Hacker News Reader

Comment by KoZeN | Hacker News Reader

My partner is currently breastfeeding our 14 week old baby boy and despite being born 5 weeks premature he just keeps going from strength to strength.

The benefits of breastfeeding are incredibly obvious and I now understand completely why most women claim that it is one of the most difficult things you will ever do. Despite being incredibly stressed out by the process, my partner, who holds a biology degree, understands the scientific justification for persevering and when she read this article she told me that it was one more fantastic incentive to keep on going regardless.

I simply wish that this form of research could be made readily available in an easy to understand format for new mothers who are debating with the breast or bottle argument.

View on HN

Many women (including my wife) have to be taught how to breastfeed and for some or many it involves a lot of struggle to get right without pain or too much discomfort. From an evolutionary point of view why would the mechanism be so difficult to get right? Shouldn't it be easier and, well, natural? Are modern women somehow fighting against nature in the way they breastfeed? Have the "natural skills" been lost in the modern lifestyle?

My theory about this is that much collective knowlege of breastfeeding was lost during the years when baby formula was in vogue. I expect this to change, so that, by the time today's baby girls become mothers, they will be able to breastfeed without having to turn to professional "lacation consultants", relying on reestablished collective knowledge and the experience of their own mothers instead.

  Are modern women somehow fighting against nature in
  the way they breastfeed? Have the "natural skills" been
  lost in the modern lifestyle?

No to the first, maybe to the second.

Evolution A/B testing only works at the level where something influences the ability of successive generations to survive. It also selects for whatever barely works.

As far as evolution is concerned, there is no difference between it being easy to do, and learnable. If all women end up learning (say, for other more experienced mothers), then there's nothing for evolution to select for.

It's unfortunate for the woman who has trouble at first (like my wife, for instance) but it clearly isn't evolutionarily significant.

One thing I was not aware of until we went to ante-natal classes was that the ability to breastfeed is triggered by a subconscious control in the brain.

I always ignorantly assumed that the suction when a baby latches on pulls the milk from the breast and I was genuinely astonished to learn that when the baby latches on it actually triggers the brain into thinking 'I now need to release the milk' and the act of releasing milk is a cognitive one and not a physical one.

I don't think most people realise this fact and unfortunately the majority of the focus around breastfeeding is on the pro's and cons as opposed to the correct techniques and mentality required to feed successfully.

I can understand completely why it would appear easier for most mammals compared to humans as most mammals aren't aware how difficult the process may potentially be for obvious reasons.

I suspect some of this relates to the evolutionarily recent increase in Brest size. If you compare how an ape breast feeds vs a human there is significant advantages to a flat chest.

I've always wondered this too. Most mammals seem to figure it out effortlessly.

Perhaps since the time we've had hands and been able to grind up food for babies, breast-feeding has been somewhat optional so there hasn't been much selection pressure on us for millions of years to keep breast feeding working well.

That's the only theory I've got.

Human babies are less well developed than newborns of most other species, so it can be harder for them to figure it out. We have to be born earlier or our heads would be too big.

I've always wondered this too. Most mammals seem to figure it out effortlessly.

Most mammals have mammaries that are purely functional and only round out due to filling with milk. Human female breasts are full for other reasons, too full in fact to be baby-friendly. Most other mammals also feed their offspring in plain view of others of their species, which means there is plenty of opportunity to observe how it is done. In human cultures, we debate the morality of -- gasp! -- breastfeeding in public. When it is done in public at all, it is handled very discretely so no one gets a glimpse of someone's breast or, god forbid, nipple. Not exactly a learning opportunity for any other women who happen to be around who might someday have a baby themselves and might want to breastfeed.

Part of my experience with this subject: I breastfed my oldest until he was nearly 2 and my youngest rejected the breast very early (due to lactose intolerance), breastfeeding full-time for only 10 days and part-time until he was 6 weeks old. And I helped my sister address some issues she had with her baby so she could successfully breastfeed.

I'm sure others have done this already, but have you thought of putting this information on the web to teach other mothers? Considering that breastfeeding is so important on multiple levels, it couldn't hurt to have one more place for mothers to learn this skill.

A) I thought I had posted something to the web about that on someone else's site, but the link from my site to theirs is dead and the internet informs me the domain name in question has expired. So I can't even confirm if I did a breastfeeding story. (I think I did it as one of two contributions -- if I really obsess about it, I might be able to find it in my email somewhere.)

