Ok, this falls a little bit into the "word wonk" category, but here goes.
I'm pondering this, and am hitting a dead-end in all the resources on my
shelves.

Why do we use the term breastmilk?  And breastfeed?  Instead of breast-milk
or breast-feed?  Or breast-with-a-space-milk?

The International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes is rife with
the hyphenated spelling.  It was passed in 1981, and the lactivists working
for its passage were no slouches, so I have to believe that was the
prevalent nomenclature in the day.  Miriam Labbok's paper in 1990 sought
uniform definitions of breastfeeding in research.  No hyphen, and no
explanation why, just a well-reasoned plea to make defintion uniform to
advance comparative review of research.

So how did we all end up on the bandwagon of no hyphenation?

I know there are some who take exception to the terms breastmilk and
breastfeed -- in preference for human milk or human milk feeding -- since we
don't describe dogs, cows, gorillas or giraffes as teat-feeding or
nipple-feeding their young, and shouldn't then use the human body part to
describe the feeding of human babies.   But note even there:  why aren't the
proponents using "humanmilk" all one word?


Liz Brooks JD IBCLC FILCA
Wyndmoor, PA, USA

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