Breastfeeding Mother Quotes

The only people who should be allowed to govern countries with nuclear weapons are mothers, those who are still breastfeeding their babies."--Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.

Imagine that the world had created a new 'dream product' to feed and immunize everyone born on earth. Imagine also that it was available everywhere, required no storage or delivery, and helped mothers plan their families and reduce the risk of cancer. Then imagine that the world refused to use it.

The only people who should be allowed to govern countries with nuclear weapons are mothers, those who are still breast-feeding their babies.

Biblical metaphors for God include a laboring woman, a breastfeeding mother, even a mother hen. And man and woman were both created in God’s image, were they not? Why use Him and not Her? In fact, why even say God instead of Goddess? Both Him and Her are not enough to contain the fullness of God, who is outside the construct of gender, who is so much more than the human mind can conceive.

Breast milk and amniotic fluid carry the flavors of the mother’s foods, and studies consistently show that babies grow up to be more accepting of flavors they’ve sampled while in the womb and while breastfeeding.

One of the main functions of a push-up bra is to lower the number of mothers who seem like mothers.

But the overwhelming number of mothers who think they have too little milk have babies who are taking plenty of milk and are gaining weight well. These mothers have based their conclusions on misinformation or a misinterpretation of their babies' behavior.

New mothers are often told that once they've fed, burped, and changed their baby they should leave their baby alone to self-soothe if they cry because all of their needs have been met. One day I hope all new mothers will smile confidently and say, "I gave birth to a baby, not just a digestive system. My baby as a brain that needs to learn trust and a heart that needs love. I will meet all of my baby's needs, emotional, mental, and physical, and I'll respond to every cry because crying is communication, not manipulation.

Breastfeeding is a beautiful thing, one of the most beautiful things that exist in nature. Think about how a woman can literally feed her baby with her body! In my eyes, this is a certain form of beauty, of divinity! To know that my body can not only form and bring another human being into the world, but that I can actually feed babies with my own milk from my own breasts— that puts me in a state of awe each time I think about it. It is an honour to be a woman.

A world that is safe for mothers is safe for all.

They convinced our mothers that if a food item came in a bottle -- or a can or a box or a cellophane bag -- then it was somehow better for you than when it came to you free of charge via Mother Nature....An entire generation of us were introduced in our very first week to the concept that phony was better than real, that something manufactured was better than something that was right there in the room. (Later in life, this explained the popularity of the fast food breakfast burrito, neocons, Kardashians, and why we think reading this book on a tiny screen with only three minutes of battery life left is enjoyable.

When we trust the makers of baby formula more than we do our own ability to nourish our babies, we lose a chance to claim an aspect of our power as women. Thinking that baby formula is as good as breast milk is believing that thirty years of technology is superior to three million years of nature's evolution. Countless women have regained trust in their bodies through nursing their children, even if they weren't sure at first that they could do it. It is an act of female power, and I think of it as feminism in its purest form.

The whole human world is born from the womb of mothers, and if we can't make the motherly act of breastfeeding free from stigma in such a world, then it's an insult to our very existence as a species.

It is not patriarchal to hold the door for a lady, It is not cowardly to leave your seat to the elderly. But it is barbaric to harass a breastfeeding mother, And prehistoric to force a woman carry a pregnancy.

Attempts to locate oneself within history are as natural, and as absurd, as attempts to locate oneself within astronomy. On the day that I was born, 13 April 1949, nineteen senior Nazi officials were convicted at Nuremberg, including Hitler's former envoy to the Vatican, Baron Ernst von Weizsacker, who was found guilty of planning aggression against Czechoslovakia and committing atrocities against the Jewish people. On the same day, the State of Israel celebrated its first Passover seder and the United Nations, still meeting in those days at Flushing Meadow in Queens, voted to consider the Jewish state's application for membership. In Damascus, eleven newspapers were closed by the regime of General Hosni Zayim. In America, the National Committee on Alcoholism announced an upcoming 'A-Day' under the non-uplifting slogan: 'You can drink—help the alcoholic who can't.' ('Can't'?) The International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled in favor of Britain in the Corfu Channel dispute with Albania. At the UN, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko denounced the newly formed NATO alliance as a tool for aggression against the USSR. The rising Chinese Communists, under a man then known to Western readership as Mao Tze-Tung, announced a limited willingness to bargain with the still-existing Chinese government in a city then known to the outside world as 'Peiping.' All this was unknown to me as I nuzzled my mother's breast for the first time, and would certainly have happened in just the same way if I had not been born at all, or even conceived. One of the newspaper astrologists for that day addressed those whose birthday it was: There are powerful rays from the planet Mars, the war god, in your horoscope for your coming year, and this always means a chance to battle if you want to take it up. Try to avoid such disturbances where women relatives or friends are concerned, because the outlook for victory upon your part in such circumstances is rather dark. If you must fight, pick a man! Sage counsel no doubt, which I wish I had imbibed with that same maternal lactation, but impartially offered also to the many people born on that day who were also destined to die on it.

