by S. Todd Stolp MD
©August 2007
An appropriate public health message for a Neanderthal human living 150,000 years ago would look strikingly different from a public health message appropriate to a human living today. The message for primitive humans might include ways to recognize clean water, where to safely build a shelter and information about how to clean assorted bite wounds. Conspicuously absent would be advice to exercise thirty minutes each day and encouragement to breast feed. The reasons for these different priorities may seem obvious, but it may help to remind us how profoundly we have meddled with our natural machinery.
In fact, the trend to replace breast milk with substitutes is a relatively recent development. Prior to the availability of infant formulae, a “wet nurse” or lactating community member was occasionally employed to breast feed an infant in the absence of the biological mother. In the last century, careful chemical analysis of breast milk led ambitious laboratories to develop breast milk substitutes using the milk of other mammals mixed with various combinations of proteins, nutrients and vitamins to approximate the components that were identified in human milk. The products then required special engineering to develop powdered formulations and packaging to prevent contamination during transport, and finally to design bottles that would as closely as possible accommodate the mouth of the infant and simulate the natural action of the human breast.
Regardless of our scientific brilliance, modern humans have failed to improve upon the human breast. The American Academy of Pediatrics points out that there is considerable evidence that breast feeding decreases the incidence of a wide range of infectious diseases in infants, and reduces the occurrence of subsequent diabetes, lymphoma, leukemia, high blood cholesterol, asthma and obesity in the infant. Breastfeeding mothers also reap considerable rewards, including a more rapid return to prepregnancy weight, decreased risk of breast cancer, decreased risk of ovarian cancer, and possibly decreased risk of hip fractures and osteoporosis in the postmenopausal period. The boundless benefits of warm, human touch needs no further expansion.
The purpose of World Breastfeeding Awareness month is to reaffirm confidence and appreciation for our natural machinery. Current recommendations seek to encourage all mothers to exclusively breastfeed their infants for at least the first six months after birth, and to continue breastfeeding through the first year of life. When our natural inclinations are diverted by the allure of clever merchandising, such as the illusion of the convenience of baby formula, it is worthwhile to look carefully at the machinery we are replacing. Our own bodies can often boast of features that science and industry can only hope to approximate. Just ask a Neanderthal.