I asked my colleague, who has Parkinson's, if he's ever heard of a newborn
having Parkinson's, and he said "no." He said sometimes people as young as
20 get it, but he had never heard of it in children or infants. He said
there is form of hereditary tremor which presents like Parkinson's in young
infants, but is something different. The only reason he could think of to
contraindicate bf was that the baby might bite the mother (he was joking).
If it were some rare form of infantile Parkinson's, one would think that
human milk would be the best thing, in terms of neuronal development in the
CNS. Why should modified cows' milk be OK and human milk not? Something is
missing from this picture.
Re kittens and puppies -- around here the standard weaning age is 6 weeks
(though not at my house!). We've had two litters of puppies where the mom
was a Golden Retriever and the father a Great Pyrenees (huge polar bear like
dog) and the puppies at six weeks were half as big as the mother. By the
time we gave the last one away at 10 weeks, he was having to duck his head
to get down to the nipples when mom was standing up! Standard weaning age
for horses is 6 months (according to my vet), but some people do it as early
as 3 months. I was very intrigued by the comment about hamsters living
longer if allowed to nurse longer, and wonder if that is true for dogs,
cats, horses, etc. We plan to let our two fillies stay with their moms and
nurse as long as their moms will stand still for it!
All of my pet cats over the years, whom I assume were weaned at the standard
of six weeks, loved to knead and purr and sometimes even suck on my clothes
when they were sitting in my lap. Taken away from mom too soon, maybe?
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Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D. email: [log in to unmask]
Anthropology Department phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX 77843-4352
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