In my experience nursing is waiting. The mother becomes the background against which the baby lives, becomes time. I used to exist against the continuity of time. Then I became the baby's continuity, a background of ongoing time for him to live against. I was the warmth and milk that was always there for him, the agent of comfort that was always there for him. My body, my life, became the landscape of my son's life. I am no longer merely a thing living in the world; I am a world.

It is true that breasts can induce sexual tension in men, but truer than that is the fact, that breasts are the primary and healthiest source of nutrition for the infant, so, if men can't use their higher mental faculty of self-restraint at the sight of breastfeeding at public places, then it's not the women who need to change their breastfeeding place, it's the men who need to work on their character.

Breastfeeding does not have to be hard. Breastfeeding is natural. With rare exceptions, it becomes hard only because of all the interference caused by the medicalization of birth and unsupportive culture. Animals breastfeed instinctively with no need for supplementation, classes, or support. We as humans also have these instincts. We have become so disconnected. Breastfeeding my children has been one of my greatest joys in life, and I am filled with sorrow when I imagine how many mothers and infants haven’t been able to experience this because of misinformation.

Mother's milk is soul food for babies. The babies of the world need a lot more soul food.

I just caught my fiancé breastfeeding from his mother.

According to Hinde, when a baby suckles at its mother's breast, a vacuum is created. Within that vacuum, the infant's saliva is sucked back into the mother's nipple, where receptors in her mammary gland decipher it. This "baby spit backwash," as she delightfully described it, contains signals, information about the baby's immune system-including any infections it might be fighting.

The influence of bottle-feeding makes many people think that ‘nipple sucking’ is breastfeeding. It is not. If the baby sucks his mother’s nipples as he would a bottle teat, it damn well hurts.

And I find myself wondering whether, since the kids, I feel different to Charlie, or whether he fancies me as much now my boobs are not the same boobs they were before breastfeeding, now I have all this strange slack skin on my belly. I know I shouldn't ask, because my body has performed a miracle; two in fact. And yet it is important for a couple to still desire each other, isn't it?

You are not a failure. Your worth as a mother is not measured in ounces. Say it out loud. Write it on the inside of your pump bag. You’re a great mom doing a hard job, and I hope you’re really proud of yourself.

David watched Sol finish the can of beans. Sol always ate fast. He overate. Since he was eight. Sol leaned back in the wooden chair against the wall, under the window. Baby brother. Sol could have been anything he wanted to be. Nothing mathematical, nothing quantitative, of course, but anything else. A beautiful boy, a wonderful brother, they got along well. Then when Sol turned eight years old, age of a new beginning, their mother obsessed over him, ignoring David. Obsessed over Sol and his underwear. Over and over, a regeneration, a newness. Changed his clothes constantly, had him on her lap every minute possible. She put him in bed and tucked the covers in every night. She refused to let their father do it, so he always took care of David. But, of course, David needed no help and Sol always needed Ruth to take care of him. Sol was still being breast fed even when he finally went to kindergarten. Then Ruth slowly increased regular, solid food. But before bed, Sol had a nightcap, mother’s milk. Their special time. Their unique closeness took a turn from breastfeeding to something else. By the time Sol was in third grade, he was one of the fattest kids in class. Then the brothers became a real team. Now here he was. David and Sol still together, on a mission given by the Creator. It was perfect.

POPPY (on her mother not breastfeeding her during infancy): If you had breastfed me, it might have increased my IQ, and I’d have a lot of pressure to succeed. My average IQ means I can simply coast through life, so thank you.

Breastfeeding reminds us of the universal truth of abundance; the more we give out, the more we are filled up, and that divine nourishment - the source from which we all draw - is, like a mother's breast, ever full and ever flowing.

Almost in their sleep, mothers respond, stroke and suckle their babies throughout the night. All the mothers unconsciously sleep in a special position, arm above their babies’ heads and knees drawn up, which protects their babies from harm.7

No amount of advice will prevent the women from carrying on this deadly habit.” This was written in 1917, but the attitude was still around in 1952 when clinic nurses were advising mothers that seven to nine months was the desirable length of time for breastfeeding.

