The Caretaker‐Child Strategic Model: Efe and Aka Child Rearing as Exemplars of the Multiple Factors Affecting Child Rearing—A Reply to Hewlett

Tronick, Ed; Morelli, Gilda A.; Winn, Steve

doi:10.1525/aa.1989.91.1.02a00200

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…The bimodal pattern of fertility among the Efe also increases the availability of adults who are not encumbered with children of their own. However, from previous work we know that low fertility does not fully account for the pattern of care among adults, because reproductively active females among the Efe also commonly provide care to the infants of others as well as to their own (Tronick, Morelli, & Winn, 1989, in response to Hewlett, 1988).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Efe forager infant and toddler's pattern of social relationships: Multiple and simultaneous.

Tronick¹,

Morelli²,

Ivey³

1992

Developmental Psychology

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This study extends previous observations on the multiple caretaking system of newborns and young infants among the Efe foragers of Zaire, to Efe infants and toddlers, whose social contacts with mother, father, adults, and children at 5 and 8 months and at 1, 2, and 3 years were observed naturalistically. The Efe infant experiences a pattern of simultaneous and multiple relationships rather than a pattern that is initially focused on one person, most typically the mother, and that with development progresses to other relationships. This pattern is influenced by physical and social ecological factors and cultural practices. It is argued (a) that this pattern of social experience leads to a sense of self that incorporates other people and (b) that some of our assumptions about the nature of social development, especially that early relationships are hierarchical and sequential in nature, require reevaluation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Efe forager infant and toddler's pattern of social relationships: Multiple and simultaneous.

Tronick¹,

Morelli²,

Ivey³

1992

Developmental Psychology

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research methods and settings along with our findings that allomaternal nursing occurs within a relatively narrow infant age range and that forager nursing bouts are often of short duration contribute to the difficulty in observing the practice. When Tronick, Morelli, and Winn (1987) published their work on Efé allomaternal nursing, at first I (Hewlett) did not think it occurred often with Aka because I was working primarily with fathers and older infants; it was not until I started to conduct behavioral observations with a large sample of younger infants (Hewlett et al 1998) that I realized it was so common. Recently I presented allomaternal nursing data at a professional meeting, and prominent male and female Congo Basin ethnographers working with Aka and other hunter-gatherers responded the same way as Terashima did with the Efé; that is, it was a surprise to them that it existed.…”

Section: Frequency Of Allomaternal Nursingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Frequencies of allomaternal nursing are based upon the percentage or proportion of the total number of observation intervals allomaternal nursing occurred (e.g., if an infant spent .25 amount of time allomaternal nursing, it means that she was observed nursing in 25% of all 30-second [Aka data] or 1-minute [Efé data] intervals). See Hewlett et al (1998Hewlett et al ( , 2000 and Tronick, Morelli, and Winn (1987) for more details on the codes and observational methods.It is important to note that any time an infant was on the nipple of an adult female (not instances of a father or young teenage girl putting the infant to his/her nipple for a few seconds), including grandmothers, it was coded as "nursing" regardless of how much milk or fluid the infant actually received or whether or not they received anything at all. This is an important issue when considering the costs and benefits of nonmaternal nursing, and it is discussed in the second half of the paper.…”

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Allomaternal Nursing in Humans

Hewlett

Winn²

2014

Current Anthropology

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Few studies exist of allomaternal nursing in humans. It is relatively common among some cultures, such as the Aka and Efé hunter-gatherers of the Congo Basin, but it does not occur in other foragers such as the !Kung and Hadza of Southern and East Africa. This paper utilizes focal follow observations of Aka and Efé infants, interviews with Aka mothers, ethnographic reports from researchers working with hunter-gatherers, and a survey of the eHRAF cultures to try to answer the following questions: how often does allomaternal nursing occur, who provides it, and under what contexts does it take place? The study indicates that it occurs in many cultures (93% of cultures with data) but that it is normative in relatively few cultures; biological kin, especially grandmothers, frequently provide allomaternal nursing and that infant age, mother's condition, and culture (e.g., cultural models about if and when women other than the mother can nurse an infant or colostrum taboos) impact the nature and frequency of allomaternal nursing. The empirical results of this exploratory study are discussed in the context of existing hypotheses used to explain allomaternal nursing.Anthropologists have conducted several studies of breastfeeding from a variety of perspectives (Fouts, Hewlett, and Lamb 2012;Gottlieb 2004;Sellen 2007) and have occasionally described allomaternal nursing, that is, women other than mother nursing infants, but quantitative studies on the topic do not exist. Nutritional and health benefits of breast-feeding for mothers and infants are well documented (see American Academy of Pediatrics [2005] and Field [2005] for reviews), but what about infants who are breast-fed by women other than mother? Lactation is energetically costly, and allomaternal nursing may increase pathogen transmission between mothers and other infants. La Leche League, a global organization that promotes and assists women with breast-feeding, discourages both wet nursing (nursing another woman's infant, often for pay) and cross-nursing (the occasional nursing of another woman's infant while the mother continues to nurse her own child, often in a child-care situation), because the other women may transmit infectious diseases to the infant or cause the infant to be psychologically confused (Lawrence and Lawrence 2011;Minami 1995). Exceptions exist if the mother has health or other issues that lead to breast-feeding difficulties. 1 Allomaternal nursing occurs in many cultures. Our review of cultures in the electronic Human Relations Area Files (eHRAF), a digital database of 258 cultures from around the world, found that it existed in 97 of 104 cultures with ethnographic data about Barry S. Hewlett is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology of Washington State University, Vancouver (Vancouver, Washington 98686, U.S.A. [hewlett@vancouver.wsu.edu]). Steve Winn is Senior Vice President at the Behavioral Health Network (417 Liberty Street, Springfield, Massachusetts 01104, U.S.A.). This paper was submitted 8 VI 11, accepted 18 I 13, and ele...

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Expressive timing and interactional synchrony between mothers and infants: cultural similarities, cultural differences, and the immigration experience

Gratier

2003

Cognitive Development

139

114

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The Caretaker‐Child Strategic Model: Efe and Aka Child Rearing as Exemplars of the Multiple Factors Affecting Child Rearing—A Reply to Hewlett

Cited by 5 publications

References 2 publications

The Efe forager infant and toddler's pattern of social relationships: Multiple and simultaneous.

The Efe forager infant and toddler's pattern of social relationships: Multiple and simultaneous.

Allomaternal Nursing in Humans

Expressive timing and interactional synchrony between mothers and infants: cultural similarities, cultural differences, and the immigration experience

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