Kathy's description of bringing her nursing babies with her and nursing them
frequently and having them fall asleep when they were tired, wherever they
were, brought back so many lovely memories for me!
I think that whenever we "fiddle with" some part of human life/behaviour we
often find unexpected side effects, and that it's best to do so cautiously.
If human babies "expect" to nurse very frequently, for short periods of
time - as the evidence of anthropology suggests - then there may be good
reasons for this. It does, for example, seem to be more effective in
decreasing the mother's fertility. I wonder (and this is just speculation)
if there are other benefits, too - perhaps more stimulation of the brain in
the process of coming to the breast repeatedly; perhaps benefits in terms of
digestion, appetite regulation, reducing later obesity, etc. Perhaps it
simply reduces stress in the baby, who never has to feel really hungry. And
we know that nursing means more to the baby than just getting food, and
perhaps he needs to get that comfort, touch, familiar heartbeat, etc. more
often than every few hours. I also would wonder if scheduled babies are more
likely to get reflux than those who are allowed to feed several times an
hour.
These are just guesses, of course, but I think that in all probability our
babies get many things from these frequent short nursings that we are not
even aware of. And I agree with Jan that when this seems to lead to
"overfeeding" and an unhappy baby, offering one breast repeatedly seems to
help. In fact, I find that mothers who are caring for their babies this way
often figure it out on their own - they soon know by the baby's behaviour if
he wants the "fuller" breast or the "emptier" breast.
Teresa Pitman
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