While each of these may be convenient at the time (and easier choices, culturally, than choosing menstrual retreat, natural birth, breastfeeding, mother-baby dependency, and unmedicated menopause), there is a downside. Each time we deny our female functions, each time we deviate from our bodies’ natural path, we move farther away from our feminine roots. This can create distress within our bodies and can set the scene for further problems, physically and emotionally, for ourselves and our families. - this quote is from the Foreword to Wild Feminine; the foreword is by Sarah J. Buckley, MD

What followed was a blissful year. That is the most annoying thing in the world to say, in a world full of mothers who struggle with breast-feeding, high fevers, long days, and late nights. But I can only try to redeem myself by saying that I was completely caught off guard by my outrageous happiness.

We are so, so proud of you for being a working mom and for giving this breastfeeding and working thing a shot. . . . Now get out there, attach a machine to one of the most sensitive and private parts of your body, and make the magic happen. You’re a warrior. You’re a badass. You’re a working mother, and that’s an amazing thing.

If they [the mothers] use different vocabularies, they may share a postmodern feminist "body politics" - in this instance an awareness that maternal breastfeeding carries no inherent, "natural" meaning, that it is always located where historically specific, culturally articulated interests and power relations collide with the recalcitrance of the body.

People like what they eat, rather than eat what they like.” The phenomenon starts early. Breast milk and amniotic fluid carry the flavors of the mother’s foods, and studies consistently show that babies grow up to be more accepting of flavors they’ve sampled while in the womb and while breastfeeding. (Babies swallow several ounces of amniotic fluid a day.)

Sonnet of Norms It is not patriarchal to hold the door for a lady, It is not cowardly to leave your seat to the elderly. But it is barbaric to harass a breastfeeding mother, And prehistoric to force a woman carry a pregnancy. There are norms that nourish the societal fabric, Then there are norms out of touch with age and times. Beyond both freedom and obedience as a whole being, You ought to realize where and how to draw the lines. The problem is that most do not know when to rebel, They rebel out of boredom to seek adventure not justice. They commit reckless vandalism in the name of activism, And feel proud while committing the most heinous deeds. Norms require careful scrutiny, not headless rebellion. Hence, quite often rebels become the new face of oppression.

Paid parental leave is associated with fewer newborn and infant deaths, higher rates of breastfeeding, less postpartum depression, and a more active, hands-on role for new fathers. Mothers are much more likely to stay in the workforce and earn higher wages if they can take paid leave when they have a baby. And when men take leave, the redistribution of household labor and caretaking lasts after they return to work.

The three conditions without which healthy growth does not take place can be taken for granted in the matrix of the womb: nutrition, a physically secure environment and the unbroken relationship with a safe, ever-present maternal organism. The word matrix is derived from the Latin for “womb,” itself derived from the word for “mother.” The womb is mother, and in many respects the mother remains the womb, even following birth. In the womb environment, no action or reaction on the developing infant’s part is required for the provision of any of his needs. Life in the womb is surely the prototype of life in the Garden of Eden where nothing can possibly be lacking, nothing has to be worked for. If there is no consciousness — we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Knowledge — there is also no deprivation or anxiety. Except in conditions of extreme poverty unusual in the industrialized world, although not unknown, the nutritional needs and shelter requirements of infants are more or less satisfied. The third prime requirement, a secure, safe and not overly stressed emotional atmosphere, is the one most likely to be disrupted in Western societies. The human infant lacks the capacity to follow or cling to the parent soon after being born, and is neurologically and biochemically underdeveloped in many other ways. The first nine months or so of extrauterine life seem to have been intended by nature as the second part of gestation. The anthropologist Ashley Montagu has called this phase exterogestation, gestation outside the maternal body. During this period, the security of the womb must be provided by the parenting environment. To allow for the maturation of the brain and nervous system that in other species occurs in the uterus, the attachment that was until birth directly physical now needs to be continued on both physical and emotional levels. Physically and psychologically, the parenting environment must contain and hold the infant as securely as she was held in the womb. For the second nine months of gestation, nature does provide a near-substitute for the direct umbilical connection: breast-feeding. Apart from its irreplaceable nutritional value and the immune protection it gives the infant, breast-feeding serves as a transitional stage from unbroken physical attachment to complete separation from the mother’s body. Now outside the matrix of the womb, the infant is nevertheless held close to the warmth of the maternal body from which nourishment continues to flow. Breast-feeding also deepens the mother’s feeling of connectedness to the baby, enhancing the emotionally symbiotic bonding relationship. No doubt the decline of breast-feeding, particularly accelerated in North America, has contributed to the emotional insecurities so prevalent in industrialized countries. Even more than breast-feeding, healthy brain development requires emotional security and warmth in the infant’s environment. This security is more than the love and best possible intentions of the parents. It depends also on a less controllable variable: their freedom from stresses that can undermine their psychological equilibrium. A calm and consistent emotional milieu throughout infancy is an essential requirement for the wiring of the neurophysiological circuits of self-regulation. When interfered with, as it often is in our society, brain development is adversely affected.

