I don't have anything scientific to say, but have just been thinking about this topic.  I feel badly for the mother of this baby.  No mother likes to have her mothering abilities called into question in such a manner, even if she is pretty well convinced that her child is doing well.  

The first time I saw my oldest nephew, he was 11 months old and refusing to take anything but breast milk.  His mother was being harassed about this from many, including her bottle feeding SIL, who said she felt sorry for the baby and thought he was malnourished.  This baby was nearly 30 pounds, mostly muscle, not just walking, but running, had about a 12 word, very clear vocabulary, and was just generally a very healthy, intelligent, child, whom people always assumed to be several months older than he actually was.  My MIL had a baby who boycotted everything but the breast for 15 months, which was also a topic of concern for many people.  This baby was also very large and robust and, although she was the chubbiest baby of my MIL's six kids, she is the only one who has not had any weight problem whatever as an adult.

It seems to me that there are many people who don't actually LOOK at a child!  The time Julia got RSV, at 13 months old, was another example.  Because of the effects of her diaphragmatic hernia, pneumonia was more dangerous for her than for other babies that age, so she was hospitalized.  She had just started nursing a short time before.  She had been taking other foods, but wanted nothing to do with them, or bottles, while she was sick.  She just wanted to nurse.  One of the doctors decided she was severely malnourished, and ordered parenteral nutrition and whole blood.  Soon after, a dietician showed up in her hospital room, in somewhat of a panic.  The impression the doctor's request had given her was that Julia was in danger of starvation.   She looked very surprised, and told me that Julia looked much better than she expected.  The information she had been given was that Julia was 31 inches tall and weighed 13 pounds.  Actually, Julia was 26 inches tall, and 17 pounds, which was small for her age, but well-proportioned, and nearly twice the size she had been when I adopted her at six months old.  I can't imagine how anyone could have actually seen her with his own eyes and thought she was that emaciated!  Incidentally, although we had been told to expect her to be hospitalized for at least ten days, Julia spent most of her time in the hospital nursing, and was home after only two and half days.

My grandmother told me that my mother, who was born in 1929, got nothing but breast milk for the first year, and that this was what she believed that most people did at that time.  I suspect that the practice was becoming much less common in urban areas by that time, but was still the norm in rural areas.  If anyone finds any documentation of the history of such customs, please share them!

Darillyn

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