Sexual folklore: semen as poison

Many quite diverse peoples appear to have believed that semen poisons breast milk. According to Gigi Santow, writing in the journal Population Studies*, this belief  was common in medieval Europe and "survived in France until at least the nineteenth century and has been documented in Sicily as recently as the late 1970s.” Santow also notes that “The belief that semen poisons a mother’s milk is widely held in sub-Saharan Africa, and many groups traditionally enjoined lactating women to abstain.” It is also believed by tribal people in rural Papua New Guinea.
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*"Coitus interruptus and the Control of Natural Fertility" by Gigi Santow, Population Studies, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Mar., 1995), pp. 19-43.

Comments

[Jake]

Sub-Saharan Africa, huh? Now there are some great scientific minds... Semen is poison to breast milk but doing prostitutes on the side of the road is hunky dory...

[Melissa Johnson]

Well, there is something to be said for limiting sexual contact during lactation to put space between pregnancies--so yeah, it is kind of inadvertently scientific genius. Don't know about the roadside hooker thing, though :D

[gail]

I think the "poison" idea probably came from the correct observation that if a woman becomes pregnant too soon after a birth, it's unhealthy not only for the woman but for the hext child as well.

[Pixie]

Plus... if she's breast feeding and gets pregnant it could decrease the milk she produces for her nursing baby.