Your quote of that old statistic brought to mind some recent research
that I did. I used to participate in a newsgroup, misc.kids.health and
misc.kids.pregnancy (until lactnet came along and gobbled up all my
time!). Someone quoted that stat, and someone else asked, "does anyone
really believe it"? Well, as opinions were being shot around, a Phd from
Stanford posted a message to cut out the baloney, let's get down to the
research. So I took it upon myself to find this out. The quote was
popularized from Dr. Ruth Lawrence, and when I called their clinic, I
learned that it was in turn taken from a study done by Ross Laboratories.
They could not find the source page, so I contacted Ross Labs, and here
is the text of their reply to me:

"The 1982 Compendium was the last time we collected international data on
breastfeeding. The data were published and distributed to many health
care professionals, such as Dr. Ruth Lawrence. We have not updated the
data since 1982, and we no longer have copies of the Compendium to send
you.
The number that Ruth quotes in her book, "the average for the complete
cessation of breastfeeding is 4.2 yrs" seems to be a little high, but I
have to defer to Ruth to provide the reference. I am sorry I can't be of
more help in addressing your request."

Signed: Doublas Stahle, Senior Manager, Sales Analysis

So we were unable to discover any more of how the research was done or
where, casting this stat somewhat in doubt. The compendium *was* her
reference, though not cited in her book.

Thought you might all be interested in this story; I had fun finding this
out!

-Lisa

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Lisa A. Marasco, IBCLC                                /  [log in to unmask]
International Board Certified Lactation Consultant    /  [log in to unmask]

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