottles) are just about food, just about comfort, or just a behaviour to be manipulated. I think it's also about human biology.

Katherine Dettwyler, PhD, has written an oft-cited paper called A Natural Age of Weaning (found here), in which she compares humans, cross-culturally and against other primates, and infers that the natural age of weaning for humans to be somewhere between 2 and 7 years of age. This PDF by Linda Palmer also examines historical weaning inferences and data from archeological digs, which support this. To me, this indicates that our cultural ideas about weaning (in Australia usually between 1 and 2, in some countries even earlier) are totally at odds with what our biology demands.
Treating breastfeeding, weaning and substitutes just like behaviour to be managed is oversimplifying the reasons children need these things.

Something that has consistently stopped me from weaning WildChild is the belief that if I wean her too early she will be missing part of her natural biology. There are stem cells in it after all. I also think it's possible that humans are designed to suck for comfort when young, so if the breast is denied they will suck their thumb or a dummy. It's no coincidence that many children need these substitutes up to age 3 and 4, it's in their design. Which is why I don't believe it is no-big-deal to mess with the breastfeeding (or dummy etc) relationship. It is something to be considered very carefully.

I believe WildChild deserves a say in when we end breastfeeding, as i would if she used a dummy or her thumb for comfort. I won't give her total control, but I wont be a dictator either.

What do you think? Is breastfeeding etc, for 'just' comfort, simply like any other behaviour? What's your opinion on weaning from comfort objects, should it be child-led, mother-led, or negotiated?


Disclaimer: I'm sharing my personal thoughts about my own situation, please don't be upset if you have weaned or never breastfed your children, I am not judging in any way. I understand the many many obstacles women face both physically and culturally. If you love your child you are a good parent.

Why I don't drink milk.

Cow's milk that is.
But it applies to any dairy product, or any other animal's milk and milk product.

Three reasons.

• I'm human.
• I'm too old.
• I feel bad for baby cows.

 (get ready for the dot-points, they don't end here)


Let me ellaborate a little, and we'll start by asking "What is milk?"

Wikipedia says:

"Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many diseases in the baby. "

Dictionary.com says:

noun

1. an opaque white or bluish-white liquid secreted by the mammary glands of female mammals, serving for the nourishment of their young.

2. this liquid as secreted by cows, goats, or certain other animals and used by humans for food or as a source of butter, cheeses, yogurt, etc.

3. any liquid resembling this, as the liquid within a coconut, the juice or sap of certain plants, or various pharmaceutical preparations.

I say:

• Milk is what mother mammals make for their babies to eat.
• It is designed to give the absolute best (read: normal) start for a young mammal.
• It is species specific. I.E. - A gorilla mother will make milk specifically designed to feed gorilla babies, a mother dog will make milk specifically designed to feed puppies, a human mother will make milk specifically designed to feed human babies ...AANNNNDDD a cow mother will make milk specifically designed to feed CALVES.

The conclusions I have drawn include:

• Breastfeeding is best (normal) nutrition for my daughter, and any future children. A breastmilk substitute comes with risks that need to be managed (info and resources here).
• There is no way that a mummy cow's milk is important/essential/necessary to my health or that of my daughter. Cow's milk is so at odds with human digestion that it causes all manner of upsets for many people. Even (the much healthier) raw, organic, grass-fed cow's milk is just not supposed to be eaten by humans.
• For a cow to lactate, she must have given birth to a calf, right? If humans are taking all of this milk from these cows, where are their babies? What are they eating? 
• OR the cows have lactation artifically induced, with hormones which pass into the milk and end up on your cereal and in your coffee. Yum.

Which leads me back to the afore-mentioned reasons that milk and dairy do not appear in my diet:

• I'm human - Humans only need human milk. They need cow's milk as much as they need giraffe's milk. Or whale milk. Or cat or dog or chimpanzee milk. It just doesn't make any logical sense.
• I'm too old - Yes human milk for humans and I'm all about natural weaning, but 24 is definitely too old.
• I feel bad for baby cows - Are they ALL slaughtered, JUST so that we can steal their food? I'm an omnivore, I believe in the circle of life (lol), and that meat is an essential part of a human diet, but to kill a baby to steal it's food just seems a little over-the-top evil to me. And if they grow up to be beef cattle, wouldn't they be healthier (and therefore more nutritious eating), if they get mother's milk as calves?

(I should add that soy milk is NOT a healthy alternative.) 

Milk (any dairy) is not necessary, and even if it can be nutritious, it disagrees with my morals.

...so there you have it folks, that's why I don't drink milk. 

What are your thoughts on dairy?

Natural Parenting - Back to Basics in Infant Care

I came across this wonderful paper the other day. It investigates the (in my opinion) paleo style of parenting, and talks about the sort of parenting practices that babies have evolved to expect. Here's the abstract...

"Abstract: This review examines an age-old approach to parenting recently rediscovered in Western industrialized societies and known by names such as natural parenting, attachment parenting, and instinctive parenting. Its leading principle is utmost sensitivity to the child’s innate emotional and physical needs, resulting in extended breastfeeding on demand, extensive infant carrying on the caregiver’s body, and cosleeping of infant and parents. The described practices prevailed during the evolutionary history of the human species and reflect the natural, innate rearing style of the human species to which the human infant has biologically adapted over the course of evolution. An overview of research from diverse areas regarding psychological as well as physiological aspects of early care provides evidence for the beneficial effects of natural parenting. Cross-cultural and historical data is cited to reveal the widespread use of the investigated parenting style. It is concluded that the described approach to parenting provides the human infant with an ideal environment for optimal growth both psychologically and physiologically. It is yet to be determined how much departure from this prototype of optimal human parenting is possible without compromising infant and parental wellbeing. The review also invites a critical reevaluation of current Western childrearing practices."

