Edith White posted:

>I don't know if any Lactnetters know that the late Dr. Margaret Mead was
>one of the first people to say that babies of HIV+ mothers in Third
>World countries should be formula fed.  In 1988 she urged the infant
>formula manufacturers to participate in finding a solution to this
>tragedy.  When asked why the formula compnaies would be willing to do
>that, Dr. Mead replied: "Because it is the right thing to do."
>
>The reference for this statement is Dana Rapahel's chapter
>"Breastfeeding and HIV" in the 1994 book "Global AIDS Policy" editor is
>Douglas A. Feldman.  (Dana Rapahel is the PhD anthropologist who
>introduced the entire doula concept.)

I feel compelled to point out that anthropologist Dana Raphael --- who *was*
the first anthropologist to conduct Ph.D. dissertation research focusing on
breastfeeding and who *did* write many articles and books supporting
breastfeeding in the early days of her career --- lost her credibility among
most anthropologists with her 1985 book "Only Mothers Know," which concludes
that formula is fine for all Third World mothers (no discussion of HIV in
that book) and which book was funded in part by money from infant formula
manufacturers (it says so in the book).  See my 1988 review of this book in
Medical Anthropology Quarterly.  I'm not sure I would take Dana Raphael's
word on what Margaret Mead had to say about this, or any other, subject.

Also, while Dr. Raphael suggested using the term "doula" as a general term
for a "mother support person" before, during, and after labor, and while it
was Dr. Raphael who first described the concept for Western industrialized
populations to think about, let us not forget that it was thousands of
anonymous women in traditional cultures around the world since the beginning
of time who "introduced the entire doula concept."

To say that Dana Raphael originated the doula concept is like saying that
kangaroos weren't "discovered" until Captain James Cook reported seeing them
after his first visit to Australia.  Kangaroos had been there all along, and
the native peoples of Australia knew all about them for 60,000 years before
Captain Cook lander.  Likewise, Columbus did not "discover" America.  It had
been here all along, and was "discovered" by humans in the form of the first
immigrants from Asia at least 18,000 years before Columbus arrived.  Women
have been providing support to other women before, during, and after
childbirth for thousands, if not millions of years.  This support was lost
only during the medicalization of childbirth in late industrial societies.

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