As a followup of Dettwyler's comments and her reference to the hunger
winter in Holland, my travels internationally have yielded some fascinating
images. One of themost telling is these skinny little mothers from areas of
the world where famine is a real occurrence who have the biggest fattest
babies!  Disuicssions with midwives there revealed that these moms tend to
have small(er) babies than might be expected in developed world (probably a
bit growth retarded) but not markedly so and the babies do just fine when
put to breast and kept there. It is the mothers who seem to show low
nutriture effects.

I do elieve in extreme circumstances, one would probably see other
sequelae. For example, we know in famine periods (historical
documents--where DID I put them?) that fewer women become pregnant OR
retain an ongoing pregnancy. It is possible that the products of those
pregnancies that do survive might be substantieally IUGR at birth and that
their mothers would also be suffering, but is that what we are seeing
everywhere? No.

We need to get into this area in greater depth. Could we have more input
from the RDs?



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         %% Kathleen G. Auerbach, PhD, IBCLC          %%
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