What are your thoughts on this? Agree, disagree?

Breastmilk Cholesterol!

Everybody knows cholesterol is bad, BAD, BAD, don't they? 

How do we know?

How did I know? well, the TV told me. There is ad after ad of product designed to "lower cholesterol", "improve heart health". (Ususally a product made of grain, soy or canola......hmmmm wait a sec)

We've all heard of LDL ("bad" fat) and HDL ("good" fat) haven't we?

So anyway, I came across this article yesterday (I highly recommend you read) which I found hugely interesting. It basically says that Newborn babies are born deficient in cholesterol and they recieve A LOT from breastmilk in the first 6 months of life.

Here's the deal:

• Newborn (cordblood) cholesterol: 70.3 mg/dl

• Exclusively breastfed infant at 6 months: 194 mg/dl
• Partially breastfed infant at 6 months: 162 mg/dl
• Non-breastfed infant at 6 months: 140 mg/dl

This would put all of the babies, were they adults, in the "at risk" category for doctors looking at heart health, and most of all the breastfed infants.

This, when you think about it, is very very strange.

In exclusively breastfed infants, 6 months is around the time that that the gut closes and immune function matures. If the baby is not exclusively breastfed for at least 6 months, the immune system can take much longer before it functions properly. Low LDL cholesterol levels after birth means reduced ability to make antibodies. HDL is also important for immunity. Non-breastfed infants, recieve less cholesterol (among many other things), and are therefore at an elevated risk of suffering from allergy, obesity, heart disease, lower cognitive outcomes, infection, the list goes on. Study after study shows that breastmilk protects the health of children, and the longer they recieve it the more protected they are. 

So why would something that is considered soo nasty and threatening later in life, be so very good for us when we are the most vulnerable and new?

Something to ponder...

Now, I am not recommending that you go out and stuff yourself full of animal fats right now without looking back. I know that the body is a very complex creation and many factors influence it's proper functioning. There are certain things that many people eat a lot of, like lectins found in grains, that oxidise LDLs and actually make them harmful to you.

What I am saying is, my personal ideas about cholesterol have changed a lot since learning about the paleo way of eating and living. In fact I'm no longer scared of fats, animal or otherwise, at all. I've learnt so much about the benefits of fat (eg. the brain is made almost entirely of fat and requires a fair amount of the stuff to grow, or even function correctly). And the fact that breastmilk (read: perfect food) is high in cholesterol has completely convinced me that it need not be a bad thing.

If you would like to learn a little more try visiting Robb Wolf, he is a biochemist-come-health-expert who says "Reducing inflammation through a clean, Paleo diet, abstaining from smoking and excessive exercise, minimizing alcohol consumption, and engaging in stress-lowering habits.  When these variables are in order, we do not need to be so caught up with (worrying about) saturated fats."

Note: These are just my opinions and musings on information from more knowledgable others that I have (tried to) understand. It is entirely possible that I may have misinterpreted some of the facts, and if I am totally incorrect please feel free to help me out.

What's your opinion? Are you scared of fats, or embracing them?

Welcome! So what's this all about?

Hi, nice to meet you, I'm Jayne :)
I was born in the Northern Territory in Australia and currently live in the Gold Coast, but that is probably changing soon.

This is Lionel, Elsie and I at the Lincoln Memorial in June

This is my opinions, ideas and experiences.
I try to live in a more instinctual, natural, healthy way which involves eating the way I believe humans are designed to, being fit and strong, and being an 'attached parent' to my daughter Elsie.
What does that mean for us?
It means my family eat a paleolithic diet high in grass-fed meats, fats and vegies, with moderate amounts of fruit and nuts, and (almost) no grains or dairy.
We keep fit, strong and healthy with crossfit, incidental exercise and a fun outlook on movement and activity.
It means Elsie still recieves breastmilk from me  and will continue to until she is at least 2 years old unless she decides to wean earlier. She is 17 months old at the time I'm posting this. Human milk for a growing human child :) there is nothing healthier, and no food that could possibly be considered more 'paleo'.
We bed-share, and have done so since she was born. I went with my instincts, and I can tell you Elsie and I both were never sleep deprived, even with me starting studying full time the same week she was born. For the first year of my course, I also took her to class with me in a sling :)
I'm studying a Bachelor Degree in Early Childhood Education, and am highly passionate about children's issues. Elsie goes to a long day care service 3 days a week while I'm in classes. I don't consider this ideal, but it's the only option we have.
I'm also very interested in Australian Aboriginal perspectives, cultures and teaching pedagogies. After I graduate I hope to return to the Northern territory to teach in a remote community.

Right now, I live with my parents, and Lionel lives in the US (he is a US citizen, I won't go into specifics). I consider myself very lucky because I have the ultimate parenting resource (my mum) around all the time and so much help with Elsie; I also think it's great for her to have a multigenerational environment and multiple familial caregivers.

So that's me, and the future blog content convered, what about you? Have you heard of paleo? Do you practice attachment parenting? Do you have any experience with Indigenous education? Please tell me about yourself :)