As a followup of Dettwyler's comments and her reference to the hunger winter in Holland, my travels internationally have yielded some fascinating images. One of themost telling is these skinny little mothers from areas of the world where famine is a real occurrence who have the biggest fattest babies! Disuicssions with midwives there revealed that these moms tend to have small(er) babies than might be expected in developed world (probably a bit growth retarded) but not markedly so and the babies do just fine when put to breast and kept there. It is the mothers who seem to show low nutriture effects. I do elieve in extreme circumstances, one would probably see other sequelae. For example, we know in famine periods (historical documents--where DID I put them?) that fewer women become pregnant OR retain an ongoing pregnancy. It is possible that the products of those pregnancies that do survive might be substantieally IUGR at birth and that their mothers would also be suffering, but is that what we are seeing everywhere? No. We need to get into this area in greater depth. Could we have more input from the RDs? %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% "We are all faced with a series of great %% %% opportunities brilliantly disguised as %% %% impossible situations" - definition of a %% %% lactation consulting service. %% %% Kathleen G. Auerbach, PhD, IBCLC %% %% [log in to unmask] Homewood, Illinois USA %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%