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 *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html