Breast Feeding: A Neurobiologic Perspective

Sweden, Stockholm; Winberg, Jan

Abstract

Breast-feeding(BF) failures are common in industrialized societies and can only partly be explained by social, psychologic, cultural and cognitive factors. The more profound causes remain unknown. This annotation presents clinical observations suggesting that several nursing care rituals in delivery rooms and maternity wards interfere with innate behavioural programs and consequently may disturb the unfolding feeding behaviour. Mother-infant interaction including BF depend on the activation of a complex network of neuronal pathways in "the old mammalian brain", as well as of certain hormonal systems especially within the neuropeptide family. Since this organization shows an evolutionary stability one can assume that it has partly been preserved in the human. Initiation and promotion of breast-feeding will benefit if the perinatal care of mother and baby supports their innate behavioural agendas. Mothers who fail often have a low confidence in their ability to breast-feed. The self-confidence is strengthened when the mother experiences that her baby all by itself can find the nipple and begin to suck within an hour of delivery. Similarly this early start helps the baby to develop an adequate sucking technique.