Comparing mother's milk...

Comparing mother's milk, colostrum contains more minerals and proteins, which mainly consist of globin, and to less degree, sugar and fat.[^9] The importance and nutritious-hygienic value of feeding the infants colostrum has made this issue to be brought up in legal texts and many jurists have obliged mothers to feed it to their infants, even if they may demand wages for it, since the baby's survival is dependent upon eating it.[^10] In contrast, some people criticize this claim and reject it as untrue, maintaining that the baby can survive without eating the colostrum, for it can be breastfed after birth by a woman other than its mother; some women do not secrete colostrum and it may so happen that breastfeeding the colostrum would not be possible because of the mother's illness.[^11] Paying attention to these points has made some great jurists claim that the baby's life is dependent upon taking colostrum milk in most but not all instances; besides, taking this milk makes the baby's body stronger and more vigorous.[^12] Regardless of the reasons proposed by the proponents and critics of obliging mothers to feed their infants colostrum, feeding this milk to infants is so important that a group of Shiʿa jurists have given fatwa (a legal edict) that if a woman is sentenced to qisas (retaliation punishment) or lapidation (stoning to death) for murder or other criminal acts, the execution of the punishment should be postponed so that the mother could feed the infant colostrum, reasoning that the infant's livelihood is dependent upon the intake of colostrum, as the infant is often unable to survive without it; hence,…