Kathy,  Thank you for giving so much background on the twins photograph. I
think we're going to have to agree to disagree on one or two points
regarding this already-controversial picture.

>The photo doesn't *originate* with UNICEF, nor does UNICEF have the
>exclusive rights to this photograph. .... This photograph has appeared in
>*many* places.  I first saw it on a research article by Dr. Dorothy Mull
>(anthropologist), many years ago.

If you say so.  Nevertheless the copy I have is in a United Nations
publication dated 1991, and it says "Source UNICEF" below the picture.

>Pamela continues
>However, even if
>she found that she could not produce sufficient milk - unlikely as that
>would be - a much better alternative to bottle-feeding would have been to
>find a wet-nurse.  Ironically, this role has sometimes been taken by the
>grandmother.

This was copied from the descriptive paragraph beside the picture, and I
think I placed it in quotes - i e it is not *my* conclusion.

>Wet nursing by the *paternal* grandmother (the mother-in-law) is NOT common
>cross-culturally.  It would usually be the *maternal* grandmother who would
>offer to nurse her daughter's baby if the need arose.  There are very
>culture-specific rules about who can nurse who-else's baby, depending on the
>relationships among the individuals involved, as breastfeeding a baby
>creates kinship between the baby and the provider of breast milk, as well as
>all the provider's relatives.  See "More than Nutrition" by me, in Medical
>Anthropology Quarterly, 1989.

I do not pretend to know about a lot about wet-nursing in various different
cultures.  But interestingly enough, where it occurs in the African culture
in this country (Central/Southern Africa) wet-nursing by the paternal
blood-relatives may be more likely than by the mother's relatives.  The
reason for this is that when a woman marries, her husband pays "lobola" (a
bride-price) for her.  The price is set by her family depending on how much
has been invested in the wife's up-bringing and education, and on how much
she is considered to be "worth", and for a family to have many daughters is
considered to be lucky, constituting, as it does, something of a pension
plan.  To balance this, the wife and any children she may bear become the
"property" of her husband and *his* family.  Don't ask me my opinion of this
practice, I have recently refused to loan my gardener a considerable sum of
cash for him to pay lobola for his new wife!  Anyway, if the couple should
divorce, or if the mother dies, guardianship and custody of all the
children, regardless of their age, stay with the husband (although this
practice may be slowly changing as more divorced mothers seek protection
from the courts, rather than relying on "traditional" values). In practice
this usually means that the paternal grandmother looks after the children
and it is she, or the husband's sister, i e a direct blood-relative of the
*father*, who might wet-nurse the baby, if wet-nursing were to be undertaken
at all.  If the husband has not paid lobola, then he "owns" neither the wife
nor the children, and if the mother dies then and only then would the
maternal grandmother be co-opted to wet-nurse.

>Pamela, I think you are misinterpreting the photograph.  What can be seen
>clearly in a good color print is that the mother's sari is patterned, and
>what you are thinking is the bottom of her right breast is really just a
>place where the pattern of the sari changes.

I'm beginning to wonder if there are 67 different versions of this picture
floating around!  No, no, no Kathy.  In the print I have it is not a sari at
all, it is one of those sleeved tunic and trouser outfits, with the
scarf/veil draped around the neck, from back to front to back again.  The
shiny material is stretched tightly across the underside of the small-ish
left breast, so that its contour can be clearly seen, above the dying baby.
The shape/size of the right breast cannot be seen at all as it is covered by
the scarf-thing and the bunched up material of the tunic, but the baby's
mouth, if it is indeed attached to the right nipple, is a full 10 cm lower
than the expected placement of the nipple on the contra-lateral breast.  The
asymmetry is *very* pronounced, if this is what it is.

>Pamela, you are probably mistaken in how a mother in these circumstances
>would feel toward a baby who was this sick and certain to die.  Women who
>have multiple experiences of children dying (many mothers in the Third
>World)... will scale back on their investment in the child -- both their
>emotional investment and their investment in resources (food, medical care,
>time).  This is a well-described phenomenon.....It is interesting that I,
>having seen similar conditions and behaviors among some Malian women and
having >read Scheper-Hughes work, never paid any particular attention to the
fact that >the mother is not touching her dying daughter."

I concede your point.  Fortunately I have absolutely no experience with
this, the research you list sounds tragic and completely plausible, and it
is sheer speculation on my part to wonder if the sick baby is still alive.
No doubt Dr Khan would be able to enlighten us.

Pamela Morrison IBCLC, Zimbabwe
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