In a message dated 97-12-23 22:17:39 EST, K. Frantz writes:

<<  In
 practice, you must realize that there are situations that make "always" and
 "never" inappropriate.  Colic in an infant for one.  Some babies with colic
 suckle for comfort and can overfeed.  If the parents and I feel that this is
 happening, I might suggest a pacifier in the baby carrier to settle baby
 down who is in terrible pain.  >>


I need to know more from all of you bf physiology people before i buy into
this overfeeding stuff.  More info please!  It seems to me that if "colic" is
a normal human condition--and I am not sure that it is...it may be that mom is
taking in foods her baby can't handle (like cow's milk products); or that baby
is not being parented in a normative fashion (what babies expect, especially
nursing for short periods many many times per day and in-arms care to
facilitate this need and the need for physical closeness)--if it is a normal
human condition, then babies over millions of years have developed a mechanism
to deal with this distress (i.e. nursing more, their only real method of pain
relief, relaxation, etc. until they are taught otherwise by this preferred
method being withheld.)

And as to the baby carrier thing, I am not impressed that K. Frantz would even
mention it, thereby legitimizing the use thereof.  I am sick unto death of
seeing parents proudly carrying their offspring in these plastic holding pens.
When I imagine what a gatherer-hunter mother (our model of existence for
100.000 generations) would say about such devices, I can only imagine she
would find it anything but "useful" or "convenient" as a parent using one
might plead.

 Does it ever occur to K. Frantz that when she <<might suggest a pacifier in
the baby carrier to settle baby down who is in terrible pain.  >>
 that the very mechanism by which this baby is being "mothered" could in some
cases by the thing causing the baby "terrible pain"--or at least extreme
emotional discomfort, and since colic is a general term which describes
symptoms that may be caused by different factors, including some we don't know
about, as well as the pleas from a baby to be in-arms and nursing, I fail to
see how this info is legitimate enough to include in a general seminar--if,
indeed, that is where this info was given.

I for one would prefer that medical professionals left off with the
recommendations of mother substitutes including pacifiers and baby carriers or
the inclusion of such items in their advice unless it is a one-on-one
dr./patient conferral where all the risk factors of the usage of said factors
are discussed, not the least of which being that they, by their very nature,
inhibit the attachment necessary for reaching the potential of human
development.

This said, I know that my son had all the attachment and none of the
substitutes, and never cried at all until he began to want things not
available in my arms, while I have a friend who did the same and whose son
cried for the first year almost non-stop.  I am not naive enough to think that
normative parenting behaviors can be a silver bullet to solve any possible
problems with a new baby.  But, as I said, we do know that it helps in many,
many ways--so let's not make all the plastic mommying devices seem just fine
and dandy by discussing them casually to groups of new parents, who are often
desperate to follow any advice, if the speaker is considered an expert.

"Childhood decides."----Jean-Paul Sartre

Joy Berry-Parks
Attachment Parenting Group of Arkansas
LLLL, Little Rock
student of anthropology