Margaret Radcliffe writes:
>
>But I never run across any reference to cultures in which breastfeeding is
>still the norm. Are there any left? Where are they? Are they so isolated
>that the ABM companies can't get to them? Or is breastfeeding (especially
>longterm) so much part of the fiber of their culture that it has been
>affected very little by the availability and advertising of infant formula?
Of course, Margaret, there are lots of places where breastfeeding is still
totally the norm, although only the most isolated have not been adversely
influenced by "modern" beliefs about infant formula -- in the form of
reduced duration, some use of bottles. I have written about breastfeeding
in Mali (see my articles in Social Science and Medicine in 1986, 1987, and
Medical Anthropology Quarterly in 1988 "More than Nutrition: Breastfeeding
in Urban Mali,") as well as the following books, for starters:
Breastfeeding, Child Health, and Child Spacing, edited by Hull and Simpson
Infant Care and Feeding in the South Pacific, edited by Leslie Marshall
(includes Penny Van Esterik's wonderful essay on distinguishing between
breast milk as a product and breastfeeding as a process)
The Infant Feeding Triad: Infant, Mother, Household, (or some such title),
by Barry Popkin and others
Re this question:
>Can a BF mom safely receive a flu shot? References regarding infant
>risk would be greatly appreciated.
What I want to know is why no one has *ever* asked me if I was nursing a
child when I went to get my flu shot. I have gotten flu shots every fall
for the past 3 years, and no one has ever raised the issue of it being a
problem if I am breastfeeding, or not needing to worry about it.
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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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