In the eighteenth century, the mother's imagination became the default explanation for unwanted traits. Her uncanny influence extended to breastfeeding, by which she infused the child with "her ideas, beliefs, intelligence, intellect, diet and speech," along with "her other physical and emotional qualities." This mystical conception of maternity made the mother an easy target for perceived defects in the baby. It was also a reason to be suspicious of her curiosity and passions and to curtail her exposure to the world.

Breast milk is so beneficial that a more or less well-nourished mother need not do any more than suckle her baby to ensure it is receiving a healthy diet. When it comes to the nutrients it contains, breast milk provides everything that dietary scientists believe children need in order to thrive - it is the best dietary supplement ever. It contains everything, knows everything, and can do everything necessary for a child's well-being. And, as if that weren't enough, it has the added advantage of passing on a bit of Mom's immune system to her offspring.

It was no shock to me that my parents, like so many others, emerged out of a kind of fog. My father, an unrepentant chatterbox, claimed that his father had gone to dig for gold in Paramaribo, Dutch Guyana, anbodoning his mother, who was breast-feeding her baby on the Morne à Cayes. Other times he claimed his father was a merchant seaman, shipwrecked off the coast of Sumatra. Where did the truth lie? I think he re-created it at will, taking pleasure in enunciating the syllables that made him dream: Paramaribo, Sumatra. Thanks to him, from a very early age I understood that you forge an identity.

It was no shock to me that my parents, like so many others, emerged out of a kind of fog. My father, an unrepentant chatterbox, claimed that his father his father had gone to dig for gold in Paramaribo, Dutch Guyana, anbodoning his mother, who was breast-feeding her baby on the Morne à Cayes. Other times he claimed his father was a merchant seaman, shipwrecked off the coast of Sumatra. Where did the truth lie? I think he re-created it at will, taking pleasure in enunciating the syllables that made him dream: Paramaribo, Sumatra. Thanks to him, from a very early age I understood that you forge an identity.

We think we value mothers in America, but we don’t. We may revere motherhood, the hazy abstraction, the cream-of-wheat-with-a-halo ideal, but a mother is just a kind of woman, after all, and women are trouble and not so valuable. Low-income mothers drag down the country—why’d they have kids if they couldn’t support them? Middle-class mothers are boring frumps. Elite ones are obsessed sanctimommies: Don’t they know how annoying they are, with their yoga, their catfights over diapers and breastfeeding, their designer strollers that take up half the sidewalk so that people with important places to go have to take several extra steps?

Pfeffernus flavored aspirin was found to be hideously dangerous, and babies the size of strawberries were being born to women who were known poppers, and these babies had enormous heads the size of spoiling watermelons, and they whispered obscene remarks in sibilant Levantine waterfront pigeon, and they had lidless eyes and leering flaccid mouths, and they were born with pierced ears, and some were even born with garish metallic paper carnival hats. Their mothers felt repugnance at the lewd comments they uttered at breastfeeding time, and their limbs were unsightly thin and curling tendrils, like withered asparagus bottoms, which were covered with the fine prickly hairs, and they coiled and uncoiled continuously like tendrils under the sea, and when these tendrils were fragile, and when they were pinched off they grew right back, clutching insulting greeting cards.

Although formulas have greatly improved over the years, no formula can fully replicate the immunological benefits of mother’s milk. In the summer of 2018, the administration of President Donald Trump provoked dismay among many health authorities by opposing an international resolution to encourage breast-feeding and reportedly threatened Ecuador, the sponsor of the initiative, with trade sanctions if it didn’t change its position. Cynics pointed out that the infant formula industry, which is worth $70 billion a year, might have had a hand in determining the U.S. position. A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson denied that that was the case and said that America was merely “fighting to protect women’s abilities to make the best choices for the nutrition of their babies” and to make sure that they were not denied access to formula—something the resolution wouldn’t have done anyway.

