Andreine Bel's "Hypothesis in breastfeeding: Immediate breastfeeding?" was
most disturbing. What are the author's credentials?
(1) I find it most difficult to believe that she is any kind of health
personnel, or into either alternative or herbal medicine, since she so
strongly advocates giving honey to a newborn. Since honey is a natural,
unprocessed/unpasteurized food, it is possible that botulism spores may be
found in it. The human digestive system does not have the flora necessary
to neutralize botulism spores until the age of 2 years, therefore giving
honey to a child before this age would be extremely dangerous, as botulism
poisoning has a very high mortality due to paralysis of the respiratory
system.
(2) I also find it rather incredible the recommended fasting period for a
newborn. No health practitioner would actually recommend this. What could
it possibly be based on? In utero, the fetus gets a constant flow of
nutrients, that is, food, via the placenta. After birth, which is a normal
but traumatic incident for a fetus, how could additional imposed trauma of
fasting possibly be justified physiologically?
(3) I do not doubt at all her comments about various cultures practicing
some form of depriving newborns of breastmilk and/or colostrum. This is a
well-known CULTURAL phenomenon, based on various CULTURAL taboos, myths,
superstitions and whatnot. In the article, apparently the delay in
breastfeeding in her argument is based on some belief about the baby
expelling the meconium. Delay in breastfeeding has many cultural bases of
belief, but they are all cultural beliefs.
(4) Her argument that immediate breastfeeding is the "intervention" is
patently ridiculous. Certainly it cannot be denied that humans are
mammals. This is by definition. The author, who claims that delaying
breastfeeding is the "natural" way, would be extremely hard-put to find
just one other mammalian species that routinely practices delayed
breastfeeding instead of immediately making the teat available. Or one
other mammalian young which, upon being delivered, does not immediately
seek the maternal teat to suckle, not to cuddle.

This article was quite dangerous, not only by its proposing giving honey
to a newborn, thus exposing it to possible botulism poisoning, not only by
advocating an imposed 3 day fast on a newborn, depriving it of vital fats
vital for the still rapidly-developing brain and vital immune factors to
protect it outside the uterus, but also in attempting to
deny, by using two cultural aberrations to the normal physiological
pattern of birth followed by immediate breastfeeding, the mammalian
imperative established over millions of years.
Judy Holtzer Knopf
Sociology of Health Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences
Ben Gurion University
Beer Sheva, Israel

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