Kathy D.says <I think I said it before, but I'll stress again that most
first-time moms in
traditional cultures don't have anything to "learn" about breastfeeding or
taking care of newborns.  They learned it all by watching, listening, and
helping as they were growing up.>

Yeah, in some places. In our area, I've found, for example, that the women
from many of the southeast-Asian countries (Cambodia, Laos, Viet Nam, etc.)
have had this kind of experience, and think that we're crazy in this country
to even ask about such a thing.

But on the other hand, the women I've worked with from China (even very
rural China) and especially Korea, where I think of the culture being much
more "traditional", are among the most clueless I have ever known when it
comes to BFing or indeed any aspect of care of a newborn. They have been
raised with all knowledge of childbirth and breastfeeding and baby care
being kept far from them. They often find it embarassing to discuss BFing at
all. And even women who have given birth to a previous child in their home
countries are quite without a clue what to do with their babies born here.
It appears to me that for many of these women, anything pertaining to this
whole realm is somehow not-nice, and that "respectable" young women are
sheltered from such knowledge - even when they have had their own babies.
That this open and community-based experience of BFing is maybe for
"peasants", but not for more educated or wealthy women. They certainly have
*not* grown up seeing babies nursed all around them, even in areas where
BFing is still commonly practiced, along with other traditional cultural
practices around childbearing.

I have a hard time with the idea that *all* traditional cultures deal with
BFing as simply and naturally as Kathy describes. Some do, for sure - I've
talked with many women from various countries in Africa that do, for
example - but others don't. Like menstrual taboos and practices, for
example - in some cultures menstruation is something to be concealed, in
others it's celebrated with rituals, and in others it's not a big deal one
way or the other.

But I do suspect that the "fogginess" matters less if the work you return to
is working in the fields or around the house.

Cathy Bargar RN IBCLC Ithaca NY

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