In the beginning, every baby was fed with its Mum’s milk. As baby grew teeth, and started to become curious, it would take with its hands whatever foods Mum and Dad had in front of them, but still had Mum’s milk for its main food. Eventually, as baby turned into a child, it was able to eat more foods and the amount of Mum’s milk it had lessened until one day, the child no longer needed Mum’s milk.
All that was needed for baby to get to Mum’s milk was for baby and Mum to be close to each other all the time.
Baby slept in the same bed as its Mum and Dad for as long as it wanted. Baby was carried around everywhere, normally by its Mum so it could be close to the milk, but also by Dad, Gran, Grandad, Aunties, Uncles and friends until it was old enough to crawl. Even then it was still carried around often, either in its family’s arms, or tied to family members with a simple cloth.
There was sometimes a baby whose mother carried it into the world, but then left the world herself. These babies were fed milk from other mothers and carried and cuddled close to the milk just like all the other babies.
Over time the world changed; walking was no longer the only means of traveling distances; gradually family members lived further away from each other. Many of the babies with no mothers were sent to live with each other, to be looked after by people who usually had no milk of their own.
They were fed on milk from other mammals or other foods and they often left the world almost as soon as they’d arrived.
Clever people realised this needed to change. They took the milk of a cow, added things and took other things away and made it easier for babies to digest. More of the motherless babies that would have died now lived!
Other very clever men realised that they could make money from this changed cows’ milk. However, what mother would buy it when she had her own milk?
They lied to mothers and told them that this milk was more “scientific” and better for their babies than their own milk! They were very clever men though, and many of the mothers believed them.
They invented a fake breast to carry this changed cows’ milk and eventually, this was how most babies were fed! With fake Mum’s milk in a fake breast! Really!
Mums and Dads didn’t need to sleep with their babies any more because the babies didn’t need Mum’s milk in the night. Instead, babies slept in separate beds, often surrounded by wooden bars.
More clever men knew that new babies needed to suck throughout the night, but they knew that they couldn’t leave the fake breast with the baby all night; they invented a fake nipple!
Babies now slept in separate beds, surrounded by wooden bars, sucking on a fake nipple, and given a fake breast full of changed cows’ milk if they were hungry when they awakened.
Clever men realised how many things they could sell to women if they just used the right words and all of these things were heavy. Too heavy, in fact, to carry if mothers were already carrying a baby!
So they invented a wheeled carriage with space for all baby’s things. And because babies no longer needed to be close to Mum’s milk, they too could travel in the carriage!
So babies slept in separate beds, surrounded by wooden bars, sucking on a fake nipple, given changed cows’ milk from a fake breast if they were hungry when they awakened; when they woke for the day, they were put into a wheeled carriage and pushed along with all of their things.
Clever men also realised that often the changed cows’ milk wasn’t enough for babies and they needed other foods before they had time to develop the skills to chew; they mashed food up into a pulp and fed it to babies on a spoon.
Very quickly, these things became normal; as normal as, in the beginning, it was normal for babies to be close to their Mums and their milk. It was just what happened to babies.
But some Mums worked out that their own milk was much better for their babies than the changed cows’ milk.
And yet, when they tried to feed their babies, strange things happened. Baby sucked in a strange way and hurt Mum’s breast because it was used to sucking on a fake nipple. Baby did not gain weight because it was not at the breast often enough. Baby would cry in its wheeled contraption because it liked the smell of Mum’s milk and wanted to be close to Mum’s breast. Mum got very tired from walking to and from the baby’s bed in the middle of the night. Baby took less milk than it needed because it was eating pulped and mashed food early on.
And when this happened, what did the clever men say?
“We told you all along. Mum’s milk just isn’t good enough. Babies should drink our changed cows’ milk. Your baby will then gain weight, stop crying all the time, your breasts will stop hurting, you will not be tired in the night as your baby will start sleeping and you will be able to control the amount of food your baby has.”
Reluctantly*, the majority of these Mums stopped giving their babies their own milk.
Why didn’t anyone tell these Mums that all that was needed for a baby to get Mum’s milk was for a baby to be close to its Mum and her milk all of the time?**
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*Nine out of 10 women in the UK who stopped breastfeeding before their baby was six weeks old did not want to stop. This is a shocking statistic.
**Of course there are medical reasons why women are unable to breastfeed and no I’m not going to add the usual “though this is incredibly rare” caveat because it’s hard to know where a medical reason ends and a cultural reason starts. This little story is obviously very simplistic and is to illustrate just a few of the cultural reasons that make breastfeeding difficult. (Of course, the one I’ve not covered is separation at birth and highly medicalised births. Another time, perhaps.)
) so we have that this afternoon but then no more sessions until our graduation on January 28th. I still don’t have my CRB check back and it seems like everyone else does; no idea why that is, there’s certainly nothing dodgy about me!