Category Archives: breastfeeding

May 18, 2012 · 7:41 AM

Extended Breastfeeding – Let’s Get Real

By now you’ve all seen it: The Time cover with the young and beautiful mom breastfeeding a 3 or 4 year old boy, who for some reason is standing up on a chair as he nurses and stares down the camera. If you’re like me, you’ve in fact seen it over and over (and over and over and over) in your Facebook news feed, accompanied by commentary and opinion on both sides of the issue. Beautiful! Love it! Disgusting! Perverted!

I have my own opinions… on the photo, on the sensational “Are you mom enough?” headline, on the act of breastfeeding a 3 or 4 year old in general. But here’s the thing. My opinion, your opinion, the opinion of the zillions of people who are freaking out about this cover… none of it changes the fact that what’s shown on that cover is normal. It’s not wrong, it’s not disgusting, it’s not perverted. It shouldn’t even be controversial. It’s just…. biology.

I’m going to go over this one more time:

Humans are mammals. Let’s just start there. Humans are mammals, and mammals are biologically designed to get their early years’ nourishment from their mothers. And even if mom doesn’t initiate cessation herself, the child will eventually fulfill his/her need and wean, at whatever age is appropriate for that child. The appropriate age range is huge – just as it is for learning to walk, talk, and use the toilet – but being mammals, there are certain biological factors that point to what may be a natural and normal age for weaning.

You with me so far?

You may have heard that the worldwide average age for weaning is around 4. I’m quite certain I’ve touted it myself. But my recent readings have shown me that that number is not very meaningful, and in fact not necessarily even accurate. So forget that number. I’m not a math person, so words like “mean” and “median” tend to give me a headache anyway.

But I do love facts.

Here then are some facts about mammals and weaning*:

1. Larger mammals usually nurse their offspring until they have quadrupled in body weight. In humans, this happens around 2.5 to 3.5 years of age.

2. One study of primates showed that offspring naturally nursed until they’d reached 1/3 of their adult body weight. For humans, this means about 5 to 7 years.

3. Another study compared weaning ages and sexual maturity, and suggested a weaning age of about halfway to sexual maturity… around 6 years old for a human.

4. Still another study, conducted by Holly Smith on 21 different species of primates, showed that the offspring were weaned at the same time that they got their first set of permanent molars. In humans, this happens at 5.5 to 6 years.

*Read A Natural Age of Weaning by Katherine Dettwyler for more. She concludes a natural weaning age of anywhere from 2.5 to 7 years*

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends breastfeeding for at least a year.

The World Health Organization (WHO) now recommends breastfeeding for a minimum of two years.

And it should go without saying that the health and emotional benefits – both for mom and child – can’t be argued.

These are all facts. Your discomfort or disagreement doesn’t change them. It seems to me, given all of the above, that the question really shouldn’t be why or how moms like the ones on the cover of Time could breastfeed so long. It should be why so many people are in a rush to wean so early.

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Filed under attachment parenting, breastfeeding, parenting

August 17, 2011 · 6:30 AM

Breastfeeding in Public: Can we stop being stupid?

Fact: Breastfeeding in public is legal in all 50 states.

Fact: 45 states (including Texas) have specifically expressed, written laws further clarifying that a breastfeeding mother has the right to breastfeed her child anywhere and everywhere that she, the mother, has a legal right to be. (Check this link if you’re interested in state-by-state laws)

Fact: When employees at the Pure Fitness for Women club in Spring, Texas, asked a breastfeeding mother to move to a more “private” area, they were in fact breaking the law.

Those are facts. This is my opinion: I think it is completely and utterly ridiculous that breastfeeding moms are still, in 2011, having to deal with such ignorance and discrimination. Mothers have only been feeding their babies in this way since THE BEGINNING OF TIME. Long before the modern advent of formula and bottles, long before uptight misguided fitness club employees declared it inappropriate (while fellow patrons looked on in their barely-there lycra and spandex), long before we as a society lost sight of what was good and healthy and normal and right.

