Moms are so germy...perhaps the baby would be better off spending its
nights and days with a terry-wrapped wire frame model of a mother.  It
worked for the rhesus monkeys...  so said (tongue firmly in cheek) Arly Helm.

Actually, it worked--but only if what you want is NEUROTIC monkeys!  Those
who were females never knew how to respond appropriately to males when they
got to breeding age, nor were they very good mothers, etiher.  Do you
suppose that helps explain some of the really awful mothering we all see
from time to time? (in human mothers, that is)

Also, the male monkeys raised with the wire mothers were unusually
aggressive, if I recall the follow-up data correctly.  That, too, seems to
have a human corollary, or am I reaching?




Def. of LC service: "We are all faced with a series of great opportunities
brilliantly disguised as impossible situations."
Kathleen G. Auerbach,PhD, IBCLC (Homewood, IL)- [log in to unmask]
WEB PAGE: http://www.mcs.com/~auerbach/lactation.html