Morgan - thanks for quoting me!  I'm behind on LACTNET and should
have jumped in sooner!!

I'd just like to add one or two other stories of my experience
learning about breastfeeding beliefs amongst the Shona people in Zimbabwe.

Yes, it is believed that the milk turns poisonous if the baby is left
overnight.  Mothers might rarely leave babies if they are going
somewhere unsuitable, like a funeral.  The nurses at the City Health
Department in Harare were very concerned to combat this reason for
early weaning.  So they started teaching the mothers that in order to
get rid of the "bad" milk left in the breasts, they should express
the milk in one breast on to the ground in the direction of the
rising sun (East) and the milk in the other breast to the setting sun
(West) and that would "clear" the stale milk.  They stressed that
expressing only a little milk would suffice, and then it was
perfectly safe to put the baby back to the breast.  Apparently this worked :-)

The other belief about someone being able to bewitch expressed milk
was a problem, particularly for working mothers.  However, it turned
out that it was a bit selective.  My European clients never seemed to
have a problem leaving EBM for their babies, and my cook, who was a
constant source of info, told me that EBM being bewitched was only a
problem for African mothers!  Imagine!

Superimposed pregnancy was a life-threatening problem for an existing
nursling.  Once again, the milk was believed to be instantly
poisonous, and mothers would often try and make their toddlers vomit
up the last milk ingested once they found out they were pregnant
again.  For this reason and unknown to me until it was too late, my
cook's first child was weaned on the turn at 18 months.  She went on
to suffer from kwashiokor because his wife absolutely refused to
allow her to breastfeed ever again and nothing I could say or do
would persuade her.  It was truly dreadful, requiring weeks of
special feeding, and she had to learn to walk all over again, poor
little mite.  In addition, I felt so bad that this could have
happened in my own back garden.  I threatened to evict his wife if
she ever did it again with subsequent babies, which may have seemed
harsh, but seemed the only way to get the message across.  But two
wives and two babies later, it didn't!

Yes, Jean confirms another belief, that if a baby burped while
breastfeeding, it would give the mother mastitis.  Consequently
sitting the baby up to burp/wind every so often was seen as really important.

Whether the breasts belonged to the baby or the husband, this was
generally NOT a problem - breasts were seen as functional and it was
not only accepted but approved that mothers should breastfeed their
babies anywhere - no-one wanted to listen to a crying baby, and
mothers who delayed feeding would receive looks and tsk tsk noises
from everyone.  I did hear though - once again from the City Health
Dept nursing sisters - of one sub-tribe in the East of the country
where mothers kept one breast for the baby and the other for the
husband.  Everyone thought this was hilarious and a bit childish of
the husband!

It was believed that salted peanuts made milk, so new mothers were
urged to eat them.  For some reason, the European mothers believed
that yes, Coke makes milk, so new fathers used to stagger into the
maternity unit at visiting times weighed down by family-sized bottles
and I'd have to give the caffeine/methylxanthines talk to them all.

Amazing how different all these cultural beliefs are, and how
persistent.  I wish someone would write a book exposing them all!

Pamela Morrison IBCLC
Rustington, England
---------------------------------------------------------------
Date:    Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:43:38 +0100
From:    Morgan Gallagher <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: looking for cultural differences in breastfeeding stories

We had problems with a Cameroon mother who was separated from her baby
by Social Services whilst she was in Yarl's Wood.  She refused to
express, and when the baby was returned, was convinced her milk was
bad.  Baby was suffering terrible nipple confusion, and had oral trauma,
but the mother was sure it was that the absence had turned her milk to
poison, and that was why the baby had problems back on the breast.

Pamela Morrison explained to me that many women in some African
countries, believe that milk goes bad in the breast if a baby misses a
feed, so the milk is then 'poisoned'.  There is also a problem that
expressed milk can be inhabited by demons, so she explained that in the
hospital she worked in in Harare, the nurses taught the Mums to bless
the milk in the storage container, and this kept it safe from being
possessed.  Also, many cultures believe that pregnancy turns the milk to
poison too, and will kill the child, so weaning is instant on
discovering you are pregnant.  Pamela may pick up this thread herself.

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