Although mothers are rarely told this, there is no question that some of the medication used in epidurals does get to the baby. One study measured the levels of epidural medication in newborns’ umbilical cords after birth; the longer the mother had had the epidural in place, the higher the level of medication in the cord (and therefore the baby). A study looking at the effects of epidural using Fentanyl (a narcotic) on the baby showed definite negative effects on his ability to breastfeed, especially at higher doses. Those women who had the higher doses were much more likely to have stopped breastfeeding by six weeks after birth, even though all the mothers in the study had successfully breastfed a previous baby for at least six weeks. Studies that evaluated the way the baby breastfed have found that, after being exposed to the epidural medications during the labour, the baby was less able to latch on well and suckle effectively. Some studies have seen subtle effects of epidurals that lasted up to a month.

What if, rather than asking women to bear the burden of responsibility for our nation’s health and intelligence, governments invested money in research for better formulas that can improve health? If what we feed our babies in the first year really has that much of an impact on lifelong health, this should be a priority. Because in reality, not all babies are going to be able to be breastfed, as long as we want to live in a world where women have the freedom to decide how to use their bodies; whether to work or stay home; whether to be a primary caregiver or not. In reality, there are going to be children raised by single dads; there are going to be children raised by grandparents; there are going to be children who are adopted by parents who aren’t able to induce lactation; there are going to be children whose mothers don’t produce enough milk, or who are on drugs not compatible with breastfeeding. Rather than demanding that every mother should be able to—should want to—breastfeed, we should be demanding better research, better resources, better options. We should be demanding better.

A mother who wants to hold her baby most of the time is judged eccentric and often accused of ‘spoiling’ him. The separation of a mother and her baby reduces the chances of establishing a harmony between their physiological rhythms.

Full-term healthy babies are extremely adept at organising their meals to suit themselves and their mothers’ bodies – if only other people will let them do it.

Without special interventions such as a policy overhaul or staff training, breastfeeding help is not a priority. Staff might be reprimanded if they are late with form-filling, but not if they fail to sit with a mother to help her breastfeed in a calm, supportive way.

A millionaire’s baby who is not breastfed is less healthy than an exclusively breastfed baby whose mother is in the poorest social group.

The knowledge of dairy cows has exceeded that of human lactation and has had a misleading influence on the understanding of human mothers and babies.

a mother’s body warms up if her baby is cool or cools down if he is too hot.

Interventions such as weighing can be postponed until the baby has nuzzled and suckled without interruption; neither mother nor baby should be hurried. Skilled birth attendants interfere as little as possible with skin-to-skin contact and attend to any necessary procedures after the baby has suckled.

If she then has to cry to communicate her hunger, when she gets to her mother’s breast she might be too exhausted to suckle effectively.

Mothers who share a bed or use a three-sided cot attached to the bed are far more responsive to their babies than those who have a separate cot by the bed.

Breastfeeding was far more successful for the mothers cosleeping than those who slept apart.

When babies are fed at prescribed intervals and their time at the breast curtailed, then the wonderful dance that the bodies of a mother and her baby have spent nine months rehearsing cannot be performed.

A baby’s relationship with her mother is the primary experience of love. Does anyone fall in love to a schedule?

In industrialised societies, the advertising of baby milks and bottles and the doubts of health workers and families provide the modern curses and spells. ‘When breastmilk fails . . .’ is the perfect spell to destroy an anxious new mother’s confidence.

In most traditional societies babies and mothers have a period of time to establish breastfeeding. Techniques have been learned unconsciously at an early age through observing breastfeeding as an everyday activity.

When mothers are allowed and encouraged to be intuitive and responsive to their babies’ cues, the pair adapt to each other rapidly and the synergy of two lives can be established happily.

Artificial feeding is risky. This basic fact upsets people who feel insulted if they or their mothers did not breastfeed but most women do not ‘choose’ how they feed their babies: they do what their culture and society expects.

880,000 babies could be saved simply by not removing them from their mothers, and by supporting early suckling.

It is now known that even in a rich country, a millionaire’s baby who is artificially fed is less healthy than the exclusively breastfed baby of the most disadvantaged mother.

Where mothers were not under the intense pressures of urban poverty, breastfeeding could flourish.

Enabling mothers and babies to fulfil this period of vital nurture is not a favour to women; it is a contribution to the whole of society.

