A Case History of Twins Breastfed on a Self-demand Regime

Abstract

W E ARE presenting the case history of the first thirteen months of life of a pair of twins, male and female, breast fed according to their own demands from the third week of life. Other aspects of their care were based on the same philosophy; but in the present account we have emphasized the feeding history. . There have appeared in the literature several reports of self-regulated infant feeding sehedulesY, a In our experience the self-regulation regime for infants, especially for feeding and sleeping, is increasingly popular with parents, who report happy babies arid readily adjusted households when such a system is in praetiee. However, there still prevails much skepticism in the minds of many members of the medical profession as to the practicality and wisdom of such a philosophy of infant feeding and care. We believe with Gesell and Ilg, ~ Aldrich and Aldrich, 1 and Senn and NewilP that the cultural adaptation of infants may be facilitated by early recognition of and adherence to individual needs. We present the case of Peter and Sherry, therefore, because we fed that their superior development lends some support to this view, as their good feeding history and satisfactory growth demonstrate the practicality as well as wisdom of a self-demand regime, even for twins.