Just thought I'd share something facinating that I came across.
I'm working on writing up some case studies of older adopted children who
want to breastfeed. It's not common but not uncommon from the number of
cases I've come into contact with and the occasional references I've heard
from social workers and in the literature.  The children I know of range
from 10 month to 5 years at adoption and were from 2 months of age at
instutionalisation to 2 years. In all cases the mothers of these children
have thought that their child must have been breastfed at an earlier time
because their children "knew what to do" This was even in cases where there
is really no evidence to suspect that this would have happened (not much
breastfeeding happening in Chinese orphanages by all accounts).  Anyway,
I've been searching in all sorts of unlikely places to find possible
explanations for what is going on and just yesterday I was reading Ashley
Montagu's 'Touching' (as recommended by someone on Lactnet) and found a case
descrbed there of a baby weaned at 2 weeks who, on experiencing trauma at
2.5 years began to refuse food and demand bottlefeeding. What facinated me
was that they determined that the child was attempting to replicate the
feelings she had when breastfeeding by tickling her nose with her own hair
as her mother's nipple hair had tickled her when she was breastfeeding from
birth to 2 weeks! How much is buried so deep in little babies but there in
their memories regardless of the fact that they may not be able to speak it.
I've got more fuel to the fire in  working out what the children I am
writing about might be doing... could they possibly be 'remembering' a time
when they were loved and help by their mother prior to abandonment and want
to feel that way again?

Karleen Gribble
Australia

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