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Date: | Thu, 15 Feb 1996 16:31:47 -0500 |
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Dear Paul and Anabel:
I did not read the Scientific American article you described. However, a
couple of years ago Society for Research on Child Development published a
monograph on the effects of early supplemental feeding. It sounds as though
it was from the same study. I too was really aggravated that there was no
mention of breastfeeding as a possible feeding method, or no reference made
to increases in cognitive ability among breastfed babies/children.
My field, developmental psychology, has been very slow to acknowledge
breastfeeding. I attended an infant mental health conference last summer.
The keynote speaker talked about mother-infant interaction, maternal
responsivity and sensitivity, etc... when he talked about observing
mother-infant "feeds" I suspected that he was not talking about
breastfeeding. I later confirmed this by asking during the break (I asked
nicely, really!). He told me that he had NEVER studied a breastfeeding
mother.
My colleague Muriel Sugarman likes to bring a book along when she gives
talks. It's on the "Psychobiology of attachment" and there is not a single
reference to breastfeeding.
Kathy Kendall-Tackett
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