How long do apes breastfeed

But when it comes to primates, orangutans, it seems, have all other species beat, reports Austa Somvichian-Clausen for National Geographic.

They breastfeed their young for up to eight years. Studying orangutan nursing habits, however, is far from easy. Orangutans like to climb and nurse at night, clasping their babies close, making it almost impossible to make direct observations of how everything works in the wild—or how long they nurse.

So researchers decided to analyze the barium levels in orangutan teeth in the hopes it would serve as a kind of backdoor to their nursing habits.

They detail their findings in a paper in the journal Science Advances. The team studied four immature orangutans that were shot in the wild and their bones housed in zoological museums. Difficulty breastfeeding, in combination with modern marketing pressure of buying and using infant formula, has created a culture in Western society that does not facilitate knowledge sharing for successful breastfeeding.

This recent change in infant feeding practices in WEIRD cultures has changed every aspect of human development, including social bonding processes, maturation of the gut microbiome, and patterns of gene expression in the brain of modern humans. Outside of other primates, there is no evidence of occurrence of breastfeeding difficulty in other mammals who nurse their infants. In fact, most mammalian young e. Skip to main content.

Difficulty Breastfeeding. Certainty Style Key. Certainty styling is being phased out topic by topic. Hover over keys for definitions:. What is MOCA? Human Uniqueness Compared to "Great Apes":. Human Universality:. Population Universal Some Individuals Everywhere. MOCA Domain:. Reproductive Biology and Disease. Emily Little. Probable Appearance Lineage Separation Event :. Definite Appearance:.

Background Information:. The Human Difference:. Universality in Human Populations:. Mechanisms Responsible for the Difference:. Possible Selection Processes Responsible for the Difference:. Implications for Understanding Modern Humans:. Occurrence in Other Animals:. Topic Certainty Milk Composition Likely. Related Talks:. The benefits of extended breastfeeding have been demonstrated both in the less developed and the industrialized world.

Kathleen M. Buckley for the Journal of Human Lactation , both showed that extended breastfeeding until three years old resulted in lower rates of malnutrition compared to those who were not breastfed as long. They determined that not only did breastfed children get sick less often than weaned children, but those who continued partial breastfeeding up until the age of three had the lowest rate of infection. As the authors concluded:.

Apart from the remarkably higher incidence of diarrhea in weaned children the clear decline in the rates of diarrhea in breast fed children in the second year of life was also surprising since the older children were breast fed irregularly and their main diet was as for adults. The unusually low level of breastfeeding in the United States therefore has public health implications rather than simply being a lifestyle choice.

Ultimately, mothers—as well as fathers—need to decide for themselves how much, or how little, breastfeeding they are comfortable with. This piece has been corrected from how it originally appeared. Katherine A. Dettwyler calculated that human weaning should occur between 2. News U.

Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. Special Projects Highline. HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Follow Us.