We are mammals, and that is how mammals feed their young. That’s a fact too. Your personal feelings of disagreement or discomfort can’t and don’t change biology. It bothers me – literally almost pains me – that people fail to recognize it for what it is: a mother feeding her baby in the way that her body was intended to feed a baby.

In an official statement following the incident, Pure Fitness made the following remarks:

“We have thousands of members’ children that do not understand,” the club stated. “At that age it is the discretion of the parent to determine if at a kids club age the child should learn about the benefits and reasons for breast feeding. We feel that children should not be exposed to these events without every parent being ok with their child being exposed to the action.”

I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but am I the only one who recognizes how ignorant – even stupid – these comments sound?

“We have thousands of members’ children that do not understand”. Such a tough thing to understand… A mom feeding a child. It’s a wonder my non-college educated brain could wrap itself around the concept soon enough to feed my own children. If a child asks, the answer is: “That’s how she feeds her baby. It’s how I fed you (or if you didn’t breastfeed, how Aunt Suzy or Grandma or the neighbor or someone else your child knows fed their baby)” It’s not rocket science, folks.

“At that age it is the discretion of the parent to determine if at a kids club age the child should learn about the benefits and reasons for breast feeding.”
Benefits and reasons? Sure, a 5 year old doesn’t necessarily need a detailed list of the physical and emotional benefits of breastfeeding for the mother and child, nor would he even understand it all. But the act of eating and getting nourishment is something even a baby can understand. It is, again, a biological necessity, and one that is appropriate for discussion with any and ALL ages. Is there honestly a mother out there who would not want her child to know about the “benefits and reasons” for breastfeeding?

“We feel that children should not be exposed to these events without every parent being ok with their child being exposed to the action.” I feel like I’m just repeating myself now, but “these events”, this “action” in question was a MOM FEEDING HER BABY. Can I say that again?

This was a mom feeding her baby.

She was exercising her right – both her human right and the right given to her by law – to feed her hungry child.

She wasn’t doing anything wrong.
She wasn’t doing anything indecent.
She wasn’t doing anything inappropriate.
She wasn’t doing anything illegal.

She was feeding a child. And she was asked to leave.

It’s 2011. I’d like to think I live in the real world, most of the time, but I’m having a very hard time understanding why we haven’t come further than this. We should be informed by now. We should be enlightened by now. Can we please, please, stop being so stupid?

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May 18, 2011 · 9:03 AM

Things That Make Me Go Hmm

The news stories that have been popping up on the internet lately have been coming from a veritable pool of craziness. Just when I think our world can’t get any more absurd, I read things like this that prove me wrong.

Isn’t this offensive? Shield your kids!

Really?

This is not even about extended nursing (or as I like to call it, “regular length” nursing) In fact, I’d love for it be a non-issue altogether. This is just how we were designed. No matter how you personally feel about it, nursing a two year old is normal. The worldwide weaning average is still 4 years, so in many houses, nursing a five or six year old is normal too.

This is about an utterly ridiculous, and illogical, law whose goal it is to exert more control over the masses. It’s not about nudity (as it claims) because if it were, short shorts would have to be outlawed too. They show far more skin than a breastfeeding mother. Tube tops, tank tops, anything cleavage-baring: a million times more revealing than a nursing mom.

Heck, let’s pass laws about flip-flops and hem lines and sheer fabrics.

Is it about someone feeding or comforting their child? Maybe the-powers-that-be feel that becomes inappropriate once the child is two? Then outlaw pacifiers in public too. Outlaw sippy cups. Outlaw those little round snack containers packed with Cheerios. You probably ought to outlaw hugs too, and holding your child all together, lest anyone get the wrong idea. And for pete’s sake, have your child’s birth certificate readily available, because they reserve the right to verify their age at any time.

Such a bold and productive new step for our country. Way to go, Georgia.

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November 15, 2010 · 2:59 PM

Offensive, defined

There is a “nurse-in” today on Facebook, both to celebrate breastfeeding, and to protest the removal of many, many breastfeeding pictures, and in some cases entire profiles, because the powers-that-be find them “obscene” and offensive in some way.

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Clearly, Facebook is just confused as to what constitutes “offensive.” Maybe this little pictorial will help.

OFFENSIVE: