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Impact of birthing practices on breastfeeding
A few years ago, because of my background in animal behavior, I
was asked to give a talk on “breastfeeding lessons from animal
behavior.” What fun! I would look at pregnancy, birth, feeding,
sleep, solids, and weaning in other mammals, and let the audience
draw for itself the obvious and entertaining parallels with humans.
That’s not how it turned out. I never really got past the birth.
Other mammal mothers are selfish. Not selfish, exactly, but they
simply can’t think in terms of societal expectations or infant sati-
ety or milk transfer. Most of them probably have no idea they even
have milk. They nurse because it feels good—really good, better
than cocaine in one experiment1
and because it quiets the baby
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