All issues > Volume 39(1); 1996

Erratum

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1996;39(1):36-41. Published online January 15, 1996.

Breast Feeding: A Neurobiologic Perspective

Jan J Winberg¹

¹Department of Woman and Child Health, Karolinska Hospital, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract

Breast-feeding(BF) failures are common in industrialized societies and can only partly be explained by social, psychologic, culturaland 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 acomplex 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 willbenefit if the perinatalcare 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 todevelop an adequate sucking technique.

Keywords :Breast-feeding, Developmental neuro-biology, Lactation, Materna behaviour, Neonatal behaviour