When most babies were breastfed for a long time, ear infections were much
less common.  And without antibiotics, one consequence of an ear infection
can be death.  My first "friend" in Mali, in 1981, was a lovely woman named
Farima, who let me hold her baby and listened carefully to my beginning
Bambara (language) abilities and tried to communicate.  Her
exclusively-breastfed baby died a few months later of an ear infection.  Ear
infections were extremely rare in Mali, and mother's feared them greatly, as
they often meant death (not deafness).

Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Nutrition
Texas A&M University