After a couple weeks of stopwatch and log, it occurred to me (with my
first) that The Woman In The Grass Hut has access to neither, yet nurses
fine.  Gradually, The Woman In The Grass Hut became a sort of standard,
although I was still a slow learner.  I especially liked the image of all
her pregnant friends lined up at the U.S. Care station to get their rough
terry cloth towels for nipple preparation!  But really, why would she move
a happily nursing baby to the other side, for instance, unless she needed
that hand free or unless the baby indicated a desire for something new and
different?  Would she look for a two-room hut so her baby could learn
nighttime independence?  Where would she set him down that would be safe
from ants, beetles, and tigers?

More recently, I've taken on field mice and dogs and gorillas as my
standard.  Does a field mouse have any notion that it has milk?  How would
it ever see it?  Does it know that it's *feeding* its babies, or is it
just doing something that feels good and seems to shut them up
temporarily?  My guess is, she nurses purely from selfish (and
instinctive) motives, with no notion at all that those actions sustain the
life of her babies.

Maybe, once our little ones are stable eaters after all the
interventions of modern birth, we'd do better to forget utterly (udderly?)
about this being a food source, and nurse selfishly.  If it keeps that
little squirmy creature quiet, do it.  If it doesn't, do something else.  If
*we* need to nurse, do it, even if we haven't been asked.

Incidentally, my dictionary says that "Mama" comes from Latin baby talk
for "breast".  Not milk.  Breast.  As if, to a baby, it's those nice
flabby parts that are the most important part of it all, not what they
contain.

Was this a soap box?  I hope not.  Call it an evolving speculation.

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY