"Oh God no" I hear you cry..."Why can't this subject just be left alone!" comes a groan from another direction. I'll tell you why. Because breastfeeding rates pretty much the world over are abysmal. Society was brainwashed back in the 50's in to thinking that the stuff our body makes to feed our children is inferior, is hard to produce, is not enough to satisfy a small baby, that it "runs dry" at the drop of a hat and for no reason. These days, anyone who does enough research knows all of this is completely untrue, and was bandied about by formula companies, not because they want what's best for our precious offspring, but because they want your money. Less than 1% of women are physically unable to breast feed, and of course for those women's babies, formula can be a lifesaver. (I would talk about wet nursing/donor milk, but I fear that would not so much rock the boat as stamp a gigantic hole in the floor and then capsize it)
Some women, as we know, choose not to breast feed. That is their right, and as long as they are aware of their choice and have made it being absolutely certain of it and aware of the associated risks, then hats off to them.
Some women attempt breast feeding, and for many reasons (which pretty much all boil down to lack of correct support) decide to move on to formula. Many of these women feel guilty or as though they have failed, and they really shouldn't. In actuality, they themselves have been let down by a system where breast feeding support is inadequate, and a society who say "oh, well, you gave it three days, the baby got the colostrum and really formula is just as good these days" instead of "I'm sorry to hear you're finding it hard, let's look in to this, let's see what we can do to help you" Many of these women then feel as though they are being judged by the "mummy brigade." As though they have abused their children by giving them evil synthetic milk, or been selfish in their decision etc etc. I find this very sad, no Mother should be made to feel that way.
There are then, of course, the women who do succeed in breast feeding, who actually enjoy it, who find it easy and convenient, who believe wholeheartedly that they are doing their very best for themselves and their child/ren and are willing to keep at it through many obstacles and feel proud of themselves for doing so. And society applaud them. To a point. Then, all of a sudden, come comments like "So little Timmy is 6 months now, time to wean?" "Oh look, young Amelia has 2 teeth! That's natures way of telling you to stop breastfeeding you know" and "You're creating a rod for your own back by still feeding that child at 14 months, why, he'll still be wanting milk when he goes to college!" oh and my personal favourite "Well, there's absolutely no benefit at all after a year, if she's still doing it it's for her own personal reasons, she has issues!" And that's if they've made it unscathed through the "Do you have to do THAT here, in this public place? Can't you stay home/put a blanket over you/go to the toilet to feed your baby??" Because for some people, seeing a baby being breastfed is tantamount to you pulling down your strides and taking a dump on the floor. Naked on page 3, sure, hefted up in sexy bras on billboards, of course, but feeding a child? Heaven forbid!
So what IS the correct age to stop breastfeeding a child? Well, that's totally up to the individual. Preferably the individual who's breast is actually involved!
Recently, Time magazine created uproar by using a picture of a gorgeous supermodel as their front cover. Not so out of the ordinary i hear you say. Well, she was pictured breastfeeding her 3 year old son. Some of the comments I personally have seen have made me lose faith in humanity. Words like sexual abuse, child pornography, incest, sick, wrong, unnatural. People convinced that the child will grow up damaged in some way and that the mother needs counselling/imprisonment/burning at the stake. The fact of the matter is, breast milk IS still beneficial to both mother and child at that age. A child's immune system is not fully developed until they reach somewhere around 5-7 years. Breast milk contains anti-bodies to develop a childs immune system. Baby teeth also begin to fall out around that time, and generally feeding from the breast becomes difficult once permanent teeth appear. Surely this suggests that mother nature intended for a child to receive breast milk right up to between 5 and 7 years? There is no research in to breast milk after 2 years, probably because finding enough women who are still breastfeeding despite all the opposition they get would be difficult, but here is some research I was able to find *:
1. In a group of 21 species of non-human primates (monkeys and apes) studied by Holly Smith, she found that the offspring were weaned at the same time they were getting their first permanent molars. In humans, that would be: 5.5-6.0 years.
