I heard that in traditional cultures, and I think it was the Australian aboriginal being discussed at the time, that women experienced very very few periods in their lifetime because they were either pregnant or breastfeeding. In a graph comparing breastfeeding as the only contraceptive for the !Kung I think they only had a few pregnancies in their lifetime (maybe 6 or so). In other words, most of their adult life is either pregnant or breastfeeding. Anthropologists please make any corrections necessary. In the cultures that breastfeed very frequently (at least once per hour) the serum prolactin levels remain much higher than they do with our method of feeding, and hence fertility is further suppressed. Also we become fertile more quickly because of our nutritional status. Denise (who finds anthropology fascinating) ************************************************* Denise Fisher MMP, BN, IBCLC BreastEd Online Lactation Studies http://www.health-e-learning.com ************************************************* *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html