Posted on 05/25/2013 7:02:01 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
A baby Neanderthal who lived in what is now Belgium about 100,000 years ago started eating solid food at 7 months old, revealing a new aspect of the evolution of breast-feeding.
The precision of this estimate is courtesy a new technique that uses elements in teeth to determine when breast-feeding started and stopped. Though researchers can't be sure the young Neanderthal's pattern was typical of its kind, such a breast-feeding pattern is not unlike that seen in many modern humans...
Until now, however, no one had an effective way of looking at bones and reconstructing breast-feeding history. Past attempts had relied on moms' memories of when they started supplementing breast milk with solid food and when they weaned their babies...
He and his colleagues had an advantage: A large study of pregnant women in Monterey County, Calif., that started when the women were only 20 weeks along in their pregnancies and followed them for years. At seven years and onward, the mothers were asked to donate a baby tooth their child had lost. Arora and his colleagues analyzed the teeth for biomarkers that matched changes in the child's breast-feeding status.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
A molar tooth model showing color-coded barium patterns. CREDIT: Ian Harrowell, Christine Austin and Manish Arora
|
|
GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
|
|
Cave women did what comes naturally, thus, the survival of our species.
Women now cave to the baby formula market and refuse to nurse, because they can’t take the pain and don’t want to invest the time or the work it takes to breastfeed.
We see increasing amounts of allergies due to cow’s milk, bunches more doctor visits due to problems with formula feeding in infants and it goes on and on. We as taxpayers are on the hook to provide expensive formula to the poor who find a multitude of reasons and ways not to nurse.
It’s stupid. We are going backwards as a species with so many of our practices.
Breastfeeding Nazi rant over.
You have put out some good reading this morning. Thanks
As I recall I think I had a steak with a bottle of suds.
Ditto on the good reading ping.
Probably. Babies would have been partly weaned as soon as possible although they likely would have still nursed until they were about two.
That would reduce the stress on the mother's body as far as calories while allowing baby to get the needed nutrients from mamma's milk.
When my oldest child was 3 weeks old, hurricane Hugo paid us a visit. I remember the long lines at a Red Cross truck delivering formula, and I wonder how did those families without electricity managed to sterilize bottles, nipples... My breast-fed daughter always had her food ready, sterile and warm at any time of the day or the night!
I like breastfeeding.
Modern women breast-feed their kids until they start cutting teeth, and then they wean them off because it hurts. Once a human starts growing teeth, the natural instinct is to chew. Time for some solid food. And we needed some egghead researcher to tell us what our ancestors knew half a million years ago, and what instinct and common sense tells us today?
Thanks for posting. Amazing that one element and location, barium in a baby tooth, was found to be a clear marker of the stage of the baby’s life.
Backwards? Back to the days when our ancient ancestors used formula? Are you suggesting that breast-feeding is some kind of "advancement" that we are now abandoning, i.e. those who choose not to breast feed are moving "backward?"
I don't disagree with your points, but to say that those who won't breast feed are moving backward kinda makes me scratch my head.
One baby does not a study make. But it will produce millions in grant money.
Read history and you will see that before formula, and especially among primitive tribes, it was not uncommon for mothers to nurse kids until they were three or four year old.
For a meat diet Neanderthal, the only supplemental food available was blood or meat juices. My father told me that when he was a child on a ranch, they would put chunks of rare cooked meat in a cloth and squeeze out the blood and juice to feed to babies (1930s).
Somewhat Witty, Itty Bitty Titty Ditty
A cave lady whose breasts were quite wee,
Little more than the stings of a bee,
..Decided implants
..Were the way to enhance
What became a huge 42 (Gee!)
Coconuts?
Move over, kid.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.