2. It has been common for pediatricians to claim that length of gestation is approximately equal to length of nursing in many species, suggesting a weaning age of 9 months for humans. However, this relationship turns out to be affected by how large the adult animals are -- the larger the adults, the longer the length of breastfeeding relative to gestation. For chimpanzees and gorillas, the two primates closest in size to humans and also the most closely genetically related, the relationship is 6 to 1. That is to say, they nurse their offspring for SIX times the length of gestation (actually 6.1 for chimps and 6.4 for gorillas, with humans mid-way in size between these two). In humans, that would be: 4.5 years of nursing (six times the 9 months of gestation).
3. It has been common for pediatricians to claim that most mammals wean their offspring when they have tripled their birth weight, suggesting a weaning age of 1 year in humans. Again though, this is affected by body weight, with larger mammals nursing their offspring until they have quadrupled their birth weight. In humans, quadrupling of birth weight occurs between 2.5 and 3.5 years, usually.
4. One study of primates showed that the offspring were weaned when they had reached about 1/3 their adult weight. This happens in humans at about 5-7 years.
5. A comparison of weaning age and sexual maturity in non-human primates suggests a weaning age of 6-7 for humans (about half-way to reproductive maturity).
6. Studies have shown that a child's immune system doesn't completely mature until about 6 years of age, and it is well established that breast milk helps develop the immune system and augment it with maternal antibodies as long as breast milk is produced (up to two years, no studies have been done on breast milk composition after two years post partum).
And on and on. The minimum predicted age for a natural age of weaning in humans is 2.5 years, with a maximum of 7.0 years.
In terms of the benefits of extended breastfeeding, there have been a number of studies comparing breastfed and bottlefed babies in terms of the frequency of various diseases, and also IQ achievement. In every case, the breastfed babies had lower risk of disease and higher IQs than the bottle-fed babies. In those studies that divided breastfed babies into categories based on length of breastfeeding, the babies breastfed the longest did better in terms of both lower disease and higher IQ. In other words, if the categories were 0-6 months of breastfeeding, 6-12 months, 12-18 months and 18-24+ months, then the 18-24+ month babies did the best, and the 12-18 month babies did the next best, and the 6-12 months babies did the next best, and the 0-6 months babies did the worst of the breastfed groups, but still much better than the bottlefeeding group. This has been shown for gastrointestinal illness, upper respiratory illness, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, heart disease, and on and on and on.
So there you have it. Natural weaning can occur anywhere from 2.5-7 years. Much longer than is currently deemed socially acceptable! I know there will be mothers out there outraged by this research, who will say their bottle fed baby IS healthy and clever, while their breast fed baby is sickly and small. All I can say is I'm sorry to hear that, and that anecdotal evidence is exactly that. It's not scientific evidence, and in every single scientific study that's ever been done, the result is that breast milk is better for children than either formula or cows milk. Just like every study ever done shows that smoking while pregnant is extremely harmful to babies, yet you get those who say "i smoked and my baby is fine!" Yes, you were lucky. I didn't smoke and my pregnancies were riddled with complications, usually life threatening. I was unlucky, but i do at least know its not my fault, i did everything i could.
So in conclusion, what I would really like is for everybody to accept that breastfeeding your toddler/young child is NOT weird, or sexual, or pointless. It may not be something you want to do, and that's fine, but that doesn't mean its wrong. You could be of the opinion that it could just as easily be expressed in to a cup, but let me tell you, as someone who had to pump for my premature baby, its really not that simple! That requires time you may not have, extra washing and sterilising that you may not want to do, and more importantly, denying a child the comfort they receive from cuddling up with their mummy for some mumma milk.
For me, stopping in the next 2 months (when my baby reaches 6 months) seems inconceivable. I didn't pump exclusively for 4 weeks, grit my teeth through 8 weeks after he came home of feeding every hour day and night, drag myself through colic, reflux, never being able to pee, let alone get washed or dressed, just to stop because some guy on the street says "eeewww!" I will continue to feed my baby for as long as he wants to be fed, happy in the knowledge that science at least is on my side.
Also, if i stop too soon, i'll miss out on hearing my 3 year old daughter shout "Stick a booby in it!" every time her little brother squawks, or witnessing my 6 year old autistic child attempting to breast feed his buzz lightyear figure. And who wants to miss out on that!
*paragraph taken from "A natural age of weaning" by Kathy Dettwyler