B) I have a parenting site that I want to develop more. I have been thinking since writing the above that I should probably post info about breastfeeding to it as well. It was extremely important to the well being of my oldest child, who has a serious health issue and needed the extra support it provided. That site has languished while I got myself well, started my life over post-divorce...yadda yadda. Thanks for the suggestion/encouragement. :-)

" In human cultures, we debate the morality of -- gasp! -- breastfeeding in public."

What of human cultures outside the U.S.?

I would tend to assume that in cultures where the birth rate is sufficiently high, breastfeeding is sufficiently common and where such matters are handled more openly than is typical in the US, you would be less likely to hear people expressing bafflement as to why this seems to be so hard for some/many women when it seems like it ought to be "natural". My only point is that one of the differences between humans and animals is that some human cultures treat this in a rather secretive manner and we wear clothes and such.

I breastfed publicly in my twenties. I believe I was discreet about it but people who knew me well seemed to be shocked by how casually I handled it. Since they couldn't tell I was doing so until I told them I was feeding my kid while walking around the store or sitting in a booth at an eatery, I didn't see what the problem was. To most folks, I appeared to be holding a baby in my arms wrapped in a baby blanket -- which I was. He just also happened to be getting a meal. So I know first-hand how gasp-worthy this is to some folks, even if you are being so discreet about it they didn't realize it was happening until it came up in conversation. (And I was in Germany on an American military post for some of it. It wasn't all in the U.S. or only around Americans.)

My wife pledged first that she will breastfed our daughter for at least 1.5 year, then until 2 years, and now it's 26th month already and she still persevered to this day. It is surely a sacrifice for the mother, but very important for the health of the child.

If you don't mind me asking - why so long? Our pediatrician recommended my wife breastfeed our son a year. Beyond that, he said, there are no benefits.

Nursing is not a "benefit," it is normal. Forced weaning causes harm (for both mother and child). Not just strictly nutritionally, nursing is very much about physical contact and social relationships too. There's plenty of info if you type a couple words into google. A half century of formula advertising has created a lot of ignorance as fewer people have experience with nursing.

http://www.kellymom.com/bf/bfextended/ebf-benefits.html

The normal feeding vs. formula feeding discussion is usually presented backwards. We shouldn't talk about the "benefits" of breastfeeding, we should talk about the harm of formula. Breastfeeding is the normal state. For rare medical conditions we can substitute formula. It's a medical treatment that in extenuating circumstances can save lives.

My son was born 10 weeks premature. He was right under 3 pounds.

Today 11 months later he is 24 Pounds, strong as an oxe and almost about to walk.

Besides being breast-fed we also practiced the kangaroo method, where my girlfriend would have him on her chest to maintain the symbiosis he would normally have benefitted from inside of her.

He was out of the hospital 5 weeks after he was born, 5 weeks before he was supposed to.

I don't know about the kangaroo method but obviously the breast feeding (which already started 5 days after he was born albeit in small quantity) helped him quite a lot.

Good for her for pressing on, it's such an achievement...

When our baby switched to 1 feed per day I took take her out for a nice dinner to celebrate and to thank her for all her hard work.

Deleted comment

Essentially what TheSOB88 said.

I honestly have no intention of getting into a debate about the issue but at this point in time, a minimal amount of research will present you with an overwhelming number of proven benefits that breastfeeding has over bottle feeding.

There are definitely cons, and there are big cons but most of the cons are relating to the mother and not the baby. I have yet to hear of any proven, significantly negative effect breastfeeding has on a baby.

I have read that breast milk tends to be deficient in Vitamin D: http://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/recommendations/vitamin_d.h...

It was designed by evolution to give babies the best nutrition.

From Wiki: These benefits include; lowered risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), increased intelligence, decreased likelihood of contracting middle ear infections, cold, and flu bugs, decreased risk of some cancers such as childhood leukemia, lower risk of childhood onset diabetes, decreased risk of asthma and eczema, decreased dental problems, decreased risk of obesity later in life, and decreased risk of developing psychological disorders.

For me, the fact that it's natural gives it a lot of appeal. I'm sure there are psychological benefits too - being breastfed is something babies instinctively want, so I'd bet it'd result in a calmer baby.

And all other substitutes are just that - substitutes. Baby formula was designed to emulate breastmilk; why not choose the original?

designed by evolution

I think the credited view of evolution is that there was no design involved. It may indeed be true that the haphazard adaptations of breast milk to infant needs (and maternal limitations of resources) under selection pressure makes breast milk better food for babies than any human-designed infant formula, but that's an empirical question. It is possible in principle, at least, that human design could eventually make better (by whatever criterion you use to define "better") for human infants than breast milk.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com