This is a very interesting thread.  I'm enjoying thinking back to the
changes (and lack of changes) over the decades.

My mother breastfed 3 children in the 50's for 9months to a year.
She began supplementing with ABM at 2 weeks and started solids at 2
months.  She read Grantly Dick-Read and chose an "old-fashioned"
doctor who would let my dad be in the delivery room.  Mom still felt
that she need a whiff of gas to push the baby out and is still
grieved that she was given too much with the birth of my younger
brother which knocked her out.  I grew up with
the assumption that birth and breastfeeding were natural, but we
might need "just a little" help.

When I was pregnant, my husband and I were living in Guatemala.  All
my childbearing friends attended La Leche League, so I started going
in my first trimester.  Because we had to boil our water and because
we did a lot of traveling in Central America by plane and car, I knew
I should breastfeed for safety reasons.  I was so grateful to be
breastfeeding during the many rural trips when the electricity went
off, the delayed plane flights, the disease outbreaks...

My pediatrician, U.S. trained, in 1978, encouraged my feeding choice.
 He told me at 6months that there were a lot of GI illnesses going
around but not to worry, he hadn't seen a case yet in a breastfed
baby.  At 9 months he told me there was a lot of respiratory illness
going around, but not to worry, he hadn't seen a case yet in a
breastfed baby.

Rachel didn't have a serious fever or vomiting and diarrhea until she
was 18 months old.  Looking at common health care of infants today,
I'm amazed that she didn't needed antibiotics until she was 2 years
old.

So 18 years ago, La Leche League told us not to wean for
jaundice, not to wean for diarrhea, not to wean for mastitis ...
Jeanne B. Fisher, MSN, RN, IBCLC
Breastfeeding Promotion Nurse
Texas Department of Health
(512)406-0744
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