Skip Navigation

Journal of Tropical Pediatrics 1976 22(2):34-41; doi:10.1093/tropej/22.2.34
© 1976 by Oxford University Press
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by FOWLER, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by FOWLER, M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

research-article

A New Era in Breast Feeding

MARGARET FOWLER, President

Nursing Mothers' Association of Australia

Address for reprints: Mrs M. Fowler, 68 South Rd., Brighton, Vic. 3186, Australia.

Increasing worldwide interest and advances in biochemical and analytical sciences are providing greater knowledge of human milk and lactation. Sophisticated techniques of analysis have revealed many specific sugars, fats and fatty acids, minerals, vitamins and other enzymes that combine in the mammary gland to create human milk. This active tissue in liquid form has been evolved by Darwinian selection principles specifically for the nurture of the human infant. However the statement "Breast fed is best fed" is not believed by many stout, upstanding citizens with sludge-lined arteries and corroding kidneys who have "thrived" in infancy on artificial formula.

Human milk provides protection for the infant adapting to his new environment. It is also an index of environmental and social pollutants as the mammary tissues filter insecticide and weedicide residues, antidepressants and tranquilizers, antibiotics and analgesics through the secretory epithelium.

Lactation is normally preceded by development of the mammary gland associated with endocrine changes of pregnancy although evidence of nonpuerperal lactation is well documented, with sucking stimulus effecting hormone release from the pituitary. Establishment and maintenance of lactation require adequate interaction between infant and maternal reflexes, the former being rooting, suckling and swallowing. The maternal milk secretion reflex is dependent upon stimulation of the nipple and areolar tissue. The maternal milk ejection reflex has both somatic and psychosomatic components.

Knowledge, the ready availability of practical information, and social and familial endorsement and mores affect a mother's lactation capabilities. Breast feeding enriches the mother-child relationship, with cognitive reception by the developing infant, and endowment of love, security, confidence and a satisfying hormonal state upon the mother.

Low incidence of lactation is an index of the social and interpersonal impoverishment in many technologically advanced communities today.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.