I just finished a very interesting little book about Down syndrome.  It's
called "Down is up for Aaron Eagle" by Vicki Noble, 1993.  The author is a
"New Age Healer" and the creator of the Motherpeace Tarot Cards (?).  She
writes some interesting things about breastfeeding.  She had had two
daughers many years before, and breastfeeding was disallowed after the first
birth because her daughter spit up some blood after breastfeeding.  "And
when Robyn spit up blood with her milk in the nursery, the doctor came in
and gave me a shot to dry up my breasts.  He said I had "abnormal" cells in
my breast milk, and although he had no idea what that might mean (they
didn't normally check women's milk so had no comparison), he felt I should
not nurse.  I was 19 years old, and I didn't know I had any say in the
matter."  Two years later she had another daughter, and of this one she
writes: "When my daughter Brooke was born, I worked out privately, in a
rather convoluted internal dialogue, the idea that is I tried nursing her
and failed, it would feel terrible all over again; and if I tried and
succeeded, my breastfeeding the second child might irreprarably damage the
self-esteem of the first one, who had been denied such a boon.  At least
this way my children would be equal."  Fifteen years later she has a little
boy with Down syndrome, and is determined to breastfeed him, but he is being
sleepy and hypotonic and things are not going well.  She writes:

"One of those first nights, as I sat in bed with Aaron trying to nurse, with
his daddy sleeping next to us, I felt frustrated at the ongoing difficulty
we were having.  He would suck for a few minutes, then lose the nipple and
start to whimper.  We did this over and over, until I felt I simply wouldn't
be able to get it right.  At the moment of hopelessness and despair, I
suddenly thought about La Leche League and all the breastfeeding mothers all
over the world.  Somehwere out there, sitting up alone in the dark in the
middle of the night, was at least one other mother like me was was
successfully feeding her child from her breasts.  I began to draw on her
energy, her knowledge, and consciously asked the La Leche League mothers of
the world to lend me support, to reach out to me in the night and give me
energy.  I knew somehow if those other women could do it, so could I.  My
feeding came easier, as I became calmer and more centered."

A little "out there", but I liked it.  ;)

Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Nutrition
Texas A&M University