In a message dated 12/10/2003 7:26:05 PM EST, [log in to unmask]
writes:
<< BTW, this doc also says that breastfeeding past a year is "socially
unacceptable". >>
Well so is talking politics or religion at parties, sometimes, did he tell
her not to do that either? Does he have an opinion about wearing white after
Labor Day? :)
Kathryn Dettwyler's piece in an Evolutionary Medicine journal, ( blanking on
the title) or her work in Biocultural Perspectives, might he helpful.
or: http://www.prairienet.org/laleche/detwean.html A Natural Age of Weaning
excerpt:
" 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. Likewise, the babies nursed the
longest scored the highest on the IQ tests. One important point to notice is that
none of these studies looked at children who had nursed longer than 2 years.
Anyone 18-24 month or longer was lumped into big category. Presumably, the
benefits continue to accrue, as your body doesn't *know* that the baby has bad a
birth day and suddenly start
producing nutritionally and immunologically worthless milk.
However, no one has yet proved, either way, that the benefits of
breastfeeding either continue or stop at two years of age, because the appropriate studies
have not been done. The trend during the first two years is clearly for
continuing benefits the longer you nurse. Clearly the phenomenon of dimishing
returns is at work here -- the first
six months of breastfeeding are clearly much more important in terms of the
baby's nutrition and immunological development than the six months from 3.5 to
4.0 years. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't continue to provide breast
milk if your baby wants and you don't mind. "
The MD might have a point about nursing a child older than a year in this
culture being socially unacceptable, however it used to be totally socially
unacceptable to ask someone not to smoke nearby. Smoking was actually considered
not only socially acceptable, but 'cool' and without repurcussions. In the book
War Against the Weak, it also discusses how Eugenics ( control of
reproduction, or general extermination as it was adopted by the Nazis, for groups deemed
unworthy of societal place) among the American inteligentsia was considered
quite the good idea, socially as well.
Well, that's enough about that, but my point is that there are two factors,
that there is no valid reason to think that milk after a certain point is
worthless, and even if it is sometimes socially unacceptable among the ignorant for
a mom/babe to nurse in public, that doesn't make it wrong, and in NY anyway,
it's a protected civil right, without age restrictions.
Judy LeVan Fram, PT, IBCLC, Brooklyn, USA
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