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- Neolithic animal shaped baby bottles were shown to have non-human milk residue. One reasonably likely outcome is that women who stopped nursing early and used the "bottles" to feed babies had shorter periods of post partum infertility. Nursing extends that time.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...storic-babies-drank-animal-milk-from-a-bottle
Neolithic animal shaped baby bottles were shown to have non-human milk residue. One reasonably likely outcome is that women who stopped nursing early and used the "bottles" to feed babies had shorter periods of postpartum infertility. Nursing extends that time. Shorter periods of infertility may have the effect of increasing population growth. It may also have introduced children to potentially harmful pathogens.
According to the article, shortened breastfeeding duration has the effect of shortening the onset of ovulation after birth.
This is a popular science kind of article. Letter to Nature for content seems to be behind a paywall:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1572-x.epdf
J. Dunne et al, Milk of ruminants in ceramic baby bottles from prehistoric child graves
Neolithic animal shaped baby bottles were shown to have non-human milk residue. One reasonably likely outcome is that women who stopped nursing early and used the "bottles" to feed babies had shorter periods of postpartum infertility. Nursing extends that time. Shorter periods of infertility may have the effect of increasing population growth. It may also have introduced children to potentially harmful pathogens.
According to the article, shortened breastfeeding duration has the effect of shortening the onset of ovulation after birth.
This is a popular science kind of article. Letter to Nature for content seems to be behind a paywall:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1572-x.epdf
J. Dunne et al, Milk of ruminants in ceramic baby bottles from prehistoric child graves