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Subject:
From:
Sara Bernard <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 28 Apr 2001 20:46:58 +0200
Content-Type:
multipart/mixed
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (2349 bytes) , New Scientist Comfort feeding.url (264 bytes)
*"American Association of Physical Anthropologists April 2001
NEWS
Kansas City, US, April  2001
Comfort feeding
Babies would be in trouble if mothers' breasts were a different shape

http://www.newscientist.com/conferences/confarticle.jsp?conf=amapa200104&id=
22862800
THE shape of women's breasts may have evolved to reduce the risk of mothers
smothering their infants while they are feeding, suggests a British
researcher. "Partly because of the obsession with breasts as a sex object,
there are big, big gaps in our knowledge of how they actually work," says
Gillian Bentley, a biological anthropologist at University College London.

Evolutionary biologists have long speculated on the reason for the shape of
the human breast. Compared to the breasts of other primates, they are
unusually large. Mothers among our close relatives, such as chimpanzees and
bonobos, are all but flat-chested.

Because breasts don't develop until puberty, biologists have suggested that
they help the female attract a mate and keep him interested in her welfare
and that of her children. Those with larger breasts were more successful,
the theory goes, and produced more offspring.

But that explanation didn't ring true for Bentley. For one thing, she points
out that the fascination with breasts is hardly universal. "Among many
cultures where the breast is uncovered it isn't such a source of erotic
imagery," she says.

The alternative explanation came to Bentley while she was feeding her
daughter. Bentley looked down and realised that if her breast didn't
protrude, her daughter's nose would be buried in flesh while she was trying
to suckle. She would be in danger of being smothered. Could the breast have
evolved and enlarged precisely to give infants room to breathe?

Most primate infants aren't at risk of suffocation, she realised, because
they have a protruding jaw and lips. So she suggests that the breast
co-evolved with human facial features. As the face became flatter, the
breast became larger to compensate. "If infants were dying, that would have
provided a very strong selection," she says."*

I know this is a news article (from Newscientist) and is a bit vague, but
maybe its of interest. Although, I wonder how many different human breasts
she has observed for shape and size?

Sara Bernard
(Biologist and bf counsellor in training - Vereniging Borstvoeding
Natuurlijk, The Netherlands)



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