Hi Kathy

Lovely to see you on Lactnet again! I'm also catching up after a few months
of very sporadic reading.  I was interested in your post that assumed that
in less-civilized breastfeeding cultures, breastfeeding was always easy:-

"However, if one looks at women who have always been surrounded by other
women who have breastfed and the younger ones have learned about
breastfeeding fromthe time they were young children and had eyes to see and
a desire to imitate (as all children are wont to do), then, the need to
learn on a trike first in order to go tothe bike also does not apply. In
such cultures/societies, like most babies, I would bet that most women have
little difficulty learning what to do. (This does not mean that some women
might not do well--as in physiological incapacity to make sufficient
milk--but that is a different matter entirely.)"

What you say is mostly spot on.  What I see here is that girls learn how to
breastfeed from their sisters, mothers, aunts and it's just normal and
natural. However, one of the "expectations" I had as a white person living
in an African country was that to African mothers breastfeeding is *always*
as easy as falling off a log.  However, since becoming an LC I've had this
myth exploded. What I see instead is that African women may have *exactly*
the same difficulties in learning to breastfeed, and in overcoming early
breastfeeding hiccups, as the white women I work with.  Occasionally I have
been called to the large government referral hospital by a paediatrician who
says, in incredulous tones, "I don't think this mother knows how to
breastfeed!"  And sure enough, it's true.  No matter how many times I do
this, it always feels strange that I, a white woman, should be teaching a
black woman how to breastfeed!  Kinda like taking coals to Newcastle.  But
it happens.  However, I do see one very big difference in my black and white
clients, and bearing in mind that this is a very sweeping generalization -
while the white moms may see the solution to the feeding difficulty as
giving a bottle of formula, mostly the black mothers are very, very
persistent and patient about teaching their babies how to breastfeed,
because *not* to breastfeed is unthinkable!

Pamela Morrison IBCLC, Zimbabwe
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