Mother's milk
MEDICINE
JOHN ROWAN WILSON _
Years ago when I was a ship's doctor I was asked to adjudicate on a delicate matter. A protest had been made by some of the first class passengers that every morning at about ten o'clock an act of indecency was being com- mitted, in full public view on the promenade deck. An Italian woman was feeding a baby at the breast.
We didn't take it very seriously, I'm afraid. The fact is that after three weeks at sea in the tropics, passengers are in the kind of mood when they will complain about almost anything. The captain flatly refused to have anything to do with it, on the specious grounds that it was a medical matter. Somewhat embarrassed, I asked the Italian lady to my cabin for a tactful chat. She brought her child with her. To my surprise he was several years old. When I asked her why she hadn't weaned him, she shrugged her shoulders. 'Is more convenient,' she said.
My heart went out to her. I suppose I had been unconsciously expecting some kind of lie says his name's St Christopher'
cosmic, Earth-mother argument-about how true and natural it all was, and how every woman should feel radiant and proud to have the ,,privilege of giving suck to her infant. As it turned out, she,just couldn't be bothered fiddling about with bottles and dried milk under ship- board conditions and had decided to keep the boy on the breast till she got to Sydney. She was easily persuaded to defer to British prudery , by confining her activities to the cabin, and we parted good friends.
Unfortunately it isn't everybody who can pregerve such a detached attitude towards infant feeding as my Italian friend. The argument still persists as to whether breast- feeding is better than bottle-feeding and vice versa. It is one of those issues on which people tend to take up emotional attitudes. Prominent among these is the contention that breast-
feeding is 'more natural,' Well, of course, it is, bus. I don't think that's a very potent argument on its own. If we played everything Nature's way, the world would be a pretty horrible place to jive in. It is more natural, for instance, to give birth to children without sedatives or anaesthetics. Contraception is a highly unnatural
business; Nature's way of handling the popu- lation problem is for reproduction to proceed without control and for the excess population to die of famine. Man has achieved his present state of relative prosperity and comfort very largely by refusing to conform, as other animals have done, to the natural order.
It is important to make this point because the contention that breast-feeding is natural and therefore automatically beneficial carries the inevitable corollary that to bring up a baby on the bottle is in some way shameful. There is no scientific evidence for either of these propositions. There is a general feeling among doctors that there is a psychological advantage -to both mother and baby in breast-feeding, but it is really no more than an impression. The psychoanalysts, as we all know, attach great importance to the breast and they may possibly be right. But then, as so often, they may equally well be wrong.
In the meantime, in spite of all the propa- ganda in its favour, breast-feeding appears to be on the decline. This is not easy to understand.
Studies have shown that among women born in this country, breast-feeding is more readily accepted by those of a higher educational standard. "It had been therefore supposed that the expansion of education would lead to an increase in breast-feeding. But it hasn't. It looks as if, in this respect at least, our educational seed is falling on stony ground.
Why do women dislike breast-feeding? It is not easy to be certain about this, since the subject is an emotional one and women may give
misleading answers to questions. Also, they may not be very clear themselves about their motives. It is frequently said that working-class women put their children on the bottle because they want to get back to their jobs. However, a survey in one area where most of the women worked showed that they rarely went back to their jobs before the child was a year old, however the child was fed. Some women have admitted that they regard the act of breast- feeding as physically repellent. One would imagine that they are in a minority. However, there are certainly very strong motives in a desire to avoid embarrassment and to return to what is regarded as physical normality as soon as possible.
I don't think we should get too worked UP on this issue. After all, it's a free country, and as far as physical factors' are concerned, there is no difference between bottle and breast-fed babiesl-growth and weight gain are the same. In a normal woman with a normal child, the commonsense balance seems to be in favour of breast-feeding. There is a possibility that the mother and the child will find it more satisfying. The child receives antibodies against infection from the mother, And the milk comes automati- cally in the right consistency, at the right time, and at the right temperature. In the words of the Italian lady, is more convenient.
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