SILENT BABIES AND BREASTFEEDING
SOME physicians in Japan say there is
an increase in the number of babies who neither cry nor smile. Pediatrician
Satoshi Yanagisawa calls them silent babies. Why do the babies stop expressing
their emotions? Some doctors believe that the condition arises because babies
are deprived of parental contact. The condition is called enforced
helplessness. One theory suggests that when needs for communication are
constantly ignored or misinterpreted, the infants eventually give up trying.
If a baby is not given proper
stimulations at the right time, the part of his brain that makes him emphatic
may not develop, suggests Dr. Bruce Perry, chief of psychiatry at Texas
Children’s Hospital. In cases of profound emotional neglect, capacity to feel
empathy may be irretrievably lost. Dr. Perry believes that in some case
substance abuse and adolescent violence can be linked to such early life
experiences.
Queensland researchers who studies almost
4000 Brisbane children found that, on the whole, those who were breastfed had
higher IQs. Professor Jake Najman of the University of Queensland said: The
longer the mother breastfed, the higher the intelligence of the child. It’s not
just a small advantage that the breastfed children have; it’s about eight IQ points,
which is quite a substantial advantage. It’s the difference between being an
average child and being a reasonably bright child. Another possible advantage
of breastfeeding is that it may be a factor in reducing by up to 30% a child’s
risk of becoming obese. According to lactation consultant Joy Heads, there are
very few waste products in breastmilk, which is almost perfectly utilized. You
can have a big, chubby breast-fed baby and there is no problem with that at
all. But a fat, bottle-fed baby has a higher chance of being obese later in
life.
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