I even find myself justifying to these people -- usually my friends -- why I will continue until SHE wants to wean. Stating medical evidence promoting extended breastfeeding and reciting the minimum length of time each health organization recommends to nurse to. So here you are, save your questions and read this. But please ask more questions if you still feel the need. I am all about educating the best I can on the topic to help our society understand it more.
Benefits
- Nutrition -- Yes, there are still vitamins, fats, and proteins. If you are still nursing often you don't even need to give cows milk as breast milk has an even higher fat content.
- Health -- those antibodies that Laura has been getting to keep her nice and healthy will continue to do the same. As soon as my body detects a virus it creates antibodies in my milk which protects her from that virus. I think the amount of times her daddy and I have had colds can prove that really does work. It also reduces her chances of obesity, diabetes, allergies, asthma and childhood cancers! Speaking of cancers I can do this for a totally selfish reason as the longer I nurse the less chance I have of getting breast, ovarian, and uterine cancers.
- Intelligence -- yep, it's even said to give a higher IQ! This will be hard to prove right as she is already going to be smarter than her daddy anyway.
- Financial -- well it has already saved us hundreds of dollars, but going forward it can continue to do the same! If you consider medical bills as well, all you tax payers can thank me for lowering medical costs.
- Health Canada recommends "Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life .... with continued breastfeeding for up to two years and beyond."
- The World Health Organization recommends "...Infants should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life to achieve optimal growth, development and health. Thereafter, to meet their evolving nutritional requirements, infants should receive nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods while breastfeeding continues for up to two years of age or beyond."
- UNICEF "...breastfeed exclusively for the first six months and to continue to breastfeed for two years or more with age appropriate, responsive complementary feeding."
If you are still breastfeeding why will you continue or why have you?
I nursed my first daughter until she was until she was 19 months old, my second until she was 22 months old and my third until 2 months after her second birthday. Each time it was something we did together and I am, no done having kids, so grateful for the time and the headstart they got from it.
ReplyDeletegreat post! we are still BFn at 21 months with no real sign of stopping!
ReplyDeleteNow that Peanut mostly nurses at sleep/wake times, I don't get as many comments, but I also don't hide the fact that we're still breastfeeding. I think I got a lot of comments right around when Peanut turned 2 also, but I told them we're no where near stopping and people just eventually stopped asking. :-P
ReplyDeleteMy daughter is 15 months old and we're still going. I see no reason to stop--it's so easy and I love the cuddle time-- but before I had a baby I was definitely one of those women that thought extended breastfeeding was a little weird so I'm conscious of what other people are thinking. I want to keep going until 18 months, when cold/flu season is over. I'm just so worried about what weaning will do to our relationship. I don't want her to cry for milk and get all confused about why I stop giving it to her. I'm really, really hoping she self weans, at least during the day.
ReplyDeleteI've been meaning to come over here and check out your blog for too long, and finally I have a little down time.
ReplyDeleteI love that you wrote this post. I hate that people can't mind their own business. I hate that our society is so judgemental and uneducated at the same time.
I love breastfeeding my son and he will be 1 in a couple of weeks. Its been hard work like you said...battling with mastitis,clogged ducts, nursing strikes, and breastfeeding after I went back to work when J was a month old {read running to my mom's every 2 hours on the days I was in the office}. I don't know exactly when I will stop either. He is down to 3 nursings a day now, and seems disinterested in it at all times other than first thing in the morning.
I wish people would just realize breastfeeding is natural and just eff off some times.