Hi Everyone,

This passage was found on the ABC.com web site.Amazing how breastfeeding
is seen in such a negative way. The title is called, 
"When Children Don't Wean."  

This article is full of conjecture and alarmist thinking.  I can just
see it,  "Oh NO!  My baby is 12 months and he won't wean!  WHAT will we
do?!?!"  ARRGGGHHH!

It makes the mothers of nursing toddlers seem very permissive with a
"whatever" attitude.  What really gets me is the line about mothers who
breastfeed toddlers "know it's not socially acceptable." 

Responsible journalism this is NOT! 

Heidi S. Roibal
Albuquerque, NM    


Nursing is Healthy for Mother and Child, but When Should it End? 

Doctors agree that breast-feeding is best for newborns. But the need to
nurse doesn't always stop after the first year. 
 
   
ABCNEWS.com
N E W    Y O R K,  Dec. 12 —— When Lisa Barry dreamed of having a child,
breast-feeding her newborn was always in the picture. But breast-feeding
a toddler definitely was not. 
     Barry gave birth to son Kyle in 1994. When she became pregnant
again a year and a half later she was still nursing Kyle. 
     “I was a little worried but it seemed like all the information I
could find, said that nursing during pregnancy was going to be fine for
us,” says Barry. “And we just continued and I figured if he weans during
the pregnancy — which I’ve heard some toddlers will do — that would be
fine. I was open to that.”
     Kyle continued to nurse through the pregnancy and even after his
little sister, Cheyenne, was born. But Barry and her husband Glenn
didn’t expect she would still be nursing both children three years
later. 
     “If I looked at it through probably anybody else’s eyes, I would
have said, ‘OK, that’s enough,’” she adds. “But it wasn’t about anybody
else’s eyes. It was about our eyes, our relationship and our
perspective.”

A Personal Choice

Kyle, how 5, finally weaned this past October and Barry plans to nurse
Cheyenne until she is ready to stop on her own.
     Statistics show mothers like Barry, who nurse longer than one year,
are in the minority. About 60 percent of new mothers leave the hospital
breast-feeding their newborns. However, within six months only 20
percent are still breast-feeding.
     By the child’s first birthday only about only about 4 percent are
still feeding at their mothers’ breast. Researchers find it more
difficult to document the number of mothers who nurse beyond that first
year.
     “They don’t really tell their pediatricians or other health-care
workers,” says Meredith Small, an anthropology professor at Cornell
University. “They keep it to themselves because they know it’s socially
unacceptable. So we don’t know the numbers.” 

The Ties that Bind

Barry realizes that nursing a 3-year-old may seem wrong to others but
she continues because of the bond it provides with her daughter.
     “It’s not something that I really think of in terms of feeding,”
she says. “It’s more of a comforting thing, a reconnection. ”
     Her husband supports her choice to breast-feed until their children
are ready to leave it behind.
     “When they were 6 months old, nursing was 10 minutes, 20 minutes,”
Mr. Barry says. “Now, for Cheyenne to nurse it’s a minute or two.”
     Some of Barry’s close friends are making the same choice when it
comes to extending breast-feeding. A few have nursed their own children
past the age of 3. 
     “Being a mother was my choice,” says Barry’s friend Wendy Whalen.
“I chose to have children and I choose carefully what I do with my
children. It’s my long-term commitment. It is my job and that’s how I
treat it. “

What’s the Damage?

There is no doubt that breast milk is nutritionally best for babies. But
skeptics like Peggy Robin, author of When Breast-feeding Is Not an
Option, question whose needs are really being met when a child is
breast-fed into their pre-school years.
     “At this point it gets to be the mother getting a certain amount of
gratification from being the central part of the child’s life,” Robin
says. “If the mother is feeling like she’s got to stay connected to her
baby, but the baby’s no longer a baby but is 2, 3 or even 4 years old, I
wonder if that is serving the child’s best interest.”
     Mothers like Barry and Whalen, who choose to extend breast-feeding
well after the child’s first year, don’t see a problem with it. And
there is no scientific evidence that indicates extended breast-feeding
is psychologically harmful to children.

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