Thanks for the helpful messages re. Iodine! Now I have another question, this time from the mom who got her foster child to the breast, weaned from the bottle. This child has emotional and physical difficulties. He produces much saliva and he is in speech therapy. The therapist has heard from all sorts of sources that BF longer than 3 years hinders speech development because the tongue thrusts forward which is then therefore not good for speech development. Of course, this mom and I don't believe that. Does anyone else have more info. re. this topic? The baby's psychologist says that a child who nurses too long (2 years???) can't development the concept that the mother is separate at the normal time of development. Does BF have anything to do with effecting normal stages of psychological development!!?? This is a new one on me. And anyway, since most studies have been done in this dept. with bottle fed babies, who knows what normal is? Talking about length of BF: Who has determined, and how, that the "average BF time worldwide is 4,3 or so years?" Is average really the correct word here? -thanks again for your input. Anne C.Kaeser BA, IBCLC e-mail: [log in to unmask] Ulmenstr.4 phone: +49 8191 65617 D-86916 Kaufering (Germany)