>Does anyone have a recent article that details the benefits of bf after 1
>yr?  One of the pedi docs I work with just told a mom there were no
>benefits after 6mo, and since her child just turned a year, she should
>'make things easier for herself, and stop bf.'  She stopped that day!


It's a very strange idea that breastfeeding stops having any value 
after a particular time. I suggest to mothers who have heard this 
(often from HCPs) that they ask what the HCP thinks happens to 
breastmilk at that time. Does it turn to water? Or something else?

Why, given that it doesn't turn into anything else, would it cease to 
be nourishing and thirst-quenching and a source of health-giving 
properties? Why, given it is a human milk, would cow's milk be any 
better for the baby (the HCPs don't suggest the mother stops milk 
altogether)?

Why, given that for many mothers and babies, breastfeeding is an 
important and loving part of their relationship,  does the mother 
have to stop? Would the HCP tell the mother there is no more 
'benefit' in cuddling, holding, comforting after a certain date?

What, in other words, is the HCP *thinking* of, to tell a mother to stop?

I think it's for the HCP in this case to justify his/her own strange 
ideas - and as you work with this doc, Michelle, maybe  you could do 
the asking?!  Following the doc's advice has given this mother the 
discomfort of egorgement, which you then had to help her with,  so 
this is your 'in' to raise the topic (you prob would not ask the 
questions in the eye-rolling way I have done here :) ).

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK
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