Hello everyone.  I'm back, at least for the moment.  I have finished my move
to Dover, Delaware.  I appreciate the link to the Newsweek interview with
Elizabeth Baldwin, and I'm glad her views are out there for people to see,
even though I don't agree with all of them.  I have also been called and
interviewed many times about this Chicago case (contrary to some newspaper
accounts I did *not* testify at the trial).

I do think it is possible to force a child to nurse beyond when the child
really wants to.  With a 6 year old, you can threaten to take away his
Nintendo priveleges!  I don't think this is healthy for the child, and I do
think there are people out there who encourage the child to nurse beyond
when the child wants.

I do think there are so misguided people out there who have unhealthy
relationships with their children and long-term breastfeeding is one part of
that unhealthy relationship.  I've talked to some of these folks on the
phone, and the things they say would curl your toes.  There are many people
in the US who abuse their children and some of them breastfeed for a long
time, and sometimes the extended breastfeeding is part of the unhealthy
relationship.

I do know of one other case in the US where a child was permanently removed
from the home in part because she was breastfed until she was 6 years of
age.  It was also from Illinois.  There were other issues in that case, as
there are in the current case from Chicago.  And in the former case, I think
the child needed to be in a safer place, away from her 'unusual' parents.  I
know of another case in Oklahoma where the child was returned to the mother
under orders that she not breastfeed him any more.  I don't know the current
status of that case, but believe me, that woman was also extremely strange.

99.9999% of the mothers who breastfeed their children for 3-4-5-6-7-8-9
years of age are perfectly normal and nice and have positive healthy
relationships with their children.  But we shouldn't be so naive as to
assume that 100% of the mothers fit this description.

I am not willing to second guess the judge in this current case.  If she
says the boy was being coerced against his will, then we should assume she
has good reason for saying so, and under such conditions, if the mother is
not willing to stop breastfeeding him, then the judges decision to leave him
in foster care is probably the correct one.  It would be nice if she (the
judge) would clarify that coercion is the issue here, not the child's age.





Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.

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