Nikki said:

>Alcohol has been part of human history for  eons.....................
>I am not aware of any cultural beliefs about alcohol  and breastfeeding

>except for the Irish notion that Guiness is good for nursing  mothers. 
>Are there any others in the world?

For many cultures, especially our own, the idea of alcohol consumption
has been a double standard.  Men were expected to routinely drink to
inebriation, but anything but very moderate consumption was frowned upon
for women.  As long ago as the Bible there are specific strictures about
women drinking while childbearing.  I've long felt that this is an early
observation that women who drink heavily have children who are damaged
(Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder).  There are a couple of web sites
below, but this is more a distillation of forty years of reading widely.

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/315/7101/197/a
http://www.arts.adelaide.edu.au/centrefooddrink/articles/deviantdrinking
.html

I'd add that Japan and China also have cultural biases against women
drinking, India has very little alcohol consumption by either sex, but
especially women.  Some other cultures have no such bias.

OTOH, the occasions when I've been asked about alcohol have usually been
consumption of either a single drink, for which I give advice similar to
that of others.  At this time of year however, the question is more
likely to be about going out on New Year's Eve and getting well and
truly drunk, while leaving the baby with a sitter.  My response to that
involves doing some pumping and dumping for a few hours.  The real
education is asking mom how she's going to feel about taking care of her
child the day after, if she has a hangover.  This generally results in a
light bulb moment, followed by the realization that maybe getting
totally blitzed is stupid, but a mild buzz is okay.

Working with the public is always interesting...

Judith

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