Fleur, I've also been thinking about depressed mothers as this  
discussion has been going on. I agree that we didn't discuss  
depressed mothers in the first place. The study you mention seems  
intresting.
I was thinking about Margareta Berg Brodén, who has been working with  
mother and child dyads with lacking symbiosis (which in turn can be  
caused by mother's depression). I found a paper on pdf that shortly  
describes Brodens work similar to her book Mor och barn i  
Ingenmansland (translated to Danish but as far as I can see, not to  
English). The title means "Mother and child in no man's land".
http://eric.ed.gov:80/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/ 
detailmini.jsp? 
_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED275982&ERICExtSearch_SearchTy 
pe_0=no&accno=ED275982
(The paper seems to have been typed on a typrewriter and the quality  
could be better.)
  In the book there is a case study that isn't mentioned in the  
paper, where a breastfeeding mother spends a whole afternoon at  
Victoria gården, her baby at several times giving cues that it wanted  
to be fed, and the mother just doesn't come around to doing it.  The  
baby goes back to sleep for a while and so it goes on. The staff  
works in a subtle way with the mothers to make them see the baby's  
needs and respond to them, which is a tightrope act as these mothers  
have very low self-esteem.
Mother-child dyads are taken in for treatment because as child shows  
signs of not feeling well, it's the child that is the 'patient'  
primarliy. It is fascinating to read about.
The behaviour by the described mother(s), to postpone breastfeeding  
for different reasons, (like nappychanging or having coffee or  
whatever, not smoking though) have I seen too in a superficially  
"successful" breastfeeder that some time after realised she was  
depressed.
What I wanted with this example was to say that I think Mother  
Nature's capability to repair is absolutley fascinating, but I you  
say that breastfed babies can't be neglected to a point where they  
are affected negatively, then I doubt. But, agan, skilled help and  
support can do a lot.
Phew.
Marit Olanders
editor of Amningsnytt, Sweden
brushing up her writing in English


11 aug 2008 kl. 20.43 skrev LACTNET automatic digest system:

> From:    Fleur Bickford <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: not liking breastfeeding
>
> This discussion brought to mind something that Kathleen Kendall- 
> Tackett
> presented at a seminar I attended last year. She presented info  
> about a
> study which showed that babies of depressed breastfeeding mothers  
> had the=
>
> same EEG patterns as those of non-depressed moms, and depressed
> breastfeeding moms touched, stroked and looked at their babies more  
> than
> depressed non-breastfeeding moms. (Jones et al., Biol  
> Psychology2004, 67:=
>
> 103-124). Kathleen stated that breastfeeding protects babies  
> against the
> negative effects of maternal depression, and she pointed out that  
> depress=
> ed
> moms that are breastfeeding aren't able to completely disengage  
> from the
> baby the way she would be able to if bottle feeding. I'm sure that the
> hormones released while nursing play a part as well.=20
>
> I realize that we are discussing mothers who don't like  
> breastfeeding rat=
> her
> than mothers who are depressed (although for some mothers the two  
> probabl=
> y
> go together), but perhaps the protective effects of breastfeeding  
> are the=
>  same.=20
>
> Fleur Bickford BSc., RN, LLL
> Ontario, Canada
>

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