Nikki wrote, "We have everything to be proud of; it isn't a breastfed,
attachment parented child who murders."

We hope.  Clearing out some cupboards the other day (we've lived in the same
house for 17 years!) I came across some old Medicine Digests.  This was
quoted from the January 1987 issue:  "Saturday's Child.  Child homicide is
now so common in the USA that it has become a subject for medical research.
A disturbing survey from one New York county reports that in the past decade
7.1% of homicide victims have been children;  of a total of 681 childhood
deaths, 62 (9.1%) were homicides.  Young children and black children were at
twice the risk of others, and their homicide rate was higher than that in
Northern Ireland.  Most child homicides occurred in areas of poverty and
high unemployment, and most cildren were killed by their mothers, in the
bedroom, on a Saturday in spring or autumn.  Abel EL Childhood homicide in
Erie County, New York. Pediatrics 1986;77:709-13."

Sad, huh?  One immediately wonders how these mothers were themselves
mothered, if they were perhaps babies in the sixties, and what the
breastfeeding rates were at that time. Something in this small paragraph
really got to me.  I wondered what kind of lives they led, and what kind of
support they received, or didn't receive, to help them care for their babies
and young children, and of course whether they had ever breastfed the
children they subsequently murdered. If breastfeeding does nothing else but
improve the bond between mother and baby it would be worth promoting for
that reason alone, never mind all the others.

Pamela Morrison IBCLC, Zimbabwe

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