Sorry, that should be R. V. Short.  He wrote two articles on
breastfeeding and child spacing, one that was published in Nature in
1988, and another that was published in Scientific American in 1984.
The quote comes from one of them, but I can't remember which.

The Nature article says that he is in the department of anatomy and
physiology at the University in Melbourne, Australia.

Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC