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Subject:
From:
"Marie Davis, RN, IBCLC" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 13 Dec 2000 12:28:22 EST
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Anyone know the rest of the story?

Judge Orders Boy Held in Ill. Case

By JOHN KELLY
.c The Associated Press


URBANA, Ill. (AP) - Authorities took a 5-year-old boy away from his mother
last summer because her continued breast-feeding of him placed him at risk of
emotional harm, a judge ruled.

Circuit Court Judge Ann Einhorn ordered the boy to remain in the foster care
of his longtime baby sitter until a hearing Dec. 27. Lawyers said the judge
could place the boy in someone else's care or send him home.

Einhorn found no proof of sexual abuse and commended the 32-year-old mother
for raising a ``very bright boy,'' but she said that the situation created
``enormous potential for harm to this child.''

The Department of Children and Family Services took custody of the child in
July after the baby sitter said the boy wanted to stop nursing but ``Mommy
wouldn't let me.''

``This was a mother who was not listening to what her son was telling her
even though she testified she strongly believes in child-directed weaning,''
Einhorn said in Monday's ruling.

The woman, who described herself as an ``old-fashioned German mother,'' is
barred from speaking publicly about the case. Her name is not being used to
protect the boy's identity.

She testified that she planned to stop breast-feeding her son, now 6, when he
asked and that he had not done so.

David DeThorne, the woman's attorney, argued she has a constitutional right
to parent her child as she sees fit, short of violating child abuse laws.

Although it is rare for an American child to be breast-fed at such an
advanced age, physicians and anthropologists said it is not unheard of.

From 1996 through 1998, Katherine Dettwyler - an anthropologist and
nutritionist at Texas A&M University whose research was considered by the
judge - surveyed mothers who were breast-feeding children 3 or older. She
found 1,280 U.S. children whose parents self-reported their breast-feeding
practices. Of the total, 375 children were still breast-feeding at age 4, 212
at age 5 and 67 at age 6.

Dettwyler, who breast-fed her youngest son until he was age 5 1/2, said her
survey found children as old as 9 who were still breast-feeding.

AP-NY-12-12-00 2132EST
Marie Davis

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