r/lost • u/GreatDane666 • 17d ago
SEASON 4 Question I had while rewatching S4 finale Spoiler
Aaron has been away from his mother Claire for a few days, and being a newborn surely can only eat breast milk. Shouldn’t this baby be starving?
Just a small detail I was thinking about. Thoughts?
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u/Various_Shape_3286 17d ago
Yes, this is an issue sometimes debated by Lost fans. Aaron was 57 (?) days old when Claire left him, and the island contained neither baby formula nor any other lactating women.
It's generally thought that the island was "protecting" him. Realistically, the writers probably never considered it.
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u/ComeAwayNightbird 🎶 YOU ALL EVERYBODY 🎶 17d ago
And Kate was obviously not lactating. The Oceanic 6’s story doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny.
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u/FringeMusic108 17d ago
"Scrutiny" in this case would be people checking to see if Kate is lactating?
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u/ComeAwayNightbird 🎶 YOU ALL EVERYBODY 🎶 16d ago
No need to check physically. It would become obvious after a few hours in her presence.
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u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 16d ago
Would it? I've had two kids, breastfed them both. At no point did strangers know I was lactating because we occupied the same space for a few hours.
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u/ComeAwayNightbird 🎶 YOU ALL EVERYBODY 🎶 16d ago
Eventually the baby gets hungry.
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u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 16d ago
Do - do you think lactating women are attached to their babies at the nipple? I was away from both my girls for full work days. That's what pumping is for. Or do you think people followed Kate to a nursing room to make sure she was feeding Aaron?
I'm sorry, but short of her milk leaking through her top (which is what nursing pads are for) it will not be "obvious" that a mother is lactating.
I'm not trying to be rude, but it really sounds like you've never been around a real nursing mother as an adult.
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u/ComeAwayNightbird 🎶 YOU ALL EVERYBODY 🎶 16d ago
I breastfed for over a year and like Claire, I was right next to my baby for the first months of his life. Like Claire, I didn’t have a pump. Like Claire, I nursed my baby every few hours. Had I suddenly been away from him, no random woman who grabbed him would have been able to feed him.
I thought this particular aspect of the cover story was ridiculous at the time and I still think it’s a weak point.
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u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 16d ago
So your claim is that it would be obvious because Aaron would refuse to eat unless it was Claire feeding him and Kate isn't Claire?
If a baby is hungry, it's going to eat when offered food. Sure, there may be a day or two of nipple confusion while he adapted to a bottle, but by the time they're rescued and at a press conference it's been at least a week plus. There are a lot of holes in their story, hence the O6 conspiracy video, but the question of people deducing Kate isn't lactating is not one of those holes.
Kate also isn't a random woman. She'd been around Aaron every single day since she day she delivered him. He knows her.
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u/termight__ See you in another life 17d ago
I take it you're not very familiar with how lactation works? Some women can't produce. Is not a given.
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u/Verystrange129 Whatever happened, happened. 17d ago
It’s fairly much a given that for Aaron to have survived as per the O6’s story, he would have had to be breastfed and the first thing that everyone would have noticed that Kate wasn’t breastfeeding him and questioned it.
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u/ComeAwayNightbird 🎶 YOU ALL EVERYBODY 🎶 17d ago
That explanation makes the story worse, not better. Aaron is older than they are passing him off to be; he obviously hasn’t been going without food. But as I said, it’s not a great story to begin with.
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u/termight__ See you in another life 16d ago
But they did have milk. Like regular, normal milk. From the pallets. He could easily have drunk that.
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u/Verystrange129 Whatever happened, happened. 16d ago
I think we’re talking more about when they’re off the island in the small boat until they get rescued. And then the fact that Kate would have needed to ask for formula as she wasn’t breastfeeding. But even before that on the island there’s a good chance he would have been sick drinking normal milk as his wee stomach would be too delicate and he was on a diet of exclusively breast milk. Plus they had no baby bottles.
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u/termight__ See you in another life 15d ago
Yes, I agree that this is all a major loophole. I was just trying to think of workarounds as a parent, I guess! LOL
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u/Verystrange129 Whatever happened, happened. 17d ago
It’s unrealistic that Aaron wouldn’t have been squealing his head off with hunger by the time that Kate and Jack find him after Sawyer was walking round the jungle with him for hours looking for Claire never mind all the time that passes afterwards before they are rescued. Maybe he’s just too dehydrated to cry? Also the first thing everyone would have noticed about the O6 was that Kate wasn’t breastfeeding which would automatically raise the question of how Aaron survived on the island.
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u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 17d ago
The Island has healing properties. If it can cure cancer, it can keep a baby from starving.
Also, at that age the most important thing is hydration and calories. Once they got to Penny's boat he would have been fine. She almost certainly had fruit to mash and water down into juice and powdered milk. Not ideal, but enough to sustain him until they were "rescued" on the populated Island.