>
>
>But it's got this kind of thinkin going:  With respect to SO many =
>aspects of breastfeeding, we are finding that _some_ very old customs =
>actually have value.  In birth customs, breastfeeding patterns, etc, we =
>are re-learning to accept some ancient wisdoms.  So, I can't help but =
>wonder if sunlight to help jaundice may have been way older than the =
>20th century.  Just as we have to do clinical trials to show that BF =
>friendly is better than many health care rituals, maybe this is worth a =
>clinical trial.  I doubt if that's going to happen, sunlight being =
>notoriously cheap.
>
You are absolutely right, and I agree with you.

At the same time, just as importing customs of different cultures, out
of context, does not take the supporting practices into consideration,
neither does importing customs of different time periods consider that
the conditions are quite different. Too often, it is hard for mothers to
be available to their babies 24 hours a day because the economic
conditions they live in prevent it (e.g. we no longer live on the food
we grow / find in places in which we have collective ownership /
participation; we work outside the home in family-unfriendly
environments, etc.). My dh's ancestors would have never survived in the
place we live today, and some of our children may not have survived
without modern discoveries. It is difficult, and perhaps dangerous, to
pick and choose among practices and life-styles.

I saw a great ad on tv for outdoor play. It acknowledged that children
could no longer just take off and play by themselves outside, and
encouraged us to play with our children. That's a way of importing a
larger chunk (some of the roots as well as the trunk) of a practice that
worked in the past but faces the obstacles of modernity (in this case,
safety issues).

So we have holes in the ozone layer, and need to work to change that.
Meanwhile, how can we find a safe way of getting the sunlight we need to
prevent / alleviate jaundice, vitamin D deficiency, etc.? Especially
those of us who have greater needs for it, now that we have had
generations of migration, intermarriage, etc.?

Jo-Anne Elder-Gomes, PhD, IBCLC

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