Karleen Gribble wrote about relactation/adoptive breastfeeding as not being stressful, but she differentiated between the relactation in developed and developing countries:
" ... It is striking that relactation/induced lactation is viewed as difficult and unlikely to succeed in the West but simple, easy and likely to be successful in dev countries. ..."
    Some years ago I published a case series where the children were the biological children of the mothers, each was over the age of 12 months, and where the motivation came from the child, not the mother.  In fact, some of the mothers were desirous of keeping the child weaned!  All of the mothers were Anglo-Celtic (Caucasian) Australian women, and the experiences occurred in the 1970s through to the late-1980s.  All came from backgrounds where breastfeeding was usual and done matter-of-factly (family or Australian Breastfeeding Association, or both).  There was no performance anxiety - after all, the mothers weren't trying to bring in milk, they just let it happen (even in the two cases where the mother was anxious to keep the child weaned).(1)
    There were 6 cases in my series, because I inadvertantly forgot to include a 7th case, also an Anglo-Celtic Australian.  That one was included in a later paper of mine.(2)  The references (one of them under my former surname) are:

(1) Phillips V. Relactation in mothers of children over 12 months. J Trop
Pediatr 1993;39(1):45-48.
(2) Thorley V. Relactation: what the exceptions can tell us. Birth Issues
1997; 6(1):24-29.

In the 1993 article I wrote:  "A major difference between my case series and that of Slome [Zulu grandmothers, South Africa, 1950s] was that the Australian children had been off the breast completely, yet had not lost the ability to breastfeed
effectively."  I also wrote that "the child's original breastfeeding had apparently ended before he/she was emotionally ready to complete the weaning process."  I firmly believe that it is not so much where a woman lives, or her race, that affects whether relactation will be fairly routine for her or a lot of angst, but the culture she lives in.  A supportive "culture" may include an organisation in which she is involved, such as La Leche League, the Australian Breastfeeding Association or other mother support groups, or it may be the attitudes of a family.  In fact, where people are pretty laid back about breastfeeding, they mightn't even think to mention that the baby/toddler went back on the breast.  So we don't even get to hear about them.
    We might think of the "normal" progression as exclusive BF - mixed feeding - weaning.  That's not necessarily the progression in cultures where BF is treated very matter-of-factly.  It can be any of a variety of progressions, resumptions, progressions.  Some examples (and I can think of more):
A. mixed feeding - exclusive BF (problems fixed) - mixed feeding - exclusive BF (upset, teething baby) - mixed feeding - weaning.
B. exclusive BF - mixed feeding - weaning - mixed feeding (relactation) - exclusive BF - mixed feeding - weaning
C. exclusive BF - mixed feeding - weaning - mixed feeding (relactation) - weaning
    The human body, and especially the capacity of the very ancient process of lactation, is fascinating.
        Virginia

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