Re: [xmca] moral life of babies

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

In Liberia infant mortality rate was particularly high around schools. Why?
The girls were convinced to use similac instead of breastfeeding. Lacking
money, but seeking to "do right by their babies" they substituted the water
used to rinse rice for similac and bottle fed their babies. The water, being
contaminated, increased already prevalent diarrhea and dehydration and
death.

Some call it progress.
mike

On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 7:52 PM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:

> On May 15, 2010, at 6:22 PM, mike cole wrote:
>
> Any idea of the infant mortality rate among the Kogi? Seems like it might
> be a little difficult to make it past a couple of months! (Among the Kpelle
> when i worked in Liberia it was about 50%, but that owing to high levels of
> malaria and nasty water, and of course, no money to buy prophylactic
> medicines. Extreme poverty makes for very different imaginaries.
> mike
>
>
> I don't know the infant mortality rate, but it would be interesting to know
> how such events are understood. I have heard the infant malnutrition rate is
> high. But the cause of that seems to be not poverty of the life style per
> se, but accommodations forced on the Kogi. Their territory has been reduced
> so that now they have only high mountain terrain to farm. And they have been
> somehow convinced to consume foodstuffs that are not part of their
> traditional cultivation, and which have lower nutritional value.
>
> Martin
>
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