Someone writes: "This idea that breast fed babies "need" to feed much more frequently comes up often and is one that I take issue with for many reasons. Undoubtedly some breastfed babes "prefer" more frequent fds., some less frequent and some seem to "require" more frequent and some less." Feeding frequency in mammals is directly correlated with composition of the milk. The composition of human milk suggests that humans are a "carry" species (rather than nest/cache) and that "continuous" access to the breast is the physiological norm. Comparisons with our closest relatives, the Great Apes, supports very frequent feeding as the biological norm. Cross-cultural research by anthropologists around the world shows many many cultures where babies are allowed to breastfeed as often as they like, and they usually like to breastfeed several times an hour, for short duration each time. Breastfeeding several times an hour for a few minutes each time takes no more time than sitting down every 3-4 hours for a 30 minute breastfeeding session. While SOME babies can eventually be moved onto a schedule of the mother's convenience without any harm, other babies cannot. In those cases, infrequent feeding will mean that the mother's breasts are not stimulated often enough to make sufficient milk, or sufficiently high fat content. As well, in those case, infrequent feeding will mean a baby who doesn't grow properly and is very unhappy. You can push human biology around a lot with cultural beliefs/practices, but there are limits, and there are costs. If people knew that babies are designed to be fed several times an hour for a few minutes each time, then it wouldn't come as a surprise and it wouldn't seem so overwhelming. If you spend any amount of time at all around mothers who feed babies this often, you know that the mother has much MORE flexibility and time to get her work done that a mother who must budget a 20-30 + minute breastfeeding session every couple of hours. When babies are fed this often, the mother can easily take the baby off the breast when she needs to do something without the baby fussing too much -- because the baby knows it'll be fed again in just a few minutes. The baby never gets too hungry this way either. It approximates the continuous nutrient delivery system of the umbilical cord. In cultures where children are allowed to breastfeed at will, nursing frequency does not necessarily decrease with age -- so that in some cultures, you have 3 year olds still coming over for a quick nip several times an hour. And everyone knows this is normal, and no one thinks anything of it. Kathy Dettwyler _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html