[Dove]

Two of my sons had problems with nasal congestion. They wanted to eat, but they needed to breathe even more. A baby who tries, screams, and tries again is the tell. Or who just can't seem to make up his mind as to whether he wants to or not. Or who just can't seem to form any sort of a secure latch. It's easy to blame a bad latch, but babies are good at sucking on things. I didn't find latching was any sort of problem when the noses were working right. They were letting go because they had to. The fridababy nose sucker, saline sprays, and sitting in steamed up bathrooms were life savers for us.

[NoRagrets]

Playing support staff for a 6 month old now..daily massages for the baby in steamy bathrooms is helpful. I have been doing this with my grandmother in our large joint family from back when..one thing I have noticed that is diff now than it was over many years ago are the eczema rashes and esp after vaccinations. I guess that’s the immune system kicking in…treating the eczema gently rather than directly and immediately resorting to steroidal creams is better. The nasal congestions are also on the rise..usually post vaccination. The steamy room massages do help alleviate the distress a bit.

Nursing mothers need capable nutritionists as well as lactation consultants. The advantage of crone women in the family assisting is that they usually have a history of all related women and the various births in their heads. Women usually went back to their mothers’ home after seventh month of pregnancy and stayed there for at least 6-12 months post birth.

[midoridensha]

It's amazing humans haven't gone extinct if they have this much trouble with their newborns.

[abfan1127]

child birth was a huge factor on human mortality (both mother and child). Human's ability to conceive frequently (monthly fertility rather than annually) and being able to conceive for many years allows success. If we only bred annually and only bred for a few years, we likely would have gone extinct.