This is totally anecdotal but if we ask the question: when was breastfeeding in its greatest decline and another question: when did birth move into hospitals with routines that separated mothers and babies sometimes for  36 hours for "resting", we will find that the answers are correlated. 
Into the sixties in the UK, mothers were hospitalized for more than a week during which they received their babies every four hours for twenty minutes.
As late as the 1970`s babies were whisked away the moment the cord was cut, wrapped up and taken to the newborn nursery for tests like "the overhaul of a new washing machine" as Dr. Frederik Leboyer described it.
It was his book: Birth Without Violence 1979 - and the lectures he gave all over the world after its publication which made hospital managers take a look at the damage they were doing.
Is it any wonder that this lack of contact, of skin-to-skin, of time spent with the baby resulted in a delay in prolactin, the "mothering" hormone with its subsequent effect on attachment and milk supply.
Wendy Blumfield
NCT BFC/ANT Tutor
Israel Childbirth Education Centre

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