Teresa Pitman reminisces about the crazy practices she was subjected
to in 1977.  Good thing your baby didn't know your nipples were
unsuitable, eh?
I was lucky in 1981 when my first child was born in Seattle - no
restrictions on frequency or duration of breastfeeding, nor on contact
between us except for 30 minutes in the early evening when visitors
were let in and the babies were behind glass, to be seen but not
touched.  I left after two days because I didn't need to stay any
longer and *I* was desperate for some real food myself.
Imagine my chagrin on moving to Norway, becoming a midwife, and
starting work in 1989 where staff were dutifully cautioning mothers
not to feed more than 2 minutes on a side on day one, 4 minutes on day
2, etc. We even had this information in pamphlets, translated into all
the languages we could imagine needing, which fortunately wasn't many
in 1989.  I'd all but forgotten this ridiculous stuff, but it strikes
me now that the percentages of birth weight we are expected to put
into babies who are deemed incapable of self-regulation from birth are
somehow related - two percent of birth weight on day 1, four percent
on day 2, six percent on day 3, and so on.  We do stop at 16 percent
here (not 'about 15 percent', noooo - 16, exactly) on day 8. What was
the upper limit for duration of a feed according to this theory,
Teresa?  I will be astounded if it wasn't about 15 minutes.  In fact,
I still regularly hear from mothers who have been advised not to 'let'
baby stay on one breast more than 20 minutes. A lot of the time they
have also been cautioned not to let the baby stop feeding before at
least 20 minutes. Doesn't leave much leeway for variation :-)

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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