87% of mothers used artificial milk because they believed that the hospital staff had advised to do so. In reality they had been advised by saleswomen disguised as nurses on the hospital ward.3

Many mothers were convinced that artificial milk was a medicine, especially as it was endorsed and distributed through healthcare channels.

I felt my health giving way, and being in a weak condition, I became an easy prey to sexual intercourse, and thus once more became a mother in fourteen months.

These depots were the forerunners of health clinics all over the world where a cheap or free product has been used to lure mothers to submit to the vigilant eyes of those who know best.

Most mothers intended to breastfeed, but the spreading message to restrict feeding made problems more likely.

In spite of continual railing against those unworthy mothers who did not suckle their babies, there was little interest or research into the causes of breastfeeding difficulties.

It was the medical staff, not the mothers, who resisted the idea that breastfeeding worked.

The stress of rapid change, the absence of supportive female relatives and the attempt to adjust to an alien way of life disturbed the cultural practices which protected mothers and babies.

In a 1925 report on infant feeding there was the regretful statement that “some mothers had not even seen a clock and those who had, could not understand what it had to do with the feeding of an infant”.24

The integration of mothers and babies into public life was viewed with ridicule and alarm in many societies.

4. No contact between marketing personnel and mothers (including health workers paid by a company to advise or teach).

Nurses also instructed mothers not to let their babies fondle their breasts.39

To be a good mother, a woman is supposed to devote herself entirely to her children (and often a dependent and childlike husband) and to do so she must be set apart from ‘normal life’. Consequently she is separated from control over her economic survival and social independence.

Confidence, passed on with a bit of technique by other experienced breastfeeding mothers, is still the key to happy breastfeeding.

There is more prolactin in a woman’s bloodstream at night, indicating that over the millennia babies have taken more milk from their mothers at night than during the day.

The assumption that fertility control should be manipulated by authorities without respect for the wishes and dignity of individuals still exists. We see this in societies where political and religious ideologies, demographic concerns and class prejudice influence the supply or withdrawal of contraceptive provision and support for mothering.

In the 1980s the Singapore government gave preferential school admission to the children of mothers with university degrees, while offering less-educated women S$10,000 grants to be sterilised after the birth of their second child.

Breastfeeding mothers, sleeping by their babies in three-sided cribs with the open side joined to the adult bed, respond quite differently from mothers whose babies are in four-sided cribs.

Health workers, relatives and society as a whole pressure mothers to ‘get back to normal’.

In the USA mothers on ‘welfare’ are compelled to return to work six weeks after birth or they do not get their social security cheques.38

Modern health and aid workers still dole out artificial milk to breastfeeding mothers in hospitals, clinics and refugee camps because they do not like to ‘waste’ free supplies provided by guileful companies and ignorant donors.

As it became usual for the noble baby to be wet nursed, it became more difficult for a mother to defy custom.

Studies from rich countries show that C-Section mothers are less likely to be breastfeeding at two weeks than those who delivered vaginally.25

between 1915 and 1930, US maternal mortality did not decline and deaths of babies from birth injuries actually increased. Hospitals advertised widely, urging mothers to ‘go for the best’, and women believed they were getting just that when they paid the high fees.

a product presented as ‘closest to mother’s milk’ might actually include potatoes, fungi and beans, depending on the price of course.

Our class owes its uniqueness to mothering and lactation; indeed that is why it is called ‘mammalia’, after the mammary glands.

In the struggle for power, or simply economic survival in the modern world, many women who have children find that they must curtail mothering, and restricting lactation is part of this. Yet lactation, a process which evolved before gestation, is the very core of our identity.

One sad fact of the 20th century was that the more contact mothers had with health workers, the less they breastfed.5

A common media image of breastfeeding has been of a hungry mother in a famine rather than of the millions of ordinary women who breastfeed without fuss.

A mother’s breast is like an efficient pharmacist: it produces general disease preventing substances for everyday use and then makes up specific medicines to order as need arises.

Solitary babies are in danger and crying is evolution’s method of alerting a mother that her baby needs her urgently. If ignored a newborn mammal’s instinctive survival strategy is to feign death through silence to evade predators.

Waiting for two minutes, or until the cord has stopped pulsating, before clamping, enables blood transfer from the placenta to the baby. This will make a big difference to a child’s long-term iron stores and is especially important for babies born to mothers with low iron themselves.66

a mother’s breast gives warmth, food, protection against disease and a learning exercise in interactions.

Kangaroo mother care is a basic right of the newborn and should be an integral part of the management of low birth weight and full-term infants in all settings at all levels of care in all countries.