>I just want to mention, after reading some of the postings on this topic, that
>the idea of having a place to put the baby where you don't have to pick her up
>and touch her all the time is *not* new.  Look at all the centuries' old
>woodcuts, etc. of cottages with baby cradles.  You could rock those with your
>foot while you were spinning with a non-treadle spinning wheel, or doing other
>domestic chores.
>
Magda, you are absolutely correct in pointing out that cradles and carriers
and for all we know, prototype baby buckets  were 'invented' out of
'necessity'  hundreds, probably 1000s of years ago.

But in terms of evolutionary history, they are, all of them, brand new! For
probably 99.99 per cent of our time on earth as humans, mothers and babies
had little alternative to stay close to each other, body to body, skin to
skin...once humans (in some parts of the world) started to become
'organised', a blink of an eye ago, it became possible and sometimes
necessary (for economic reasons) to separate.

Very soon (again in evolutoinary terms), it became seen as desirable.
Mothers and babies being close, physically, has been variously seen/is
variously seen as unhealthy, physically impossible, psychologically
damaging, economically disastrous, distasteful, exhausting and fatiguing
for the mother etc etc

We can't go back to being hunter-gatherers,  but we can retain and return
to the closeness of breastfeeding.....as I'm sure we all hope and believe.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK

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