Breast is still the best for babies

I was driving through a New Forest village recently when I encountered an immense traffic jam that gridlocked the whole village. The narrow road was blocked in both directions—the cause of the pandemonium turned out to be a small newborn baby donkey the size of a Labrador dog, which was quietly having a feed from its mother in the middle of the road. The mother donkey stoically refused to budge until its baby had finished! It's only natural.

Donkeys have no alternative to breastfeeding, but in contemporary society humans do. However, to reclaim the significant benefits of breastfeeding among humans the Dutch technology company Philips published the results of a study in August (Philips, 2019) which, among other things, shows the importance of partner participation in the breastfeeding process. (Philips AVENT manufactures baby bottles, breast pumps, and other baby feeding and health accessories.)

Out of necessity, human mothers have been known to breastfeed other animals such as piglets (Simoons and Baldwin, 1982), and before the invention of rubber-teated glass bottles it was not uncommon for human babies to be suckled by a goat or similar animal. Think back to ancient Rome and the story of Romulus and Remus, the founding fathers of ancient Rome, who were allegedly breastfed by a wolf.